A number of gardening activities has been shown in a new study to offer moderate- to high-intensity levels of activity.

A group of  Korean researchers achieved the results in a collection of subjects in their twenties, a cohort that’s increasingly becoming more sedentary and reliant on Internet-based day jobs that demand little physical effort. In an era where carving out an hour to go to the gym seems like far too great an opportunity cost, the researchers believe their findings could offer a more calming, meditative form of exercise for people who shirk mindless miles run on a treadmill, the Medical Daily reported.

To carry out their small study, they relied on 15 participants in their twenties. Each participant performed 10 common gardening tasks in two locations: a high tunnel and a grassy vegetable garden containing some weeds. Each participant visited the garden twice and executed five tasks while working. They wore portable telemetric calorimeters and breathed into facemasks that monitored their oxygen levels, during both their working and rest periods. They also wore a heart monitor.

Based on the data collected, the experimenters concluded that all 10 activities fell under the categories of either moderate-intensity or high-intensity.

“The exercise intensity of physical activity may differ between age groups and fitness levels,” explained the study's lead author Ki-Cheol Son in a statement.

Subjects in the study were made to carry out nearly a dozen tasks, such as watering, raking, mixing, harvesting, and sowing and digging.

Gardening and other household chores have the added benefit of lowering your risks for certain diseases. A 2013 study found that for adults over 60, non-exercise physical activity strengthened subjects’ hearts and lengthened their overall lives, minimizing death from heart attack and stroke.