Who doesn’t like immediate gratification? We want instant results even when we work out! Yet conventional wisdom says you have to exercise for weeks or even months to get the health payouts. Fortunately, it’s still worth it. One reason doctors recommend exercise is because it’s beneficial to metabolic health. In response to regular exercise, cells become more efficient at handling glucose due to improved insulin sensitivity. In fact, insulin sensitivity plays a big role in overall health. When you have good insulin sensitivity, your risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes drops and it’s easier to control your weight.
The good news is you don’t have to do a long workout to get the metabolic health benefits of exercise. According to a new study, short bursts of exercise have immediate benefits to your health. For the study, researchers looked at the effects of 12 minutes of high-intensity exercise on markers of metabolic health. The participants were 411 healthy, middle-aged men and women and the researchers tracked markers of metabolic health right after the exercise sessions.
What did they find? The participants showed improvements in 8 out of 10 markers of metabolic and cardiovascular health and they didn’t have to work out for longer than 12 minutes to get these results. It shows that even a brief exercise session, if intense, offers immediate benefits to your health. So, you don’t have to wait long at all to get a return on your efforts.
There is one caveat. In the study, obesity appeared to interfere with the positive changes in metabolic markers. So, it’s not clear whether people who are obese get the same immediate benefits. However, exercise helps with weight loss and improves insulin sensitivity and other markers of metabolic health over time. So, everyone, regardless of body weight, wins with exercise!
Other Immediate Benefits of Exercise
If you’re into immediate benefits, there are other ways a quick, intense workout delivers. Workouts are a mood booster. Whether it’s the endorphins your body releases in response to a workout or the changes in other brain chemicals, it’s hard to deny the mood-elevating benefits of exercise. According to some studies, exercise works as well as a prescription antidepressant for banishing sadness and feelings of depression. Plus, antidepressants have a long list of side effects while exercise has only positive benefits. You may have gone into a workout feeling down and emerged feeling more upbeat. Not to mention exercise boosts confidence.
A Quick Brain Boost?
Even a short workout can give your brain a boost. If you’re looking for a creative solution to a problem, sometimes it’s best to exercise on it. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that aerobic workouts are effective for brainstorming and finding creative solutions to problems.
Another study published in the British Medical Journal found that workouts bursts as short as 10 minutes enhanced mental focus and concentration. That comes in handy, too, when you’re trying to come up with solutions to problems. Some of the benefits for the brain may come from the increased blood flow that exercise brings about, but changes in brain biochemistry may be a factor too.
Benefits for Sleep Too
Another way exercise offers benefits right away is its impact on sleep. Studies show an exercise session, especially in the morning, can help you sleep better at night. Even workouts later in the day, based on research, help with sleep, although morning workouts seem to have more of an advantage for people who suffer from insomnia.
In one study, researchers asked participants to do a 30-minute workout on a treadmill either at 7 a.m., 1 p.m, or 7 p.m. The subjects who exercised in the morning enjoyed deeper, more restful sleep and also had a greater drop in blood pressure during the day. Exercising in the morning, in this study, was more beneficial for sleep. However, exercise is beneficial regardless of when you do it. So, do it even if you have to work out later in the day. It’s best to avoid doing intense exercise within 3 hours of bedtime though since vigorous exercise activates your sympathetic nervous system and can make it harder to sleep. Gentle movement, like yoga or a leisurely walk, is fine though.
How about Your Heart?
Another immediate benefit of exercise is the effects it has on blood pressure. A meta-analysis of 65 studies showed that blood pressure drops after a workout, especially in people who are fitter and males. The effects are pronounced enough that even people with hypertension sometimes get enough of a drop to place them in the normal blood pressure range. How’s that for immediate benefits? Over time, exercise improves other markers of heart health too.
The Bottom Line
You already knew that exercise improves your health longer term but it has immediate health benefits too. Short bursts of exercise count toward your health, especially if they’re intense. There’s even some evidence that taking the stairs and engaging in other forms of “incidental” exercise has benefits for your heart. Plus, more movement throughout the day means less time sitting, another risk factor for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and premature mortality. So, even when you don’t have time for a longer workout, lace up your exercise shoes and do a 12 minutes high-intensity interval routine. Twelve minutes is enough to improve markers of metabolic health. Take advantage of the time you have to get healthier. Start where you are and keep building better health!
References:
- com. “Just 12 minutes of intense exercise is enough to change biomarkers in your blood”
- Verburgh L, Königs M, Scherder EJA, et alPhysical exercise and executive functions in preadolescent children, adolescents and young adults: a meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2014;48:973-979.
- com. “The Best Time to Exercise for Better Sleep”
- Front Cardiovasc Med. 2018; 5: 135.Published online 2018 Sep 28. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2018.00135.
- com. “What to know about blood pressure rates after exercising”
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Benefits of Physical Activity”
- co.uk. “Long and short term effects of exercise”
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