Have limited time to exercise? A new study released by researchers at University College London and University of Sydney indicates that adding just five minutes of exercise a day yields benefits.
Participants in the study had a decline in blood pressure by adding five minutes per day of vigorous exercise, such as jogging, stair climbing or cycling. The study suggests that more noticeable impacts occurred when adding up to about 20 minutes of exercise.
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Researchers said replacing any less active behavior with five minutes of exercise could lower systolic blood pressure by 0.68 millimetres of mercury (mmHg) and diastolic blood pressure by 0.54.
University College London said that a 2 mmHg reduction in systolic blood pressure and a 1 mmHg reduction in diastolic blood pressure equals about a 10% drop in cardiovascular disease risk.
“Our findings suggest that, for most people, exercise is key to reducing blood pressure, rather than less strenuous forms of movement such as walking,” Jo Blodgett, first author of the study, said. “The good news is that whatever your physical ability, it doesn’t take long to have a positive effect on blood pressure. What’s unique about our exercise variable is that it includes all exercise-like activities, from climbing the stairs to a short cycling errand, many of which can be integrated into daily routines.”
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that just 24.2% of U.S. adults meet guidelines for both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity.
The CDC advises adults to get at least 150 minutes of moderate, or 75 minutes of vigorous, physical activity a week in addition to two days of strength training.
“The finding that doing as little as five extra minutes of exercise or vigorous incidental activities per day could be associated with measurably lower blood pressure readings emphasizes how powerful short bouts of higher intensity movement could be for blood pressure management,” Emmanuel Stamatakis, joint senior author of the study, said.
The results of the study were published in the journal Circulation.