Just 5 minutes of exercise can lower blood pressure and reduce heart disease risk. High-intensity workouts are more effective than walking.

Hypertension is a medical condition of high blood pressure and it is the major cause of early death. Over 1.28 billion adults are affected around the world and it can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure, kidney damage, and other health problems (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Device-Measured 24-Hour Movement Behaviors and Blood Pressure: A 6-Part Compositional Individual Participant Data Analysis in the ProPASS Consortium

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Five Minutes of Intense Exercise to Lower Blood Pressure

It is called a ‘silent killer’ as there are no proper symptoms. Joint senior author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, Director of the ProPASS Consortium from the Charles Perkins Centre said: “High blood pressure is one of the biggest health issues globally, but there may be relatively accessible ways to overcome the problem other than medication.”

A recent study published in Circulation has found that five minutes of physical activity every day can potentially reduce blood pressure. Doing exercises like uphill walking, climbing stairs, running, and cycling for 20-27 minutes is very helpful in reducing blood pressure.

Just doing five extra minutes of intense exercise every day can lower blood pressure. This shows how important short and high-intensity movements are in blood pressure management. The research was carried out by analyzing the health data of 14,761 volunteers from five countries to find how replacing one type of movement behavior with another is associated with blood pressure.

Reduce Heart Disease by Replacing Sitting with Exercises

Daily activity was categorized into sleep, sedentary behavior like sitting, slow walking, fast walking, standing, and vigorous exercises like running, cycling, and stair climbing. They found that replacing sedentary behavior with 20-27 minutes of exercise per day could potentially reduce heart diseases by 28% at a population level.

First author Dr Jo Blodgett from the Division of Surgery and Interventional Science at UCL and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health said that for most people, intense exercise has reduced their blood pressure more than less intense exercise like walking.

Any kind of exercise will show a positive effect on lowering blood pressure in a short time. “For those who don’t do a lot of exercise, walking did still have some positive benefits for blood pressure. But if you want to change your blood pressure, putting more demand on the cardiovascular system through exercise will have the greatest effect.”

Reference:

1. Device-Measured 24-Hour Movement Behaviors and Blood Pressure: A 6-Part Compositional Individual Participant Data Analysis in the ProPASS Consortium – (https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.124.069820)

Source-Medindia