When combined, an extra few minutes of sleep, exercise and a half-portion of vegetables could add a year to a person’s life, study suggests

For people with the unhealthiest sleep, physical activity and dietary habits, making a few combined tweaks to these behaviours could have a significant impact on overall lifespan.

That’s according to a new study published in the eClinicalMedicine journal (part of The Lancet Discovery Science suite of journals).

For example, an additional five minutes of sleep, two minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (such as brisk walking or taking the stairs) and an additional half a serving of vegetables per day could theoretically lead to an extra year of life for those with the worst existing sleep, physical activity, and dietary habits.

Sleep, physical activity, and nutrition are important factors for lifespan and reducing risk of disease, however they are often studied in isolation. This is the first study of its kind to investigate the minimum combined improvements in sleep, physical activity and diet to lead to a significantly longer lifespan and years spent in good health.

The study looked at almost 60,000 people in the UK Biobank cohort recruited between 2006-2010 and followed for an average of eight years. Authors estimated lifespan and years spent in good health across different variations of behaviours using a statistical model.

Compared to people with the worst sleep, physical activity and dietary habits, the model suggested that the most optimal combination of these behaviours – seven to eight hours of sleep per day, more than 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day and a healthy diet – was associated with over nine years of additional lifespan and years spent in good health.

The authors highlight that the combined relationship of sleep, physical activity and diet is larger than the sum of the individual behaviours. For example, for people with the unhealthiest sleep, physical activity and dietary habits to achieve one additional year of lifespan through sleep alone would require five times the amount of additional sleep per day (25 minutes) than if physical activity and diet also improved a small amount.

The study’s authors say their findings suggest that, when combined, very small improvements in sleep, physical activity and diet could lead to meaningful changes in lifespan and years spent in good health for those with poor current habits in these areas, and that this offers a more feasible and sustainable starting place for making behaviour change.

However, they caution that additional studies are needed to examine the translation of these findings into clinical and public health practice.

Read more: Minimum combined sleep, physical activity, and nutrition variations associated with lifeSPAN and healthSPAN improvements: a population cohort study – eClinicalMedicine.