Catherine Conlon: Could a walk at lunchtime transform your health?
A brisk 15-minute walk at lunchtime may be all it takes to transform health.
The single biggest reason most people cite for not exercising is time. Finding two and a half hours a week to meet the recommended guidelines of moderately intense activity can be a challenge. But the latest research suggests that even 15 minutes a day can make all the difference to your wellbeing.
A study published in the last month outlined that regular 15-minute periods of exercise reduced the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
Added to that if you can squeeze in some high-intensity interval training (HIIT) it could have added benefits.
A study published in (2016) reported that a ten-minute workout with just one minute at high intensity, had the same benefit as 45 minutes of jogging.
One group of participants did a two-minute warm-up on a stationary bike, followed by a 20 second sprint, then rode slowly for two minutes. They repeated that sequence two more times for a total of ten minutes. The second group just rode steadily for 45 minutes. After 12 weeks, both groups showed a 20 per cent increase in cardiovascular endurance.
And the benefits are long-lasting.
One study from the European Society of Cardiology followed study participants over 12 years and found that those who exercised at a low level (equivalent to a 15-minute brisk walk) reduced their risk of dying during the follow up period by 22% compared to those who didn’t exercise at all.
Small amounts of vigorous activity are also linked to a reduced risk of cancer.
A paper published in JAMA Oncology (2023) found that small amounts of vigorous intermittent physical activity were associated with a lower cancer risk. This study looked at brief bursts of vigorous activity during daily living such as fast walking or stair climbing for one or two minutes.
I have two flights of stairs to climb every morning in my workplace and regularly attempt to run up them on my way in in the morning and again after my lunch break.
The study backed up this view suggesting that “long-term vigorous physical activity in generally healthy older adults can be an effective means of improving health.”
Further research suggests that HIIT can have additional benefits to aging at cellular level. As you get older, the energy batteries or mitochondria in our cells become less efficient.
Researchers at the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota analysed three groups of study participants over 12 weeks. One group did HIIT training, one did resistance training, and one did a combination of the two. The researchers found that those who did HIIT actually reversed their age-related degeneration which meant that their mitochondria in effect, worked like those of much younger people.
If you are still not convinced, there is also evidence that just 10 minutes of exercise can boost your brainpower at least for a short period of time. The paper published in found that study participants who rode a stationary bike at a moderate to vigorous pace for 10 minutes answered questions 50 milliseconds faster after exercising than they did before, which amounted to a 14% increase in cognitive performance.
We all know about the benefits of exercise on boosting endorphins. There is evidence that just one hour of exercise per week or about 10 minutes a day could prevent up to 12 per cent of cases of depression.
The key point is that short bouts of exercise have real health benefits and that anything you can do is far better for your health than intending to go to the gym, running out of time or motivation, and missing out on exercise altogether.
- Dr Catherine Conlon is a public health doctor in Cork.
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