Five Minutes of Extra Exercise per Day Can Lower Blood Pressure

british - British researchers have found that just five minutes of additional exercise per day can help lower blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart diseases.

High blood pressure affects 1.28 billion adults worldwide and is one of the leading causes of premature death. It can result in strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, and kidney damage. Often described as a 'silent killer' due to lack of symptoms.

Doctors have long known that exercise is beneficial for the heart, but researchers from University College London wanted to see if even a small amount of extra effort could make a difference.

They tracked 15,000 individuals wearing trackers for 24 hours to study the relationship between daily movement and blood pressure. The results showed that adding just five minutes of exercise to someone's daily routine was enough to observe improvements in blood pressure.

'The good news is that, regardless of your physical abilities, it doesn't take long for it to have a positive effect on blood pressure. And many of the exercises can be integrated into daily routines,' said the lead researcher.

Blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury, abbreviated as mmHg. Five minutes of additional exercise can reduce the systolic pressure by 0.68 mmHg and the diastolic pressure by 0.54 mmHg. Lowering these values to 2 and 1 mmHg, respectively, could decrease the risk of heart diseases by 10 percent.