Can exercise prolong your life? Check out what 100-year-old doctor and professor of nutrition John Scharffenberg had to say about this.
“If you don’t exercise, you are going to die sooner. For every hour you exercise, you’ll live 3 hours longer.”
Can this be true? If so, how much exercise do you need to help you live longer? How can exercise help you live longer? What are some other benefits of exercise? Besides exercise, what other activities have been proven to prolong life? And finally, how can you develop the habit of exercising?
Can exercise prolong your life?
Numerous scientific studies support the fact that exercise can prolong your life. Results of 13 studies suggest that regular physical activity can help you live 0.4 to 6.9 years longer.
Following the recommended guidelines by engaging in moderate physical activity for 150 to 300 minutes per week (or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week, or an equivalent combination of both) can reduce your risk of dying early by 19 to 25 percent. Examples of moderate physical activity are walking, weightlifting, and lower-intensity exercise. Meanwhile, vigorous exercise includes running, bicycling, and swimming.
Now, if you are a high achiever, I have great news for you! Studies show that if you double the recommended physical activity guidelines or more by engaging in any combination of vigorous (75 to 300 minutes per week) and moderate physical activity (150 to 600 minutes per week), you can reduce your risk of dying early by about 35 to 42 percent. Exercising for longer than this does not have any further effects on prolonging your life.
Benefits of exercise – How can exercise prolong your life?
Exercise can help you live longer by preventing or reducing the effects of chronic diseases that can lead to premature death. Some of these diseases are hypertension, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, and some cancers.
Furthermore, exercise has additional benefits because it improves other factors that contribute positively to your health, quality of life, and lifespan. Exercise boosts your immunity and can help you fight diseases. It can also help you manage your weight, sleep better, manage stress, and prevent anxiety and depression.
Physical activity and exercise significantly impact our overall health and lifespan. So much so that doctors are now being trained to support their patients in implementing exercise as part of their solutions to prevent and treat diseases.
As Robert H. Butler said, “If exercise could be purchased in a pill, it would be the single most widely prescribed and beneficial medicine in the nation.”
Check out “Do you Prefer Diet or Exercise?” and “10 Ways Exercise Can Improve Your Quality of Life” for more on the health benefits of exercise and how exercise can improve your quality of life.
What else can prolong your life?
Can you prolong your life by exercising alone, without doing other things that can help you live healthier and longer? Probably not! Genetics and your environment have a major role in your health and how long you live, and we should not downplay their effects. Unfortunately, you may not be able to do anything about your genetics, while you may be able to affect your environment to an extent.
However, by far, the most important factors contributing to your health and lifespan are your individual lifestyle and behavior. These factors are typically under your control and include eating well, getting adequate sleep, managing stress, not smoking, having a healthy social network, and mentally stimulating your brain. For more on how much these other factors can prolong your life, check out “Can a Formula Prolong Your Life?”
How to develop the habit of exercising
Now that we know how beneficial exercise is, here are a few tips to help you get started on your path to exercising regularly:
1) Start small
The most important thing you can do is start. You need to take your first step, no matter how small. Even if you can manage only 5 minutes of physical activity, it is still better than nothing. Check out this blog post to see why taking the first step is crucial.
2) Make it simple
Start with simple exercises like walking. These simple exercises are as effective as the more complicated ones you see on social media.
3) Don’t give up
There are days you won’t want to exercise. On those days, think about all the benefits you will get, and push yourself to exercise, even if it’s just for a few minutes. And even if you skip exercising for days, weeks, months, or years, you can always start again.
4) Make your exercise fun
Find ways to keep yourself motivated while you exercise. You can listen to motivating music, your favorite podcasts, or audiobooks while you exercise.
5) Schedule your exercise time
It is not okay to say, “I will exercise sometime tomorrow.” Instead, you should schedule your exercise for a specific time each day. Scheduling your exercise time will help prevent conflicts that can keep you from exercising.
6) Find an accountability partner
Try exercising with a friend or family member. Even if you cannot exercise at the same time, you can share your exercise goals and make each other accountable.
For more on how to develop the habit of exercising, check out “Exercise: A Path to Better Health for Women Over Forty” and “Change Your Mindset Towards Exercise.”
Final thoughts
Some of the comments on the original interview video with Dr. Scharffenberg were that everyone has an expiration date, so it doesn’t matter if you exercise or not. So, what if exercise will not prolong your life? What do you have to lose by exercising? A healthier heart, better weight control, reduced risk of diseases, a better quality of life, etc.
So, will you live longer by exercising? Maybe. Maybe not. The simple truth is that there are no absolutes in life. We can only make plans based on our odds. For example, what are the odds that you will live up to retirement age? We don’t know, yet we plan for life after retirement, hoping we will be around till then. How about afterwards, will we live till we are 80, 90, or 100? According to the period life table for the Social Security area population, if you are a 50-year-old woman, chances are that, on average, you will live for 32 more years.
Others say, “Anything can kill you prematurely. You may die from a car accident or develop a terminal disease.” But what if you don’t? What if you live till 100? How do you want to feel at 100? I believe everyone wants to live a long and fulfilled life. So, if you plan to live long, the best way to get there is to be in the best possible shape and health. One way to do that is to start exercising and practicing a healthy lifestyle while you hope for the best!
Lastly, if you have the strength, motivation, and ability to exercise, be grateful for this precious gift, and don’t take it for granted. And finally, I wish you the best on your health and wellness journey.
Yours in health and fitness,
Doctor Abi
