Climb Stairs to Control Blood Pressure: Study Finds - Video

New research suggests that adding a small amount of physical activity such as uphill walking or stair-climbing into your day may help to lower blood pressure.

The study, published in Circulation, was carried out by experts from the ProPASS (Prospective Physical Activity, Sitting and Sleep) Consortium, an international academic collaboration led by the University of Sydney and University College London (UCL).

Just five minutes of activity a day was estimated to potentially reduce blood pressure, while replacing sedentary behaviours with 20-27 minutes of exercise per day, including uphill walking, stair-climbing, running and cycling, was also estimated to lead to a clinically meaningful reduction in blood pressure.

The research team analysed health data from 14,761 volunteers in five countries to see how replacing one type of movement behaviour with another across the day is associated with blood pressure. Each participant used a wearable accelerometer device on their thigh to measure their activity and blood pressure throughout the day and night. Daily activity was split into six categories: sleep, sedentary behaviour (such as sitting), slow walking, fast walking, standing, and more vigorous exercise such as running, cycling or stair climbing.

The team modelled statistically what would happen if an individual changed various amounts of one behaviour for another in order to estimate the effect on blood pressure for each scenario and found that replacing sedentary behaviour with 20-27 minutes of exercise per day could potentially reduce cardiovascular disease by up to 28 percent at a population level.

Reference: Blodgett, J., Stamatakis, E., Hamer, M., et al, ‘Device-measured 24-hour movement behaviours and blood pressure: a six-part compositional individual participant data analysis in the ProPASS Consortium’ (Circulation, 2024). DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.124.069820