Just 5 More Minutes of Sleep and 2 Minutes of Exercise Can Add a Year to Life: Study

New Delhi — Making small improvements to daily habits—such as sleeping five extra minutes and adding just two minutes of moderate physical activity like brisk walking or climbing stairs—could extend life expectancy by up to a year, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The research, which tracked around 60,000 people over eight years, found that even modest lifestyle changes can deliver meaningful health benefits. Adding half a serving of vegetables daily could also contribute to an additional year of life, particularly among individuals with the poorest sleep, physical activity, and dietary patterns.

Published in The Lancet journal eClinicalMedicine, the study showed that people who slept seven to eight hours a night, engaged in more than 40 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily, and followed a healthy diet gained over nine extra years of life, along with more years in good health.

“The combined effect of sleep, physical activity, and diet is greater than the sum of each behaviour on its own,” said the international team of researchers from the UK, Australia, Chile, and Brazil. “For individuals with the least healthy habits, gaining one extra year of life through sleep alone would require about 25 additional minutes per day—five times more than if small improvements were also made in physical activity and diet.”

In a separate study published in The Lancet, researchers from Norway, Spain, and Australia reported that adding just five minutes of walking to a daily routine could reduce the overall risk of death by 10 per cent for most adults. Among the least active individuals, the risk reduction was estimated at around 6 per cent.

The study, based on data from over 135,000 adults, also found that cutting sedentary time by 30 minutes per day could lower the risk of all-cause mortality by about 7 per cent if adopted by the majority of adults, who spend roughly 10 hours a day being inactive. Among the most sedentary individuals—those inactive for around 12 hours daily—such changes could reduce deaths by about 3 per cent.

“These findings provide strong evidence of the broad public health benefits linked to even small, positive changes in physical activity and reduced inactivity,” said Prof Ulf Ekelund of the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo.

The researchers cautioned that the results are not meant to serve as personalised medical advice, but rather to highlight the potential population-wide benefits of small lifestyle improvements.

With inputs from IANS