Even light exercises have health benefits

Even light exercises like sitting on a balance ball, playing a musical instrument and gardening have a lot of heath benefits, a study suggests.

People who do such exercises have favourable insulin and triglyceride (blood fat) levels than those who spend the day sitting on the couch, the study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, said.

"Replace sedentary activities with light-intensity activities such as pacing back and forth when on the phone, standing at your desk periodically instead of sitting and having walking meetings instead of sit-down meetings," Paul Loprinzi, assistant professor at Bellarmine University in the US, was quoted as saying.

Although these light exercises may not be as beneficial to your health as vigorous activities are, they are still "much better than lying on the couch, watching TV", said Bradley Cardinal, co-director of the sport and exercise psychology programme at Oregon State University.

For their study, the researchers analysed information from more than 5,500 US adults who wore accelerometers to record their movements.