Why 11 Minutes a Day Is Your New Exercise Goal
The guidelines tell us that we should all get 150 minutes of exercise every week , and more if we can. But if that sounds daunting, a new study suggests a number for the amount of exercise that’s better than nothing — and that comes out to 11 minutes of moderate exercise, like walking, a day.
Where did the 11-minute goal come from?
The study has its caveats. It doesn’t really tell us that 11 minutes of exercise does anything special that 10 minutes doesn’t. But it does hint that we are likely to benefit from only doing half the recommended amount of exercise—that is, 75 minutes a week, or about 11 minutes a day.
The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of other large studies, each with a large cohort of people (10,000 or more) over time. All of these studies asked people from the outset how much they exercise outside of work and then followed them for at least three years to calculate deaths from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and “all-cause mortality” (death regardless of cause). ).
Not surprisingly, people who exercised more were less likely to die and have fewer cancers or heart disease. This aligns with a lot of existing evidence that exercise can reduce your risk of heart disease and is generally good for you. The researchers calculated that 16% of early deaths could be prevented if everyone (literally everyone) did the recommended 150 minutes per week. But they also calculated that 10% of early deaths could be prevented if everyone got half that level—in other words, 75 minutes a week, or 11 minutes a day.
The researchers looked at exercise in terms of MET , which measures the intensity of exercise, so it’s a bit more complex than the number of minutes. But the results are consistent with how existing health guidelines prescribe exercise. (More on that in a minute.) And they only counted exercises that are done outside of work. There are many factors that can affect how active you are, and many factors that can affect your health, and this study was unable to separate them. But we still have results to back up what we already know: Even a small amount of exercise appears to be better for your health than nothing.
So I just need to go for an 11 minute walk?
To be clear, this is not a new recommendation for everyone, just an interesting finding from one study. The old advice still applies: any exercise is better than none, and more is usually better.
But let’s look at the numbers. The standard recommendation is 150 minutes a week (or about 21 minutes a day) of “moderate” exercise, such as walking or light cycling. Your minutes are doubled if you’re doing “vigorous” exercise like running, playing basketball or intense fitness, so you only need 75 minutes of those (or any equivalent combination – say 100 minutes of moderate and 25 minutes of intense). If you can easily reach this target, the guidelines say you can also aim for a double: 300 minutes of moderate, 150 minutes of intense, or a combination of the two.
The 11 minute idea is based on the idea that half the standard level will still show a lot of value. So 75 minutes of moderate exercise may not be as good as 150, but it’s a hell of a lot better than zero.
What if you don’t like walking or running? We have a long list of activities that fall into the “temperate” zone. Frisbee playing, gardening, and salsa dancing all fall into this range.