Short Steps to a Long Life

How can you improve your cholesterol and your lung function in a mere 11 minutes?
Just say, "I'll take the stairs."

We're not talking Empire State Building stairs, either.

If you climb a couple flights of stairs for just 2 minutes, five or six times a day, you'll be covered.

Women in a study who did just that increased their cardiorespiratory fitness by 17 percent and reduced their "bad" LDL cholesterol by 8 percent in just 8 weeks.

That means a younger RealAge and a longer life, so start climbing. Once it's a habit, you'll hardly notice the effort.

Climbing stairs for about 11 minutes a day, spread out over five or six 2-minute sessions throughout the day, increases cardiorespiratory fitness, a measure of how well your heart and lungs deliver oxygen and energy to your body during physical exertion.

And improved fitness lowers mortality risk.

Stair climbing forces you to work against gravity, so it's more strenuous than walking.

In fact, the fitness gains achieved by the stair-climbing women in the study were equivalent to those experienced by previously sedentary people who embarked on a 36-minutes-a-day walking program for 24 weeks. Wow!

Of course, getting 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days of the week should still be your main goal.

But 10 or 15 cumulative minutes of stair climbing can count toward that goal. Going up?