A new University of Sydney study has found that tiny, combined changes to everyday behaviours could lead to a longer life. 
 
The study used UK Biobank data that tracked over 59,000 participants over eight years. On average, it found the risk of premature death was reduced by at least 10 percent if people took the following combination of actions:

1. Sleeping a minimum of 15 minutes more a day; plus 
2. Adding an additional 1.6 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical exercise per day; plus 
3. Eating an additional half a serving of vegetables per day. 

“The findings suggest that focusing on combined small changes across multiple behaviours may offer a more powerful and sustainable strategy to improve health outcomes than targeting larger changes in an individual behaviour,” co-lead researcher Dr Nicholas Koemel from the Charles Perkins Centre said.

Co-lead author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, Director of the Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub at the Charles Perkins Centre, said: “The study findings support synergistic health benefits for combined subtle changes in sleep, physical activity, and nutrition compared to isolated behaviour change. 

“When compared to combined behaviours, substantially greater relative increases in individual behaviours were required to achieve a 10 percent lower risk of mortality. For example, as individual behaviours this level of risk reduction required 60 percent more sleep, 25 percent more physical activity, while diet alone was unable to reach a 10 percent lower mortality risk in isolation.”

Study Design

The participants wore trackers for seven days and self-reported dietary data. Wearable-measured sleep (hours/day) and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA; mins/day) were calculated using machine learning. A diet quality score assessed the intake of vegetables, fruits, fish, dairy, whole grains, vegetable oils, refined grains, processed and unprocessed meats, and sugary beverages.  

Declaration

This research was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis is a paid consultant and holds equity in Complement 1, a US-based startup whose products and services relate to physical activity promotion and other lifestyle changes. 

The study was conducted using data collected by the UK Biobank. The UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing de-identified genetic, lifestyle and health information and biological samples from half a million UK participants. 

Research

Stamatakis, E., Koemel, N. (co-1st authors) et al. 'Minimum and optimal combined variations in sleep, physical activity, and nutrition in relation to all-cause mortality risk' (BMC Medicine, 2025)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-024-03833-x