Key Points
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Small daily changes to sleep, exercise, and diet can add years to your life without extreme workouts or strict dieting.
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Just minutes more sleep, a little extra movement, or healthier food choices may add about one year to your lifespan.
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Combining small improvements can also extend the number of years you live free from major diseases.
Good news: If you made a New Year’s resolution to get healthier in 2026, you won’t need to run on the treadmill for hours or cut back drastically on calories. Simply making some small changes to your lifestyle can have a big impact on your health.
According to a new study published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, making minor adjustments to your sleep habits, exercise routine, and diet can lengthen your life.
Scientists at the University of Sydney in Australia analyzed the behaviors of more than 59,000 older adults using the UK Biobank, a massive database that collects data about health, lifestyle, and demographics.
Participants wore wrist devices that tracked their sleep and movements for a week; moderate to vigorous physical activity counted as exercise. They were also awarded scores on their diets, ranging from zero to 100, with a higher score indicating a healthier diet. Participants earned more points for doing things like eating at least three servings of vegetables a day, three servings of whole grains, or skipping sugary drinks.
The research found that people with the worst health habits—which was defined as sleeping 5.5 hours per night, exercising 7.3 minutes per day, and having a diet quality score of 36.9—could add a year to their life if they made small combined tweaks including getting five extra minutes of sleep a night, 1.9 extra minutes of exercise per day, and adding an extra half-serving of vegetables or 1.5 servings of whole grains daily.
According to the study findings, the same one-year extension could also be achieved by doing just one of the following: 25 extra minutes of sleep per night, 2.3 extra minutes of exercise a day, or a 35.5-point increase in diet quality score. For reference, a 5-point increase in diet quality score equates to an additional 1/2 serving of vegetables per day or one fewer serving of processed meat a week.
The researchers also found that people with the poorest health habits could increase their health spans—the years you live free of diseases such as cancer, dementia, heart disease, and Type 2 diabetes—by four years if they got 24 extra minutes of sleep a night and 3.7 extra minutes of exercise per day and added an extra cup of vegetables per day, a serving of whole grains per day, or two servings of fish per week.
Of course, bigger changes may lead to even greater lifespan increases. Adding 180 more minutes of sleep a night, increasing exercise by nearly 25 minutes a day, and achieving a 35-point increase in diet quality score could extend your life by up to 10 years.
“The findings suggest that focusing on combined small changes across multiple behaviors may offer a more powerful and sustainable strategy to improve health outcomes than targeting larger changes in an individual behavior,” co-lead researcher Dr. Nicholas Koemel told the University of Sydney.
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