NJ Cops April2018 | Page 90

HEALTH & WELLNESS Healthy lifestyle tip: Want a longer, better life? Exercise pays – all through your life HEALTHY LIVING TIPS FROM The secret to a longer life may not be much of a secret at all: Numerous studies are now showing that those who continue to be moderately physically active later in life lowered their risk of death. According to many of these studies, increasing physical activity benefited life span as much as quit- ting smoking. One study involving almost 900 senior men and women in- dicated that a higher level of total daily physical activity was strongly associated with a decreased risk of death. In fact, an individual with high total daily physical activity had approxi- mately one-fourth the risk of death of an individual with low total daily physical activity. The message, plain and clear: Just 30 minutes of moderate activity six days per week was associated with a 40-percent low- er risk of death. More dangerous than obesity? Another study of 334,000 women and men tracked waist cir- cumference and self-reported levels of physical activity over the 90 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ APRIL 2018 course of 12 years. These researchers found that eliminating physical inactivity would reduce the number of deaths twice as much as eradicating obesity. These results lend further support to the role of exercise in preventing mental de- cline, maintaining function and enhancing cardiac fitness, among other benefits. The good news? Even a little exercise – as easy as 30 minutes of walking per day – re- duced the risk of early death by up to 30 percent. Ready to start improving your quality of life and living longer? Just get moving! Watch TV peddling a stationary bike, walk as you talk on the phone, take the stairs at work – every little bit of exercise counts and will pay big dividends toward greater enjoy- ment of your life. For an appointment with a Deborah specialist or more informa- tion about how Deborah Heart and Lung Center’s leading-edge technologies can improve your quality of life, call 800-555-1990, option 4 or request info/an appointment by visiting www.de- manddeborah.org.