Do you want to live longer? Small changes to your sleep, exercise and diet can add a year to your life
New research shows that just getting a few more minutes of sleep and exercise and eating an extra cup of vegetables every day could significantly increase longevity.
Do you want to live longer but don’t want to change what you’re already doing to live a healthy life? We have good news. You probably don’t need to spend an extra three hours at the gym every week. You probably don’t need to get eight hours of sleep every night. And you probably won’t even have to improve your diet. New research shows that people don’t need to make major lifestyle changes to see meaningful improvements in health.
In fact, adding a few extra minutes of sleep and exercise to your day, along with a few extra whole grains or vegetables, can increase your lifespan by up to a year, according to a study published today. eClinicalMedicine.
“We always think we need to make massive changes, especially at the beginning of the year with New Year’s resolutions,” says Nicholas Komel, lead study author and dietitian and research fellow at the University of Sydney. But “changes are made to make something worthwhile. And that may enable us to sustain them in the long run.”
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So what at least How much work does a person need to live a long and healthy life?
For nearly eight years, his team followed nearly 60,000 people in the UK Biobank, a repository of population-level health data. Combining sleep and physical activity data from wrist wearables and self-reported dietary surveys, the researchers estimated changes in health span over the lifespan – defined as the number of years people were free of five major health conditions, including heart disease and dementia.
Getting at least five minutes more sleep, two minutes of vigorous or moderate exercise and an extra two tablespoons of vegetables per day (or skipping one serving of processed meat per week) could theoretically add a year to life expectancy for people who have a poor lifestyle. And adding 24 minutes to sleep, getting about four minutes more exercise and consuming an extra cup of vegetables and whole grains per day could extend their health span by four years.
For those who feel like going even more, the study found that people who get seven to eight hours of sleep, exercise more than 40 minutes per day and eat a high-quality diet can potentially gain more than nine years of additional life and health.
What stood out most in these results was the practice of good sleep, exercise and diet. Together was important, says Koemel. “These behaviors are thought to be linked. We’ve all had that night when we didn’t get as much sleep as we’d like, and the next day we’re having a bag of chips or maybe not exercising as much.”
New analysis has shown that simply trying to get more sleep and doing nothing else would mean that people would need 60 percent more sleep per day to gain the same extra years of life. Dietary improvements by themselves were not enough to make any significant changes in life span.
Amy Jamieson, professor and chair of the department of exercise and sport studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says, “The results are promising and consistent with my view about overall health and lifestyle habits. I believe that small changes can have big effects.”
Jamieson says the UK-centric data may not reflect other countries and cultures – for example, the American diet is heavy on ultraprocessed foods. Differences in health care systems, environmental exposures, access to care and medicine also play major roles in life expectancy and health span. Koemel says clinical trials will be needed to fully establish the relationship between lifestyle habits and longevity.
Still, the findings are shocking a separate study Published online in Knife Koemel’s paper on the same day and co-authored by one of his colleagues. In an analysis of data from the US, Sweden and Norway, as well as the UK Biobank, researchers found that small increases in daily physical activity – an extra five-minute walk at a moderate pace – could potentially reduce mortality risk by 10 per cent.
“What strikes me is that we agreed on the idea that small changes make a difference, without even talking to each other about individual studies,” says Komel. Something that resonates across a lot of the field: Moving the goal post closer to us makes it more accessible, makes things more practical — and, most importantly, makes healthy habits sustainable.
For some people, making the smallest changes is a helpful starting point, says Komel. He says these changes to sleep, diet, and exercise won’t necessarily give you a “magic button” for a longer life — but they can start healthy habits that stick.
As the saying goes, a little can go a long way.
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