This isn’t Olivia Newton-John’s “getting physical,” although there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it can be pretty great exercise. No, we’re talking about how exercise can help you fight disease–and not the common cold. Getting enough exercise is a great defense against the BIG diseases, including cancer.

While difficult in the moment, exercise helps you feel better pretty much right away. And though it may be tricky to coax yourself out of bed and into your workout clothes, pushing through that wall can reduce your risk of disease—including cancers—significantly.

Breast Cancer

A study of 2,296 women with stages I, II, and III breast cancer was performed by researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston.

They found that the risk of death from breast cancer fell 19 percent for those who walked or did similar exercises for one to three hours per week and by 54 percent for those working out three to five hours per week.

Prostate Cancer

The hormonal and immune impacting voltage created by exercise puts all the indicators in place to support men’s efforts to thwart prostate cancer. One recent study suggested that regular, vigorous activity could slow the progression of prostate cancer in men 65 or older.

Lung Cancer

Physical activity, even just the fun stuff like yoga or planting a garden, is inversely related to mortality from respiratory diseases, including lung cancer. Many studies point to the fact that the benefits work for everyone whether or not they smoked, were a former smoker, or never touched the stuff. More good news is that exercise improves survival rates for those diagnosed with lung cancer!

If you do the same workouts that everyone around you is, then you can expect the same health effects everyone is experiencing. Not working out is a pretty familiar situation in this country and look how that’s working for us:

• 50% of Americans die of heart disease
• 75% of Americans take at least 1 medication on a daily basis
• 100% of Americans know at least 1 person with cancer or heart disease.

All of these situations can be avoided or even reversed with a little exercise–and I do mean a little.

Work Out Smarter, Not Harder

Shorter, more intense intervals make the most difference in helping your body’s physiology improve. So while you have to push it and get your heart rate up, it’s only for brief periods of time. This kind of daily workout seen in surge training and interval training can be done in as little as 12 minutes.

Here’s an example of how a 12-minute surge training might look. Shortly, we’re going to be posting a demonstration video to help give you an idea of how to do a proper burst training session, but for now, hopefully this little outline will suffice:

Minutes 1-2: Sprint as fast as you can

Minute 3: Walk

Minute 4-5: Sprint as fast as you can

Minute 6: Walk

Minute 7-8: Do as many push-ups as you can, as fast as you can

Minute 9: Walk

Minute 10-11: Do as many sit-ups as you can

Minute 12: Walk

You can, of course, switch it up as it suits you. Do pull-ups, do leg squats. You could take the same concept and apply it to swimming. The important thing is that you push to your limit for that short amount of time, and then let your body calm down, then repeat the process. It forces your body to repair itself after you’re finished with the workout. If you do something lighter, even for a longer period of time, it doesn’t shock your body. YOU WANT TO SHOCK YOUR BODY. Burst training shocks your body and forces it to expend even more energy after your workout is finished on repair.

Do this once a day–for 12 minutes. You know it’s not very long! You’re busy? It won’t even take a noticeable amount of time. You’re tired? It will wake you up and energize you. And best of all, it will help you stave off disease. I mean, come on. 12 minutes a day to look good, feel great and avoid cancer? That’s a no-brainer.

One simple act of showing up can change all that for you! Show up for yourself. Show up for health.