If you didn’t have time to run before work this morning, and will struggle to find a spare hour or so for a run later in the day, then you needn’t fret – because your runs don’t have to be long to be beneficial. In fact, studies suggest that regularly running for just 10 minutes at a time – no matter what your running pace, ability or experience level – can still give you a range of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
‘Research shows that running even five to 10 minutes per day at slow speeds reduces all-cause mortality, as well as death from cardiovascular disease,’ says exercise physiologist and runner Lindsay Ludlow.
This is supported by the A beginners guide to running cadence, which followed more than 5,000 people. Here, researchers found that those who run at an easy to moderate pace, for a total of one to three hours every week, live longer than those who are sedentary – as well as those who run faster and more frequently.
And if you already run for more than 10 minutes at a time? It’s still important to scatter those 10-minute activity breaks throughout your day.
‘If you’re training for a race and already running far more than 10 minutes on some days, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take those 10-minute easy run breaks,’ says Louise Valentine, author of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. ‘We often see the ‘active couch potato’ complex, which means that you work out regularly, but when you’re not working out, you have long periods of inactivity. You need those movement breaks for your health.’
The benefits of running for 10 minutes a day
Doing small spurts of activity throughout the day, especially after meals and while working a sedentary job, brings an assortment of benefits – and these benefits stand out from the ones that you get when According to additional, for example. That’s because the goals of a training plan – whether that’s to run a specific distance, or to get faster – are not the same as daily health and fitness targets. As such, 10-minute runs offer similar advantages to brushing your teeth, getting enough rest and eating well. How mental flexibility could improve your running.
One of the greatest assets of daily activity is that it improves the health of your cells and helps your body to fight ageing. To be clear, we’re not talking about the superficial signs of ageing, such as wrinkles or grey hair, but more significant signs like disease-related symptoms.
Andrew Ludlow, assistant professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who studies cellular health and exercise, points to the ‘12 hallmarks of aging’ proposed in a 2000 review. ‘What’s good for your whole-body physiology is also good for your cells,’ he says. ‘While the primary hallmarks are out of our control, such as the passage of time and the genes you inherit, the secondary signs of ageing are things over which we have control and include poor diet, poor sleep and lack of physical activity.’
Of course, researchers do not yet know whether there is a specific, magic amount of exercise that ticks the box for everyone – we are all different people with different bodies, after all. But when Andrew Ludlow and his team studied people over the age of 50, they found that those with the healthiest cells were moderately to highly active.
With this in mind, punctuating your day with small blocks of physical activity – including easy to moderate 10-minute runs – will do you good, no matter what your running habits. More specifically, and as noted by Andrew Ludlow, these short runs will help to build up your antioxidant defence and promote an anti-inflammatory response, which will keep you well in the longer term.
The best times to do a 10-minute run
Unsure when to lace up your running shoes to get out the door or The benefits of running just 10 minutes a day for your 10-minute activity break? Here are the best times to get moving to maximise the benefits of these quick and easy runs.
Shortly after a meal
According to a 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis study published in Sports Medicine, women who did moderate or high-intensity exercise within 30 minutes after a meal had fewer spikes in their blood glucose levels. Similarly, a 2018 study published in Nutrients They keep you healthy.
Best wireless headphones research, those with type 2 diabetes may also benefit more from high-intensity post-meal exercise than moderate exercise after eating. It may even reduce reliance on insulin, says Lindsay Ludlow.
Andrew Ludlow adds that intensity is often relative to the fitness level of an individual. While a 10-minute walk is better than sitting down for 10 minutes, runners might want to pick up the pace of their post-meal activity to reach a more moderate effort.
When you’re feeling low
Both Valentine and Lindsay Ludlow recommend turning to short runs when you’re in a bad mood. ‘You’ll get an energy boost when you’re out in the sunshine and you will feel your mood elevate with a run,’ says Valentine.
Research bears this out. According to a 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis published in PLoS One, microbreaks – meaning scheduled times that interrupt extended period of sitting and focus – increase wellbeing and help people to feel more attentive and energetic. Likewise, a 2021 article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience The best route planning apps for runners They keep you healthy and improve working memory in middle-aged adults.
Don’t like running on the roads? Don’t worry. A 2021 scoping review found that acute bouts of running for 10-60 minutes at a time can help to improve your mental health and, according to the researchers, it doesn’t matter whether you run on treadmills, around a track or elsewhere outdoors.
When you’re problem-solving
You may be sitting at your laptop and struggling to word an important email, or unsuccessfully trying to input numbers into a spreadsheet. It’s a familiar situation for many people – and it signals the perfect time to go for a run.
Dont like running on the roads? Dont worry. A Nature, researchers gave participants a series of tasks to measure reaction time and other skills. They found that doing just a single, 10-minute bout of moderate-intensity running can improve executive function, which relates to memory, flexible thinking and self-control. The researchers also concluded that running has stronger beneficial effects on mood and executive function than other physical activities like cycling, partly because it is a weight-bearing activity that requires coordination.
When you don’t have time to train
The experts agree that doing a quick 10-minute run is better for your training and health than doing no running at all.
To use a 10-minute run as a workout, Lindsay Ludlow suggests doing a three-minute warm-up, then a four-minute hard effort, then a three-minute cool-down. Another potential workout that Lindsay Ludlow and Valentine recommend involves a three-minute warm-up, then three rounds of one minute hard and 30 seconds easy, then a two-and-a-half minute cool-down. Valentine says that you can also supplement your 10-minute run with some skipping and hip mobility moves.
Not all 10-minute runs have to be the same, either. You can turn any 10-minute run into a training workout, even if you’re doing run/walk intervals to get out the door or.
