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Five more minutes of exercise doesn’t sound so bad, right? Especially when such a small amount can make you better blood pressureaccording to a new study.

“Incorporating even a few minutes of higher-intensity physical activity such as brisk walking or cycling into daily routines can make a difference to (blood pressure) levels,” said lead study author Dr Jo Blodgett, senior research fellow at the Sports Institute. Exercise and Health at University College London.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly 15,000 people who wore activity monitors and had their blood pressure tracked, according to the study published Wednesday in Circulation magazine.

The day’s activities were divided into six categories: sleep, sedentary behavior, slow walking, brisk walking, standing and more vigorous exercise, according to the study. The researchers used the data to estimate the impact of replacing sedentary time with other activities.

Less than five minutes per day of physical exercise was associated with lower blood pressure, and only 10 to 20 minutes more was associated with a clinically significant change in blood pressure (defined as a 2 mmHg reduction in systolic blood pressure or 1 mmHg of diastolic blood pressure), Blodgett said.

Clinically significant changes in blood pressure can mean a reduced risk of heart disease and stroke, said Dr. Susan Cheng, professor and vice chair of research in the department of cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Sinai in Los Angeles. She was not involved in the research.

“The study provides some very detailed information about the fact that although most of us (are) relatively inactive for most of the day, even small changes can make a big difference,” she said in an email.

Decades of previous studies have shown that more physical activity is associated with more optimal blood pressure levels, Cheng said.

The latest study stands out by observing people’s daily lives rather than putting them through a prescribed exercise program, said study co-author Dr. Mark Hamer, professor of sports and exercise medicine at the Institute in Sport, Exercise and Health from University College London. .

“The difficulty with these types of studies is that while they work to lower (blood pressure), when people finish the program, they usually go back to their sedentary habits,” he added in an email.

And the data from this study showed that people are very sedentary, Cheng said.

“The data shows that the average middle-aged adult is sedentary for about 11 hours a day, spending an average of 3 hours standing, 1-2 hours walking slowly and about an hour walking briskly – but importantly, spending an average of about 15-16 hours. minutes doing any kind of exercise as an activity,” she said via email.

“It’s important for us to recognize that this fairly consistent picture of relative inactivity is one that can be seen well in the general population.”

The study is observational, which means it may show associations, but it can’t say for sure that increased activity causes better blood pressure levels.

That said, the results are “convincing enough that I refer to this study when I talk to my own patients about ways they can increase their daily dose of exercise to impact their blood vessel health and their health.” long-term cardiovascular. ” Cheng said in an email.

There was little difference in the data, showing that sedentary time might be worse for blood pressure in women than in men, she added.

“This leads me to believe that while the general findings from the study are important for all adults, they may be particularly important for women,” Cheng added.

However, the answer to better blood pressure may be more than a walk in the park.

When the sedentary time was replaced with non-exercise behaviors — such as sleeping, standing or walking slowly — there was no benefit, Blodgett said.

“Replacing sedentary time with non-vigorous activities such as sleeping, standing or walking requires a significant reallocation of time each day to have an impact on BP (if at all),” said Blodgett in an email. “Focusing on replacing sedentary time with small amounts of higher-intensity activity or exercise each day may be a more feasible strategy.”

A rule of thumb for exercise is to get out of breath to the point where it’s difficult to speak in complete sentences, said Dr. Shaan Khurshid, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was not involved in the research.

Fortunately, the biggest impact was seen in those with the least activity, which means you can start gradually, Blodgett added.

“If you’re not currently doing high-intensity activity or very low-intensity activity, try to increase that by 5 minutes a day and build up when you can,” she said.