Nov. 7, 2024 -- Adding as little as five minutes of exercise daily through physical activities like stair-climbing and uphill walking can help lower your blood pressure, says new research published Wednesday in Circulation.
Researchers from the University of Sydney and University College London studied the data of about 15,000 people who wore activity trackers over a 24-hour period.
Researchers split daily activity into six categories: sleep, sedentary behavior such as sitting, slow walking (less than 100 steps per minute), fast walking (more than 100 steps per minute), standing, and more vigorous exercise such as running, cycling, or stair climbing.
The research team used statistical modeling to determine what would happen if a person changed various amounts of one activity for another.
Adding just five minutes of activity a day could lower systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) by 0.68 points and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) by 0.54 points, researchers said.
And replacing sedentary behaviors with 20-27 minutes of daily exercise such as uphill walking or stair climbing was also estimated to lead to “clinically meaningful improvements” in blood pressure, the study found.
“Our findings suggest that, for most people, exercise is key to reducing blood pressure, rather than less strenuous forms of movement such as walking,” Jo Blodgett, PhD, of University College London, one of the authors of the study, said in a news release.
“The good news is that, whatever your physical ability, it doesn’t take long to have a positive effect on blood pressure. What’s unique about our exercise variable is that it includes all exercise-like activities, from climbing the stairs to a short cycling errand, many of which can be integrated into daily routines.”
High blood pressure affects 1.28 billion adults worldwide and is one of the biggest causes of premature death globally. It can lead to strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney damage, and many other health problems.
