Standing on one leg seems like a simple enough task. But — as anyone who has wobbled their way through it or crashed out in a yoga class while attempting a tree pose can tell you — it can be trickier than it seems. It can also get harder with age. In fact, a growing body of research finds that your ability to stand on one leg, and how long you can do so, may be a marker of healthy aging.

“Standing on one leg is one of the indicators of good balance,” Nancy R. Kirsch, vice chair of rehabilitation and movement sciences at Rutgers University, tells Yahoo Life. “Poor balance is an indicator of underlying conditions that are risks to health.”

Here’s why it’s important to be able to keep your balance while standing on one leg — and what it might mean for your health if you can’t do it. But don’t worry: Just because you’re teetering over now doesn’t mean you can’t improve your balance and coordination. Read on for simple exercises to strengthen that skill and help you embrace your inner flamingo.

What standing on 1 leg says about your health
In a new study just released in PLOS One, researchers recruited healthy adults over age 50 and asked them to perform a series of exercises, including those designed to measure grip strength, knee strength and balance. For the balance exercises, participants were asked to: stand on both legs with their eyes open, stand on both legs with their eyes closed and then do a single-leg stand on each leg with their eyes open. Each exercise lasted 30 seconds.

The researchers found that there was a “significant decline with age” in the ability to stand on one leg for a longer period. As a result, the researchers concluded that the ability to stand on one leg “can serve as a reliable and gender-independent measure of neuromuscular aging” in men and women.

This isn’t the first study to link your ability to balance on one leg with healthy aging: Research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine last year found that people who aren’t able to stand on one leg for at least 10 seconds are twice as likely to die within the next decade as their better-balanced peers.

Why is standing on 1 leg linked to longevity?
It all comes down to balance, Kenton R. Kaufman, a neuromuscular researcher at the Mayo Clinic and co-author of the latest one-legged study, tells Yahoo Life. “Balance reflects on how the body’s systems are working,” he says. “Good balance provides the ability to carry out activities of daily living without fear of falling. If you can do your activities of daily living, then you have a good quality of life and you’re aging in a healthy way.”