Individuals aiming to enhance their health in the current year can find encouragement in new findings: even modest modifications to sleep, diet, and exercise habits may profoundly influence lifespan.
Nicholas Koemel, affiliated with the University of Sydney in Australia, notes that approximately five additional minutes of sleep daily, coupled with about two more minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity—such as a brisk walk or ascending a flight of stairs—and an extra half-serving of vegetables per day, could correlate with an additional year of life.
The significance of adequate sleep, regular exercise, and balanced nutrition for a long life is widely recognized. Numerous studies have substantiated this by comparing the lifespans of individuals adhering to healthy diets against those with less healthy eating patterns, or by examining adults who do or do not meet the World Health Organization’s recommendation of at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity weekly.
However, the specific impact of very minor lifestyle changes on both lifespan and healthspan—the period of life lived in good health—remained less understood.
Investigating Minor Lifestyle Shifts
To address this knowledge gap, Koemel and his colleagues examined sleep, diet, and physical activity data from nearly 60,000 adults, aged between 40 and 69, sourced from the UK Biobank project. Participants completed questionnaires detailing their consumption frequency of various foods, including fresh fruit and processed meats, over the preceding year. Their diets were subsequently rated on a scale of 0 to 100, distinguishing between poor and healthy eating patterns. Several years later, movement trackers were worn on their wrists for a week to record exercise and sleep patterns. The mortality and health records of these participants were then monitored over an eight-year follow-up period.
Utilizing this collected data, the researchers identified the 5% of participants exhibiting the least healthy lifestyles. On average, these individuals reported sleeping around five hours per day, engaged in approximately five minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily, and achieved a dietary score of about 35.
A statistical model was then employed to estimate the lifespan differences. The analysis suggested that individuals who slept roughly five minutes longer each day, exercised moderately to vigorously for two minutes more, and consumed an extra half-portion of vegetables daily lived, on average, one year longer than those in the least-healthy group.
Synergistic Effects of Combined Changes
Koemel explained that this combination of minor lifestyle adjustments yielded effects comparable to making more substantial changes in just one area. For instance, sleeping an extra 25 minutes without altering exercise or diet produced similar longevity benefits. “When we combine lifestyle changes, we see greater returns for our efforts and reduce the overall demand placed on any single behavior,” he stated.
A more significant impact was observed when individuals increased their sleep by 24 minutes, engaged in an additional four minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and consumed an extra portion of vegetables. Compared to the least healthy cohort, these participants were estimated to live an additional four years free from major chronic conditions, including dementia, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, and type 2 diabetes. Koemel highlighted this as a significant finding, suggesting that individuals might not only increase their total lifespan but also extend the years of good health.
These beneficial effects from small lifestyle modifications were also estimated to apply to the average participant. This individual typically slept about 7.6 hours daily, exercised moderately to vigorously for around 31 minutes, and scored approximately 54 on the dietary scale. The analysis indicated that an optimal lifestyle for maximizing benefits would involve 7.2 to 8 hours of sleep per night, 42 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise, and a dietary score between 58 and 73.
Supporting Evidence and Limitations
These findings align with a separate study published concurrently, which analyzed mortality and exercise data from over 40,000 individuals, with an average age of 64, across Norway, Sweden, and the United States. This research, led by Ulf Ekelund at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo, utilized movement tracker data. The team’s statistical modeling predicted that if the majority of the population in these countries—excluding the most active 20%—engaged in an additional five minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise daily, approximately 10% of deaths could be prevented over the subsequent eight years, on average.
Both studies acknowledge certain limitations. Alan Cohen of Columbia University in New York pointed out that dietary recall surveys are susceptible to inaccuracies due to memory lapses regarding food intake. Furthermore, a week of activity or sleep data may not reliably represent an individual’s general habits over extended periods.
Koemel emphasized the need for further research to determine the duration required for lifestyle tweaks to yield health benefits. He also stressed the importance of investigating how these findings might differ across various age groups and their applicability in non-Western, low- and middle-income countries, where physical activity levels, dietary habits, and the prevalence of chronic diseases vary.
Journal reference: The Lancet, eClinicalMedicine DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2025.103741
Journal reference: The Lancet DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(25)02219-6