Five minutes more exercise and 30 minutes less sitting could help millions live longer
Just five extra minutes of exercise and half an hour less sitting time each day could help millions of people live longer, according to research highlighting the potentially huge population benefits of making even tiny lifestyle changes.Until now, evidence about reducing the number of premature deaths assumed that everyone must meet specific targets, overlooking the positives of even minor increases in physical activity.Moderate-intensity physical activity such as brisk walking for an extra five minutes a day was associated with an estimated 10% reduction in deaths, the study of 135,000 people from the UK, US, Norway and Sweden found.Researchers led by the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences also found reducing sedentary time by 30 minutes a day was associated with an estimated 7% reduction in all deaths.The greatest benefit was seen if the least active 20% of the population increased their activity by five minutes each day.
The findings were published in the Lancet.The authors stressed that while the findings should not be used as personal advice, such as specific exercise recommendations for individuals, they showed the potentially vast benefits for populations as a whole.Prof Aiden Doherty, of the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, who was not involved with the study, said the “excellent” analysis was “a leap forward” from existing evidence.“While this might seem like yet another ‘more physical activity is good for you’ study, the authors have added important new details,” he said.“This paper indicates that up to 10% of all premature deaths might be prevented if everyone were to make small and realistic increases to their moderate-intensity physical activity of five minutes a day.
Reducing sedentary time by 30 minutes a day would likely result in a smaller, but still meaningful, number of averted deaths.”Daniel Bailey, a reader in sedentary behaviour and health at Brunel University of London, who was not involved in the study, said the “really promising” finding was that just five more minutes a day of moderate-intensity physical activity could save lives.“This should be feasible for most people, even those who only do very small amounts of physical activity already.“Moderate activities are those what make us breathe a bit heavier and feel warmer.So simple daily activities like a brisk walk, housework or gardening will do the trick.
And if we want to reduce sitting by 30 minutes a day, this can be swapped for light activities like pottering around the house or a slow walk,”Meanwhile, a second study, published in the eClinicalMedicine journal, found that when combined, small improvements in sleep, physical activity, and diet were linked with a longer life,For example, an extra 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 a day could lead to an extra year of life for those with the worst sleep, physical activity, and dietary habits,Experts led by the University of Sydney gathered information on the levels of activity, diet and sleep of almost 60,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank study,Compared with people with the worst sleep, physical activity and dietary habits, the study suggested that the 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 living almost a decade longer.
Adelaide writers’ week 2026 cancelled as board apologises to Randa Abdel-Fattah for ‘how decision was represented’
Adelaide writers’ week 2026 has been cancelled after days of turmoil as more than 180 authors and speakers dropped out in protest of the decision to disinvite the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, the Adelaide festival board announced the event, which was scheduled to begin on 28 February, would no longer go ahead. The three remaining members of the festival board have resigned immediately, after the resignations of four others – with the exception of the Adelaide city council representative, whose term expires in February.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe decision to cancel AWW entirely came five days after the festival board announced it had intervened to drop Abdel-Fattah from appearing at the festival, citing “cultural sensitivities” after the attack on the Jewish community in Bondi.On Tuesday, the board apologised to Abdel-Fattah “for how the decision was represented”
Louise Adler resigns as director of Adelaide writers’ week
The director of Adelaide writers’ week, Louise Adler, has resigned after the board of the Adelaide festival announced it had dumped the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from the literary event.“I cannot be party to silencing writers, so with a heavy heart I am resigning from my role as the director of the AWW,” said Adler, one of Australia’s most influential literary figures.“Writers and writing matters, even when they are presenting ideas that discomfort and challenge us. We need writers now more than ever, as our media closes up, as our politicians grow daily more cowed by real power, as Australia grows more unjust and unequal.”Adler announced her resignation in an opinion piece published in Guardian Australia on Tuesday
Jacinda Ardern pulls out of Adelaide writers’ week as fallout over Randa Abdel-Fattah’s axing continues
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has become the latest international headline act to pull out of the 2026 Adelaide writers’ week in protest over the Adelaide festival board’s decision to rescind its invitation to Palestinian-Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah.Ardern had been scheduled to discuss her memoir A Different Kind of Power with the ABC’s host of 7.30, Sarah Ferguson, on 3 March.Ardern joins a growing list of international writers and commentators who have decided to boycott the event, along with more than 180 participants. Bestselling author Zadie Smith, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Percival Everett, Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, Irish novelist Roisín O’Donnell and Russian American journalist M Gessen have all confirmed their withdrawal in recent days
‘It was inspired by a snog in a photo-booth’: how Thompson Twins made Hold Me Now
Thompson Twins were a seven-piece, rag-bag, guitar-based band living in a squat when I met Alannah Currie, who was also squatting in London. She was in an anarchic improv band, the Unfuckables, who were clearly not destined for Top of the Pops, but there was something very exciting about her. When I invited her to come on at the end of a Thompson Twins gig, she stole the show.We slimmed down to a three-piece with Alannah, Joe Leeway [keyboards, percussion, vocals] and myself. Suddenly we were a recognisable trio who could all fit in one car
Post your questions for R&B star Jill Scott
In the age of GLP-1s and the deep-plane facelift making dozens of famous women appear perpetually 32 years old, there’s something extra heartening about Pressha, the lead single from three-time Grammy-winner Jill Scott’s sixth album. “I wasn’t the aesthetic / I guess, I guess, I get it / So much pressure to appear just like them / Pretty and cosmetic,” she sings in a coolly unimpressed kiss-off to a former paramour too cowardly to be seen with her in public.It’s typical of the 53-year-old neo-soul superstar’s direct way with singing about femininity – a quality that’s made her an in-demand collaborator with artists including Dr Dre, Pusha T, Will Smith, Common and Kehlani. As well as having several US No 1 albums to her name, Scott is an artist’s artist: her new record features Tierra Whack, JID and Too $hort; she was originally discovered by Questlove back in her spoken-word days before releasing her platinum-certified debut Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol 1 in 2000.As well as music, Scott has maintained a vivid acting career, starring as James Brown’s wife, Deirdre or “Dee Dee”, in the 2014 biopic Get on Up and taking roles in HBO’s adaptation of Alastair McCall Smith’s The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and BET+’s TV adaptation of The First Wives’ Club
Mindy Meng Wang on the ‘disorienting’ experience of her father’s funeral – and the Chinese cyber-opera it inspired
The guzheng virtuoso remembers being shocked by the traditional ceremony in China’s north-west. Now she’s processing it on stageGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhen Mindy Meng Wang’s father died in 2015, the Melbourne-based musician found herself navigating grief while also organising his funeral in her home city in north-western China. It was to be an elaborate, three-day ceremony filled with prescribed rites, including burning paper effigies, ritualised crying and prayer chants.Looking back, Wang describes the experience as “completely shocking and disorienting”. “There were so many rules for what I had to do over those three days, and so many things that I could not understand,” she says
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