How Much Exercise Is Enough? Surprisingly, Not A Lot!

Moderate exercise such as walking briskly or light jogging until you break a sweat seems to be better than no exercise or too much exercise.  Several studies from Europe and Taiwan show moderate exercise can increase life-span by several years.

Almost all health experts agree that exercise benefits everyone.  It helps improve heart health, promote weight loss and prevents certain types of cancer.  How much exercise is necessary to achieve benefits?

Some exercise is better than no exercise.   But in today’s article, I’d like to investigate a data based answer to this question.  Is more exercise necessarily better?  Is there a minimum amount of exercise that one should do?

The good news is that there are now several long term studies which show that moderate exercise is better than no exercise. Surprisingly, moderate exercise is also better than intense exercise.

One study which followed 52,656 subjects from 1971 to 2002 found that those people who did moderate exercise, defined as regular jogging for a distance of one to twenty miles total per week, had about 19% decreased from dying from any cause versus those who don’t exercise at all.   Those people who did intense exercise, defined as running more than 20 miles per week or people who run instead of jog, had better survival than those
who do not exercise, but not as good as those who exercised moderately only. 

Another long term European study which tracked people for 27 years showed that people who jogged for two and half hours per week lived longer than people who don’t exercise.  The average life span increase is 6.2 years for men and 5.6 years in women.

Closer to home, a similar study in done in Taiwan among more than 400,000 adults shows that about 90 minutes per week of moderate exercise lengthens life span by about 3 years and reduces risk of death from all causes by about 14%.

All of these studies show that it does not take much to reap the benefits of exercise.  In the Taiwan study, moderate exercise was defined as walking, jogging or cycling.  Walking is certainly something almost all of us can do.  You don’t have to join a gym or buy special equipment to be able to do this level of exercise.

It also does not take a lot of time.  If we decide to exercise 5 days per week, 90 minutes total translates to less than twenty minutes per day.

Bottomline, it does not take a lot of effort nor time to achieve the benefits of exercise.  Multiple long term studies now show that moderate exercise, such as walking, jogging or cycling,  done  on a regular basis, provides long term benefits in terms of longevity.