One study published in The Lancet eClinicalMedicine found that adding as little as five minutes of sleep, two minutes of brisk walking, and half a serving of vegetables per day could add up to one extra year of life for people with the poorest lifestyle habits. The findings highlight how combined behavioural improvements can be more powerful than focusing on a single habit.
Researchers emphasised that the relationship between sleep, physical activity, and diet is synergistic. When these factors improve together, their collective impact on lifespan is greater than the sum of their individual effects.
What Defines Healthy and Unhealthy Habits
The study defined the least healthy lifestyle combination as sleeping around five-and-a-half hours per night, engaging in less than 10 minutes of physical activity per day, and following a poor-quality diet. In contrast, the healthiest combination included seven to eight hours of sleep, at least 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily, and a balanced, nutritious diet.
Individuals with this optimal mix were found to gain more than nine additional years of life, along with more years spent in good overall health.
Why Combining Habits Matters
The researchers noted that improving just one behaviour requires a much larger effort to see the same benefit. For example, gaining one year of life through sleep alone would require an additional 25 minutes of sleep per day, compared to just five minutes when combined with small improvements in diet and physical activity.
A minimum combined improvement five minutes of sleep, about two minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, and a modest improvement in diet quality was associated with an additional year of lifespan.
Evidence from Large-Scale Population Data
The findings are based on data from nearly 60,000 participants from the UK Biobank, recruited between 2006 and 2010 and followed for approximately eight years. A subset of participants wore wrist-based activity trackers, allowing researchers to measure physical activity levels more accurately.
Another related study published in The Lancet analysed data from more than 1.35 lakh adults across Norway, Sweden, the United States, and the UK. This study found that just five extra minutes of moderate physical activity per day could reduce deaths by up to 10% in the general adult population.
Reducing Sedentary Time Also Saves Lives
Researchers also found that cutting sedentary time plays a crucial role in improving health outcomes. Reducing sitting time by 30 minutes per day was linked to a 7% reduction in overall deaths. A one-hour reduction in sedentary behaviour was associated with a 13% decline in mortality risk.
The greatest benefits were observed among the least active 20% of the population, indicating that even minimal increases in movement can have a substantial public health impact.
Population-Level Benefits, Not Personal Prescriptions
Researchers cautioned that the findings should not be interpreted as personalised medical or fitness advice. Instead, the results highlight how small, achievable changes can improve health outcomes at the population level when adopted by large groups of people.
The studies underscore the importance of designing public health policies that encourage gradual and realistic lifestyle improvements rather than setting intimidating or unattainable goals.
Need for More Research in Developing Countries
The authors also called for more studies using wearable activity trackers in low- and middle-income countries, where lifestyle patterns, health risks, and age demographics may differ significantly from those in high-income nations.
Understanding these differences, they said, would help tailor public health strategies that are more inclusive and effective across diverse populations.