AUSTIN (KXAN) — Life can be, well, busy. It can make carving out time for a solid workout tough, but a new study from JAMA Internal Medicine found that more than 110,000 deaths in the United States could be prevented each year if adults over 40 added just 10 minutes of moderate exercise to their routines.

KXAN anchor Mandy Dugan talked to Raelene Brooks, the dean of nursing at the University of Phoenix, about why exercise is so critical to our health.

Dugan: “So the first thing I want to tackle here is why is over 40 the magic age that we’re looking at?”

Brooks: “As we hit, we approach that age, we start to decrease our creation of immunity cells and immunity response. We also slow down our ability to regenerate cells.”

Dugan: “How can adding 10 minutes of physical activity to your day help in the battle against COVID?”

Brooks: “So 10 minutes a day will increase your heart rate.”

“By having activity, we’re really not only circulating all the blood and increasing blood flow to all the major muscles, and all that good stuff, but we’re also triggering the body to say, ‘Oh, we’re moving, we need to be able to generate some immunity here, since we’re moving, we’re actually doing something.'”

Dugan: “Go over some beneficial activities that maybe people don’t even consider that really do take 10 minutes that can get that heart rate and get that that blood moving.”

Brooks: “Little things that we take for granted, you know that we don’t necessarily think are good things to incorporate movement.”

“My favorite is cleaning the house and doing laundry to get some some blood flow, gardening, 10 minutes of gardening, 10 minutes going to check the mail and then maybe one round around the block.”