The Science Is Clear: Exercise Adds Years to Your Life and Life to Your Years
4-5 minutes
What if I told you that approximately 10-minute daily brisk walks around your neighborhood could literally add years to your life? That even five minutes of regular movement—less time than it takes to make coffee—delivers measurable health benefits? That your daily step count plays a crucial role in preventing cardiovascular disease and cancer? Or that regular exercise might be one of your most powerful weapons against dementia? These aren't motivational soundbites. They're research-backed realities that reveal something important: the barrier to transformative health benefits is lower than most people think.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle has been a personal goal for decades. Initially, I pursued fitness simply to stay in shape and feel good, but looking back, I realize exercise was probably my most powerful stress buffer. I didn't fully grasp the wide range of physiological and psychological benefits regular movement provided until I stopped exercising during a particularly overwhelming period of overwork and stress, and felt the dramatic difference.
Over the years, I've continued learning, experimenting, and refining my approach. I tried different types of exercise (running, ballroom dancing, tennis, yoga, swimming, strength training, zumba, yoga, badminton and more recently pickle ball) which brought novelty and excitement to my routine. But I'll be honest: some days have felt like real wins, while others found me manufacturing creative excuses through procrastination to skip workouts entirely.
The biggest insight has been recognizing that what truly sustains my commitment isn't motivation it's routine. This means that even on days when I don't feel like working out, I still find a way to move my body. I've missed workouts before, absolutely. But when that happens, I default to whatever I can manage in the moment, even if it's far from perfect. Traveling without running shoes? I go for a walk. Every single time, without fail, I feel better afterward—even when I initially resisted the idea of moving at all.
Last year, my studies introduced me to Lifestyle Medicine, where I discovered the origins behind those familiar exercise recommendations—75 minutes of vigorous activity or 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. I always wondered, how did these guidelines come about? While I was already familiar with Functional and Integrative medicine, Lifestyle Medicine was completely new to me until a Harvard Medical School professor and a physician who was teaching our class introduced the concept. That experience opened the door for me to learn about its pillars of health and wellness and the growing body of evidence behind it.
What is Lifestyle Medicine? “Lifestyle medicine uses six kinds of healthy behavior – a whole-food, plant-predominant eating pattern, regular physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and positive social connections—to treat chronic conditions like heart diseases, stroke, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and multiple types of cancer” (American College of Lifestyle Medicine).
Functional, lifestyle, and integrative medicine all center on the same core principle: understanding what causes disease at its source and preventing it from occurring, just through different lenses and methods. Healthcare professionals and medical doctors can actually become certified in Lifestyle Medicine alongside their medical degrees which was new to me too. What resonated with me most were the fundamentals of wellness it emphasizes, a focus on overall well-being through research and evidence-based practices.
I've talked about movement before, but today I want to dig deeper. Through studying human behavior and the brain, I've discovered that exercise isn't just good for you: it's fundamental to both immediate and long-term well-being. I'll share compelling evidence about why exercise matters so much for both physical and cognitive health. My next post will explore its equally powerful impact on emotional well-being, creativity, and problem-solving.
Research has made it clear: routine, consistent physical activity fundamentally reshapes not only physical health but also the structure and function of the brain. Here’s what the literature, including the Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee reports (2008 & 2018), tells us:
Exercise changes brain structure and function. Regular activity stimulates the growth of new neurons, enhances synaptic plasticity, and improves vascular health, benefiting regions like the hippocampus (linked to memory and learning) and prefrontal cortex (linked to executive function and decision-making). This is incredible as until relatively recently it has been thought that we have a set number of neurons. Now we know that we can expand our brains or reverse shrinkage even into our 90s, with the right exercise routines.
The landmark study by Erickson et al. (2011) published in PNAS showed that exercise training for 12 months increases size of hippocampus by 2% and improves memory, effectively reversing age-related loss in volume by 1 to 2 yrs. Participants were doing 3x weekly aerobic training. What makes this study particularly compelling is that the increased hippocampal volume was associated with greater serum levels of BDNF, a mediator of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus, mechanism for how exercise actually grows brain tissue.
The study involved healthy older adults (around 60-80 years old), so it demonstrated that even later in life, the brain retains remarkable plasticity and can actually grow in response to regular aerobic exercise. This study has been replicated and referenced extensively in the field, making it one of the most robust findings about exercise's direct impact on brain structure.
Evidence suggests that exercise delays or prevents neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.
A 44-year longitudinal study published in 2018 in Neurology Journal among Swedish women yielded some incredible results. With high physical fitness at middle age were 88% less likely to develop dementia decades later, compared to women who were moderately or low fit, according to the study.
In the 44 years, 191 of these women were tested for dementia six times. While there limitations of this study such as small sample, correlational results and homogenous sample, these are still some powerful outcomes.
5% of the highly fit women developed dementia. Importantly, if the highly fit women did develop dementia, they developed the disease an average of 9.5 years later than women who were moderately fit, or at age 90 instead of age 80. That’s a big difference!
25% of moderately fit women developed dementia and they delayed it by approximately 5 years.
32% of the women with low fitness developed dementia.
It helps combat multiple modern health crises. Routine movement reduces risks tied to cancer, hypertension, osteoporosis, spinal cord injury complications, diabetes, obesity, and loneliness. Its protective and restorative effects are seen across diverse survivor communities.
The dose matters — but a little goes a long way.
The largest health benefits occur when sedentary individuals move from doing almost nothing to about 70–80 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity: about 10 minutes a day.
At 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of moderate activity per week, risk of all-cause mortality drops substantially.
At 300 minutes (5 hours), benefits continue but begin to plateau, reinforcing why guidelines often recommend 150–300 minutes per week.
Source: Adapted from http://www.health.gov/PAguidelines / Jonas S, Phillips EM,. Exercise is Medicine ™: A Clinician’s Guide to Exercise / Lecture Harvard University 2024 Vigorous-intensity activity offers faster returns.
75 minutes a week of vigorous activity (half the moderate recommendation) yields comparable benefits.
Simple way to gauge intensity:
Low: you can sing while moving.
Moderate: you can talk but not sing.
Vigorous: too breathless to carry a conversation.
Even five minutes matters.
The 2018 reevaluation revealed that as little as five minutes of activity provides measurable health benefits.
This discovery reframes the common “no time” excuse, making it more feasible for individuals to begin moving toward better health quite literally one step at a time.
Large-scale evidence backs this.
A major cohort study (479,856 U.S. adults, nearly 9 years of follow-up) confirmed that both aerobic activity and muscle-strengthening exercises independently contribute to reduced risk of premature death and improved health outcomes.
In a large pooled cohort analysis involving nearly 650,000 individuals over age 40, Moore et al. (2012) examined the relationship between leisure time physical activity and mortality. The study found that even modest amounts of moderate to vigorous physical activity were associated with significant increases in life expectancy.
For example, engaging in as little as 75 minutes of brisk walking per week, less than half of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended minimum was linked to a 1.8-year gain in life expectancy compared to complete inactivity.
Meeting the WHO minimum recommendation of 150–299 minutes of brisk walking per week was associated with a 3.4-year increase in life expectancy.
Doubling that to approximately 300–449 minutes per week yielded a 4.2-year gain. Importantly, these benefits were evident across all body mass index (BMI) categories. The study also highlighted that a combination of inactivity and class II+ obesity (BMI ≥35) was associated with a loss of 7.2 years of life relative to being active and of normal weight. By comparison, long-term cigarette smoking is associated with a 10-year reduction in life expectancy.
In a 2020 cohort study published in JAMA by Saint-Maurice et al., researchers followed 4,840 adults over the age of 40, with a mean age of 56, for an average of 10.1 years. Notably, 36% of participants were living with obesity. Using accelerometers to objectively track physical activity, the study found that a greater number of daily steps was significantly associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality. Simply put — moving more throughout the day, regardless of weight status, was linked to living longer. The results showed a clear dose-response relationship: more steps meant greater benefits. Participants also significantly reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. While the study has limitations, it shows association rather than direct causation, the massive sample size and peer-reviewed findings provide compelling evidence. For me, that's more than enough reason to prioritize those daily steps.
Source: Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity With Mortality Among US Adults (Saint-Maurice et al. 2020) 
Source: Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity With Mortality Among US Adults (Maurice et al. 2020)
The science is clear and actionable. Moving more and sitting less doesn’t just extend lifespan — it improves quality of life, sharpens cognition, strengthens emotional resilience, and builds disease resilience. And it all starts with small, manageable steps. Of course, some of us may have health limitations, so it’s always important to check with your healthcare provider about what’s right for you, especially if it’s been a while since you’ve exercised regularly. But the evidence is undeniable. If we want to live longer, think more clearly, and protect our brains as we age, exercise is one of the most powerful tools we have.
References: