What if you could climb up and down a flight of stairs a few times for five minutes every day to keep your blood pressure healthy? Could be in your house, apartment building or an office where you work, so a simple life hack that works and could be a great health strategy as we swing into holiday indulgences.
New research from an international team of experts with the ProPASS Consortium (Prospective Physical Activity, Sitting and Sleep), shows that adding a small amount of physical activity with some intensity into your day, like uphill walking or stair-climbing, can help to lower blood pressure.
The study,
recently published in Circulation
and led by the University of Sydney and University College London, revealed that just five minutes of the daily activity a day can counteract our sedentary behaviours and reduce blood pressure. If you can kick it up to 20 minutes of exercise per day, including uphill walking, stair-climbing, running and cycling, researchers found a clinically meaningful reduction in blood pressure.
While high blood pressure is one of the more significant health issues globally, unlike other major causes of cardiovascular mortality, there are accessible ways to improve blood pressure as well as medication.
“The finding that doing as little as five extra minutes of exercise per day could be associated with measurably lower blood pressure readings emphasizes how powerful short bouts of higher intensity movement could be for blood pressure management,” joint senior author and ProPASS director
Emmanuel Stamatakis said in a news release
.