With all the responsibilities of adulthood, free time can be at a premium. Many of us find ourselves asking ourselves, “I barely have time to make dinner, how am I going to find time to exercise regularly during the week?”
The health benefits of exercise – including reducing the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and dementia – may seem out of reach due to work and life pressures.
But a new study published in the journal Nature Aging offers good news for people who struggle to fit regular exercise into their weekday schedule.
The findings suggest that 'weekend exercisers' – people who do most of their exercise on weekends – may enjoy similar brain health and mental health benefits as people who exercise regularly during the week.
What the study found
The Chinese research team analyzed data from more than 75,000 people from the UK Biobank, a large cohort study tracking the health of nearly half a million people in the UK, of whom more than 100,000 were wearing wearable activity trackers. The average age of participants in the study was 62 years old.
Participants provided data via a wrist-worn wearable device that tracked their physical activity patterns over a seven-day period, after which they were split into three groups:
Inactive: People who do not meet the recommendation of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week.
Regularly active: People who are active throughout the week and meet the guidelines
“Weekend Warriors”: People who meet the guidelines by concentrating 50% or more of their activity on one or two days (not necessarily Saturday and Sunday, but one or two days a week).
The researchers followed up participants for an average of 8.4 years. They used GP records, hospital admission data and death records to track the onset of neurological diseases (dementia, stroke and Parkinson's disease) and psychological disorders (including depression and anxiety disorders).
The researchers controlled for several key lifestyle and health factors that may affect these results, including age, sex, smoking status, alcohol intake, diet, and medical history such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or cancer.
Are you a “weekend warrior” or do you exercise consistently throughout the week? Tint Media/Shutterstock
Weekend warriors reap big rewards
Of the roughly 75,500 participants, about 24,300 were classified as inactive, 21,200 as regularly active, and 30,000 as active on weekends.
The results showed that weekend exercisers had a 26% lower risk of developing dementia, a 21% lower risk of stroke, and a 45% lower risk of Parkinson's disease compared to inactive adults. They also had a 40% and 37% lower risk of depression and anxiety compared to the inactive group. All of these figures for the weekend exercisers were comparable to those for people who were regularly active.
The protective effects against depression and anxiety were consistent across both age groups under and over 65. However, the reduced risk of dementia, stroke, and Parkinson's disease was particularly pronounced in people over 65. This reflects the greater benefit of physical activity for older adults who are at higher risk for these diseases.
There's more than one way to benefit
What if work, family obligations, or other reasons don't allow you to exercise on the weekends? Luckily, researchers have looked at different lifestyle patterns among people who exercise on the weekends.
The researchers found that as long as the majority of moderate-to-vigorous exercise is done on one or two days a week, even if those days are not consecutive, you'll get similar health benefits.
In a previous study, also using UK Biobank data, the researchers found that people who split the bulk of their exercise over one or two days had the same heart health benefits as those who spread their exercise evenly over a week.
There are many ways to incorporate exercise into your daily life. siam.pukkato/Shutterstock
If traditional gym sessions aren't your thing, you're in luck: the study used activity trackers that monitor all kinds of activity, so the research suggests that health benefits can be achieved regardless of how you stack up your moderate-to-vigorous exercise.
This is in line with a growing body of research showing that short bursts of everyday activities like climbing the stairs, doing housework or walking in the park, or longer sessions of running or training at the gym, can have health benefits for everyone.
Some caveats to consider:
The researchers took into account a range of lifestyle and health factors, but it's possible that other factors may be influencing some of the association.
Another limitation is that the study was not able to assess how changes in physical activity affect brain health over time, as previous research has shown that increasing activity can provide immediate health benefits even to less active adults.
Still, the findings add to a growing body of evidence supporting the positive effects of moderate-to-vigorous exercise any day of the week on brain health and overall well-being.
