Things that take 15 minutes: cooling down after a yoga class, deciding what to order for takeout and discussing the caption of your latest Instagram photo. Here's something else to add: a workout that actually changes your body.
Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to work hard in the gym for 30 or 45 minutes (or, God forbid, an hour). 15 minutes of exercise - yes, 15! - carries a whole host of health benefits: it increases calorie consumption, gets the body in shape, reduces the risk of certain diseases and even adds years to life.
Yes, that rapid sweating is no joke. Here are some of the reasons why you should take 15 minutes a day off:
1. get results faster.
You've probably heard of HIIT, high-intensity interval training. There's a reason no one shuts up about it: it really works. Recently, researchers found that a 10-minute high-intensity workout had the same beneficial effects as a 45-minute jog.
One group of study participants did a two-minute warm-up on a stationary bike, followed by a 20-second sprint, then pedaled slowly for two minutes. They repeated this sequence two more times for a total of 10 minutes. The other group pedaled steadily for 45 minutes. At the end of 12 weeks, both groups had improved their cardiovascular endurance by 20%.
2. Burn more calories
HIIT exercises, which typically last only four to 15 minutes, can also increase calorie burn. In a study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, men who performed 13 minutes of HIIT burned more calories per minute and increased their VO2 max capacity by 12.5% more than men who performed 40 minutes of steady-state resistance training. More power in half the time? Yes, please.
3. Longer lifespan
Fifteen minutes of exercise a day is enough to increase your life expectancy. Researchers from the European Society of Cardiology studied participants over a 12-year period and found that those who exercised little (or the equivalent of a brisk 15-minute walk) were 22% less likely to die during the study period than those who did not exercise at all. For participants with moderate and high levels of physical activity, the risk of death was reduced by 28% and 35%, respectively.
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4. Weight Control
The benefits of even the briefest strength training can burn calories long after you leave the gym. In a study at Southern Illinois University, researchers found that volunteers who did just one set of nine exercises three days a week, or about 11 minutes of strength training, increased their resting metabolism (calories just burned) and fat burning to the point of keeping unwanted pounds at bay.
5. stay young
HIIT can have a profound effect on aging at the cellular level. The older we get, the less efficient our energy-producing mitochondria become. However, when researchers studied three groups of athletes over a 12-week period-one with high-intensity aerobic interval training, one with resistance training, and one with a combination of both-they found that participants in the high-intensity aerobic interval training actually reversed this age-related degeneration. Translation: their mitochondria actually functioned like those of much younger people.
6. Give your brain a boost.
You know exercise is good for your body, but you probably don't think about the benefits it can have for your brain. According to a recent study published in the journal Neuropsychologia, just 10 minutes of exercise can increase brain capacity over a short period of time. Researchers found that study participants who rode a stationary bike at a moderate to brisk pace for 10 minutes answered questions 50 milliseconds faster after exercise than before, representing a 14% increase in cognitive performance.
7. Reduce the risk of certain diseases
Of course, all exercise has health benefits. According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, 75 minutes of physical activity per week can reduce the risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease. That's just 12.5 minutes a day.
8. Stay happy
Everyone knows exercise and endorphins.
But the science actually says that just one hour of exercise a week (i.e., less than 10 minutes a day) can prevent up to 12% of depression cases.
The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, followed more than 22,000 healthy adults who had been free of symptoms of anxiety or depression for about 11 years. In the end, the researchers found that people who reported not exercising at the start of the study were 44% more likely to become depressed than those who exercised for an hour or two each week.
In another study, people who took antidepressants for major depressive disorder and rode an exercise bike for just 15 minutes lowered their levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
9. Have more fun
"High intensity" sounds intimidating than regular workouts, but people actually enjoy HIIT workouts. When the researchers compared responses to moderate-intensity continuous exercise and HIIT workouts, they found that 92% of study participants preferred HIIT to moderate-intensity, continuous-intensity exercise, even though HIIT is more difficult.
The reason why they liked him more? Because HIIT is more time efficient and the workout is constantly changing for you. And you know, the more you like an exercise, the more likely you are to stick with it, the rewards will keep coming.
If you want to experience for yourself just how effective a 15-minute workout can be, try these quick workouts. Don't try to use your lack of time as an excuse to stop exercising: that job is done.