Here’s a science-backed way to get healthier if you don’t like exercise

Doing everyday activities more briskly, such as gardening and cleaning, may lead to gains in health and longevity, a new study shows. If you’re not a fan of working out or simply don’t have time, we’ve got good news for you. Doing everyday chores and activities a bit more briskly might lead to big gains in health and longevity , a new study shows.

That means you could tweak how you clean your house, climb stairs or run for the bus and get some of the benefits of exercise without a trip to the gym. In the study, published this month in Circulation, researchers analysed the daily movements of more than 20,000 adults over the course of about a week. None formally exercised.



But some moved with more zip than others as they went about their lives, taking the stairs instead of the escalator, for instance, or speed vacuuming their living rooms. The amounts of these everyday exertions were small, the study found, often less than five minutes a day, but the impacts appeared outsize. Those who moved around briskly were as much as half as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke in the following years as people who almost always dawdled through their days.

The study suggests that “it’s a good idea to find ways to fit exertion into your daily life,” said Emmanuel Stamatakis, a professor at the University of Sydney, who led the study. “But that doesn’t mean you have to actually exercise.”.