Benefits of Exercise

We all know exercise is good for our bodies, but what happens internally when we get our hearts pumping? How about when we stop exercising regularly? How does it affect our mood?

Recommending Regular Exercise

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), medical professionals, physiotherapists, personal trainers, naturopaths and nutritionists can at least agree on one thing: exercise is important for the human body.

The CDC says that regular exercise is an important aspect in maintaining your health. This becomes especially important during times like a world-wide pandemic (COVID-19) when there are fewer opportunities to take classes or attend gyms.

They list two main types of benefits, immediate and long-term. In the first category one might find they are sleeping better, have reduced anxiety and lowered blood pressure. For the long-term, which is a goal to strive toward, there is brain health, cancer prevention, bone strength, balance and coordination, heart health and weight management.

It’s also beginning to surface in research that regular exercise assists with boosting the human immune system.

Immediate Benefits

As previously mentioned, you can see and feel immediate benefits to exercise. If you’re diabetic, you might find it helps you with the conditions as exercising uses glucose for energy. Insulin is created inside the body as a means of controlling that glucose. That means it helps to regulate the sugars in the human body.

Your metabolism also increased when you exercise and it begins within a few minutes of your workout. Essentially, when your heart rate goes up your body releases neurochemicals that help with your metabolism speed, which is caused by the increase of circulation. This power house of a body will continue helping your metabolism even after you’re done exercising.

You’re also going to gain more energy the more you exercise. Yes, that sounds opposite of how you might feel in the moment. It’s because of the increase of blood flow. When you get more oxygen and nutrients pumping through the body it’s more likely to leave you alert throughout the day.

Exercise becomes increasingly important as we age because the body deteriorates, more or less. It the older population, it can help increase bone, joint and muscle strength which in turn helps prevents falls, assists with arthritis, and decreases cardiovascular disease.

It’s also helpful to some prevention of certain cancers, like esophagus, lung, stomach, bladder, breast, kidney, endometrium, or colon. During research, it was discovered that regular exercise lowered the risk in a few types by nearly 20 per cent.

Because the brain is developing new neural pathways during exercise, those with dementia are able to benefit from fitness as well. It actually increases the size of the hippocampus, which is the area of the brain responsible for memory. In a study of 716 people near the age of 82, the lowest 10 per cent (those who didn’t participate in physical activity daily) were twice as likely to develop dementia than the top 10 per cent who did exercise daily.

There are other risk factors when it comes to Alzheimer’s as well, such as obesity and depression. As shown above, exercise assists with both of these components.

Long story short, exercise is essential to living a longer, healthier life. But what kind of exercises are best deployed?

According to Harvard University, swimming is another great example of physical fitness. This is particularly useful for older folks, people with joint or mobility issues, or arthritis. If you take water aerobic classes, you may find yourself burning even more calories.

Tai Chi is also highly recommended. Not only are the slow, smooth motions of the art going to develop and build some muscle, but it will relax you like meditation. It also helps the practitioner learn balance, is will help prevent falls as we get older.