If you're over 40 and raise your levels of exercise to that of the top 25% of your peers, you might gain an average of five more years of life, a new study calculates.

For over-40 folks in the lowest level of daily activity, a similar move could bring an average 11 extra years, the same report found.

The study results surprised even its Australian authors.

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“Our findings suggest that [physical activity] provides substantially larger health benefits than previously thought,” wrote a team led by Lennert Veerman. He's a professor public health at Griffith University School of Medicine and Dentistry in Gold Coast, Queensland.

The new study focused on U.S. data: Information on daily physical activity gleaned from "activity trackers" worn by participants aged 40 and above in 2003 to 2006 federal health surveys; and data on U.S. deaths from 2017 and 2019, also recorded in federal databanks.

Veerman's team calculated that daily levels of physical activity (in whatever form) that placed people in the top 25% in terms of fitness was equal to about 2 hours and 40 minutes of normal-paced (3 miles per hour) walking.

The researchers calculated that if everyone over 40 suddenly matched this activity level, it would raise everyone's expected life span by five years — from the 78.6 years it's now estimated to be to nearly 84 years.

Of course that leap in fitness would be tougher for some than others. The Australian team said that moving folks in the lowest 25% up to the highest 25% would mean the equivalent of an extra 111 minutes of normal-paced walking daily.

There'd be a huge health payoff, though: Almost 11 extra years of expected life for this group, the team said.

Among this group as well, the researchers estimated that each extra hour spent walking each day would translate to an extra six hours of lifespan.

Vreeman's team stressed that the study couldn't prove cause and effect, only that extra physical activity seemed associated with living longer.

The findings were published Nov. 14 in the British Journal Of Sports Medicine.

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So, how to encourage more couch potatoes to leave the couch behind?

According to the researchers, changes in policy and planning at the community level can make a difference.

“Infrastructure measures that encourage active transport, walkable neighborhoods, as well as green spaces, might be promising approaches to increase physical activity and resultant healthy life expectancy at the population level," they wrote in a journal news release.