How much you have to exercise and what kind of workout to do to get different types of benefits

There are a lot of good reasons to fit in a workout today.

Whether you want to lose weight, combat anxiety and depression, improve memory, build endurance, or strengthen bones and muscles, exercise can help.

But depending on your goals, some types of exercise work better than others.

If you want to improve bone health, you'll want to do some sort of resistance training like weightlifting. For rapid improvements in speed or strength, a high-intensity interval program might be best. To improve brain health, aerobic exercise might be most helpful.

Some benefits are visible within a few minutes, while others can take months or years.

For sustained improvement, consistency is key. People see the most benefits if they work out on a regular basis, multiple times a week, throughout their lives.

But any form of activity can be good for you and count as exercise. Skip the elevator to take the stairs, walk a mile to the store instead of driving, or go help a friend move on the weekend. It's good for your body and brain.

Here's how much it takes for various forms of exercise to yield science-backed benefits.

Even small amounts of exercise can make a big difference long-term — running five minutes a day could add years to your life, if you do it for years.

You can get big benefits without having to do a lot: running just five minutes per day could add years to your life, according to a study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

To be clear, you'll probably want to exercise more than this. But it's worth knowing that even just a little exercise is far better than none.

This study found that over a 15-year period, people who ran just a few times a week (averaging out to five minutes a day) had about a 30% lower risk of death than people who didn't run at all. And people who ran more had even healthier hearts.

For a mood boost, 30 minutes of aerobic exercise is enough to make a difference.

Spending 30 minutes on a treadmill is enough to lift someone's mood, according to a study published in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. Even participants who moved at a walking pace received the same mood-lifting benefit.

This shows that no matter what pace you're going, moving has positive effect, adding to the already significant body of research showing that running and other forms of exercise can improve mood and help fight depression.

In another study, women who did three 50-minute aerobic classes a week had significantly improved mood, decreased anxiety, and were more optimistic after 12 weeks.

To lift symptoms of depression, that mood boost is a good start. But keeping up a regular exercise routine is most effective for improved mental health, no matter what type of workout you do.

In one pilot study, participants got 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day for 10 days straight, and showed significant improvement in depression symptoms by the end of the study. 

Other studies have compared aerobic exercise to resistance training programs to see if one worked better for treating depression.

The overall verdict from one major review of studies found that either sort of activity could be equally beneficial. Sample training programs from several of those studies had participants engage in either strength training or aerobic exercise at least three times a week, 60 minutes each time, for 12 weeks.

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