You’d be forgiven if you haven’t raced up too many flights of stairs in recent months. Between being hunkered down at home and having little urgency in your day-to-day life, it’s not likely you’re speeding up or down stairs either at home or at your office. More likely, you’re barely lifting your legs off the couch. But it may be time to flip the switch and begin to get moving again- especially when it comes to stairs. And if you need encouragement, new research released from the recent meeting of the European Society of Cardiology will give you ample reason: Apparently, the time it takes you to climb 4 flights of stairs will be a good indication of how healthy your heart is.

According to this new study, researchers were interested to determine if there could be a simple, at home, inexpensive and easy way to assess heart health, similar to exercise testing in a lab, which would then signal whether more extensive testing for coronary artery disease would be valuable. Well, it turns out having someone climb 4 flights of stairs is a good test: if you can do this in less than a minute, it’s likely your heart health is good. If it takes you longer than 1 ½ minutes, it’s best to consult a doctor for additional evaluation. For further insights into this study, step on up, and read here.

And of course, while you’re climbing those stairs to test your heart, you should also take comfort in knowing that in and of itself, stair climbing is a great form of exercise (provided you have sufficient balance, vision, and strength- check with your physician before starting a stair climbing regimen). So, for example, did you know that you can burn more calories climbing stairs than jogging? Or that going up stairs will strengthen your skeletal muscles and increase your metabolism? Or that taking on just 2 flights of stairs/day can lead to a 6 lb weight loss over the course of a year? There are a number of valuable benefits for climbing stairs on a regular basis and it’s even been studied and promoted as an essential exercise routine for healthy older adults living in the community. In fact, for many, the ability to go up and down stairs is an essential skill for continuing to age in place in your own home. So start slow, build up strong, and step up on your stairs next time you’re just sitting on the couch.