Thanks to fitness-tracker accelerometers, researchers have learned more precisely the amount of physical activity it takes to live a longer, fitter life.
Surprisingly, not much. Three studies that used accelerometers to measure participants’ activity concluded in recent months that even the lightest regular physical activity — making a bed, taking out the trash or vacuuming — can have a profound effect on health and longevity.
- Older women with moderate to vigorous physical activity, which includes a brisk walk, were likely to have a 60 percent to 70 percent lower risk of death than the least-active women in a four-year Harvard study with 16,741 participants. The women, average age 72, were outfitted with a triaxial accelerometer from 2011 to 2015 that measured their daily activity.
- Researchers at the Karolinska Institute, the Swiss organization that annually chooses winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology, reported similar results in a 14-year study that included 851 participants — 400 of them men — who wore accelerometers 14 or more hours a day for four days a week. Both studies found almost identical time people spend each day sitting (500 minutes), doing light activity (350) and moderate-to-vigorous activity (30). The Swedish study found that people who sit fewer than six hours a day have a 66 percent lower mortality risk than those who sit more than 10 hours a day.
- A study of middle-age Texans, age 45 to 64, discovered damage to sedentary hearts is reversible for people as old as late middle age if they start an exercise regiment before age 66 — when the heart still retains enough plasticity to remodel itself. Playing catchup after decades of a sedentary lifestyle is more difficult, however: You must exercise four or five times a week, usually in 30-minute sessions. A typical workout would include high-intensity aerobic sessions in which the heart rate exceeds 95 percent of its peak rate for four minutes, followed by three minutes of recover, repeated four times.
Fifty-three people in the study reached the prescribed exercise levels, starting with three, 20-minute sessions moderate exercise for the first three months and adding two high-intensity aerobic intervals at 10 months. After two years, those who exercised showed an 18 percent improvement in their maximum oxygen intake while exercising. They also showed 25 percent improvement in elasticity, or compliance, of the heart’s left ventricular muscle.
Here are some tips from Hartford Healthcare Senior Services for people of all ages to fit physical activity into their daily schedule:
- Take the stairs. If you have a choice between the elevator or escalator and the stairs, take the stairs. It’s a great way to add activity to your day without taking a lot of time.
- Quick workout. Do you have 6-10 minutes to devote to exercise? Many workouts are built to fit your schedule. Do them in the morning, during your lunch break, or in the evening. Interval training workouts can also be short and effective.
- Find a fitness buddy/fitness app. Sometimes accountability is missing from our exercise routine. Find a fitness buddy so you can keep each other motivated and accountable. You can also find a buddy through health and fitness apps. Log your exercise and your progress, join challenges and stay focused.
- Schedule exercise. It can help if you exercise at the same time so it becomes routine.
- Exercise in the morning. This is when you are most likely rested, depending on your work schedule. You tend to have fewer reasons to skip your workout and it can help you feel fresh and energized for the day ahead.
- Do physical activities you enjoy. Do you love dancing? Dancing can be a great way to be active. Do you like nature? How about a hike?
- Figure out what you enjoy doing. Find a way to make it more physically challenging. We can all come up with plenty of reasons we shouldn’t or “can’t” exercise, but we are cheating ourselves out of a healthier lifestyle.
Find out more about heart health at Hartford HealthCare’s Heart & Vascular Institute by clicking here.