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Physical activity plays a very important role in physical and mental well-being. Regular practice of any form of exercise, be it cardio or strength training, is one of the best things you can do for your health.
A new study has found that 20 extra minutes of daily exercise can ward off hospitalization for a variety of serious health conditions. Read on to find out everything about the new study.
What’s the new study on physical activity all about?
Published in the JAMA Network Open, the study used data from 81,717 UK Biobank participants who were all aged between 42 to 78 years old.
In the study, the participants wore an accelerometer for one week and the researchers followed up with them for a total of seven years. The participants’ sedentary activities, light to vigorous physical activities, and sleep were recorded using wearable cameras and diaries.
After evaluating the activity levels of the participants, the researchers used a statistical model to substitute a total of 20 minutes of moderate-to-intense physical activity for sedentary activity.
The results showed that participants who had more physical activity had a lower risk of hospitalization for nine health conditions. These include urinary tract infections, gallbladder diseases, diabetes (type 1 and type 2), pneumonia, venous thromboembolism, iron deficiency anemia, ischemic stroke, colon polyps, and diverticular disease.
Overall, these results suggest that increasing your daily exercise routine by just 20 minutes a day can reduce risk of hospitalization for many medical conditions.
How can you increase your daily exercise routine?
This particular study considers walking to be moderate and vigorous exercise. So, to start with, you can simply opt for 15-20 minutes of walking every day. Medical experts recommend getting a minimum of 5,000 steps per day and a maximum of 8,000 steps or more per day.
If you're a beginner, you can start with ten minutes of walking per day for at least thrice a week and gradually increase the intensity, time, and days. You can also track your steps with a physical activity tracker on your mobile or watch to help motivate yourself to stay active more.
Alongside walking, you can always go for cardio, strength training, swimming, cycling, or any other physical exercise that you love.
Just keep in mind that higher levels of any type of physical activity, be it walking, running, cycling, cardio, etc. are linked to long-term physical and mental health benefits and decreased chances of hospitalizations for many medical conditions.
