A little means a lot

It's now common knowledge that exercise is of great benefit in preventing and controlling high blood pressure. However, it is not clear how much exercise is actually needed for the benefits to appear. An interesting study reported in the American Journal of Hypertension shows that even as little as 30 minutes of exercise per week can make a difference. When compared to a nonexercising control group, all four groups of exercisers (30 to 60 min/wk, 61 to 90 min/wk, 91 to 120 min/wk and more than 120 min/wk) showed significant improvements in blood pressure. While the 61 to 90 min/wk group showed the greatest improvements, the 30 to 60 min/wk group showed enough improvement for the researchers to conclude that the volume of exercise required to reduce blood pressure is actually quite small. This means it's attainable even for sedentary, hypertensive individuals.