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Ballroom dancing, gardening, or a brisk 20-minute walk every day, physical activity could improve the quality of life of people over 60. This is revealed by a new study conducted by a team of British researchers, who explain that staying active would have an impact on physical and mental health, and in particular on pain or mood.
It’s no secret that sport is good for physical health… But we’ve also learned for some time through numerous studies that physical activity, whatever it is, is also beneficial for mental health. This led a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge to take an interest in the potential link between physical activity, even moderate, and quality of life in seniors. To do this, they examined the activity levels of nearly 1,500 people aged 60 and over using accelerometers, then looked at the participants’ quality of life by taking into account their health and well-being. A follow-up was carried out six years later to determine if these levels of physical activity had been maintained, and if their quality of life had improved.
Published in the journal Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, their work initially suggests that the most physically active people – meaning those who practiced moderate to vigorous physical activity – benefited from a better quality of life thereafter. And it doesn’t take much to improve your quality of life, since a single hour of additional physical activity daily would boost your quality of life by 0.02 (0 being associated with the worst quality of life , 1 to best).
A decrease in premature deaths
On the other hand, the researchers observed a drop in moderate to vigorous physical activity during the follow-up carried out six years after the first evaluation. Men and women did about 24 minutes less daily activity, and were simultaneously more sedentary, up to 33 additional minutes per day on average for men, and 38 minutes for women. And in this case, quality of life scores drop faster, namely by 0.03 for every minute less of moderate-to-vigorous daily physical activity.
Having a sedentary behavior is also considered detrimental to the quality of life, and this in relatively large proportions. The researchers indicate that each additional minute of sedentary time per day induces a drop of 0.012 in the quality of life score. And these scores are not without impact, since the scientists specify that an improvement of 0.1 point corresponds, for example, to a 6.9% reduction in the risk of premature death and a 4.2% reduction in the risk of hospitalization.
Less TV, more pickleball
“Improving our physical behaviors can help maintain a better quality of life in several ways. For example, increased physical activity reduces pain in common conditions such as osteoarthritis, and we know that increased physical activity improves muscle strength, which allows older people to continue to care for themselves Similarly, depression and anxiety are linked to quality of life and can be improved by being more active and less sedentary “, concludes Dr Dharani Yerrakalva from the University of Cambridge, in a press release.
If it is out of the question for people in their sixties and over to no longer indulge in calm or intellectual activities, such as reading or watching television, it is advisable to replace some of these times with activities which have the capacity to increase heart rate. It could be brisk walking, gardening, pickleball, or even dancing. A recent report presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reporting an increase in physical inactivity and an insufficient level of activity in the European Union showed that At least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week could prevent 11.5 million new cases of non-communicable diseases by 2050, including cases of depression.