--- title: Even Light Physical Exercise Can Help You Live Longer description: A new study suggests that many types of physical exercise — however short or light — may increase lifespan. canonical: https://time.com/5166564/physical-exercise-can-increase-lifespan/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-20T17:08:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T19:21:24.609Z article:section: Health og:title: Even Light Exercise Can Help You Live Longer og:description: A new study suggests that short, light bouts of exercise may increase lifespan og:url: https://time.com/5166564/physical-exercise-can-increase-lifespan/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc8c35816e9e0b590/6989284297cdffb5ac6b464d/running-man.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6000 og:image:height: 3375 og:image:alt: The runner og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Even Light Exercise Can Help You Live Longer twitter:description: A new study suggests that short, light bouts of exercise may increase lifespan twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc8c35816e9e0b590/6989284297cdffb5ac6b464d/running-man.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Even Light Exercise Can Help You Live Longer > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Feb 20, 2018 5:08 PM UTC  back view of man wearing sports shoes and running on Autumn leaf covered path in early morning. Rome back view of man wearing sports shoes and running on Autumn leaf covered path in early morning. Rome Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Feb 20, 2018 5:08 PM UTC A [new study](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2018/01/19/bjsports-2017-098733.long) shows that small bouts of light [physical activity](http://time.com/5162477/exercise-risk-dementia/) are enough to increase lifespan in older men. Government guidelines recommended that adults get at least 2 hours and 30 minutes of [moderate-intensity exercise](https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/prevention/policies%5Fpractices/physical%5Factivity/guidelines.htm) every week. However, only about half of American adults actually [meet those recommendations](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/exercise.htm), and for older adults, they may seem hard to achieve. But a [new report](http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2018/01/19/bjsports-2017-098733.long) published in the _British Journal of Sports Medicine_ suggests that there’s a way to tweak guidelines to make them more feasible for older people, while still maintaining health. In the report, researchers looked at about 1,180 men — average age, 78 — who agreed to wear devices that measured their movements for seven days. They were followed for about five years. The researchers found that the overall volume of [exercise](http://time.com/collection/guide-to-exercise/), not necessarily how long or how hard someone exercised in a session, mattered most for longevity. The men in the study didn’t even need to exercise for long periods of time to experience positive results. Sporadic bouts of exercise throughout the day, even if each bout was under 10 minutes, had similar benefits to lifespan as exercising more than 10 minutes at a time. This method seemed to fit into men’s lives, too; 66% of the men in the study were able to meet their weekly recommended exercise if they did it in shorter bursts. **MORE**: [The Surprising Secrets to Living Longer — And Better](http://time.com/5159852/the-surprising-secrets-to-living-longer-and-better/) Every 30 minutes of light intensity activity per day — like going on a walk or gardening — was linked to a 17% lower risk of early death in the study. Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity had an even stronger link to a longer life: doing it was associated with a 33% reduction in death risk for every 30 minutes of exercise. However, the fact that light exercise still appeared to have a notable longevity benefit is important, the study authors write. If more research is able to confirm the findings, it could suggest that getting just a few minutes of exercise at a time — even if it’s light — can lower the risk of early death in men. The researchers conclude that their findings “could refine physical activity guidelines and make them more achievable for older adults with low activity levels: stressing the benefits of all activities, however modest, from light intensity upwards,” as well as encouraging people to do any level of physical activity throughout the day. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5166564/physical-exercise-can-increase-lifespan/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5166564/physical-exercise-can-increase-lifespan/"},"headline":"Even Light Exercise Can Help You Live Longer","datePublished":"2018-02-20T17:08:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T19:21:24.609Z","description":"A new study suggests that many types of physical exercise — however short or light — may increase lifespan.","url":"https://time.com/5166564/physical-exercise-can-increase-lifespan/","keywords":["Exercise & Fitness","healthytime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc8c35816e9e0b590/6989284297cdffb5ac6b464d/running-man.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc8c35816e9e0b590/6989284297cdffb5ac6b464d/running-man.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The runner","caption":"The runner","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/exercisefitness/","name":"Exercise & Fitness"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5166564/physical-exercise-can-increase-lifespan/","name":"Even Light Exercise Can Help You Live Longer"}}]}] ```