A new study gives all of us some extra motivation when it comes to getting outside and exercising: every day you manage to fit in an additional one-ho

A Single One-Hour Daily Walk Could Add Six Hours to Your Lifespan

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2024-12-26 13:30:05

A new study gives all of us some extra motivation when it comes to getting outside and exercising: every day you manage to fit in an additional one-hour walk, you could be boosting your lifespan by an extra six hours.

That's the approximate benefit if you're currently in the 25 percent least active people in the US, according to fitness tracker data crunched by a team led by researchers from Griffith University in Australia.

If you're in the top 25 percent, an extra walk isn't as much of a boost – you've already received most of the health benefits from exercise – but the study also highlights and quantifies some of the key benefits of an active life.

"If all individuals were as active as the top 25 percent of the population, Americans over the age of 40 could live an extra 5.3 years on average," write the researchers in their published paper.

"The greatest gain in lifetime per hour of walking was seen for individuals in the lowest activity quartile where an additional hour's walk could add 376.3 min (about 6.3 hours) of life expectancy."