10 Benefits Of Exercise: Explaining The Importance Of Exercise – lll
- Sharpening Various Skills
Exercising also helps sharpen your thinking, reasoning, learning, and judgment. Again, exercise stimulates the release of some proteins and chemicals. These chemicals and proteins are responsible for improving the structure and function of the brain.
- Improved Quality Of Life
Experts also acknowledge exercise and physical activity as contributors to an enhanced quality of life (5). They further suggest a strong link between exercise and improved quality of life among those with cancer. The rationale behind this is that exercise helps with enhanced functional capacity, diminished symptomatology, and enhanced physical and psychological well-being (5).
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- Improved Bone Health
Aging is associated with numerous things, one being the loss of bone density. To prevent this, experts recommend moderate or vigorous aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercises. The best aerobic exercises that help in improving bone health are walking and dancing.
Resistance exercises are also beneficial for your health. However, note that exercising once a week or month will not improve bone density or health. Medical News Today states that you will only reap this benefit when you exercise for roughly 90 minutes a week.
The additional benefit of increased bone density, especially among seniors, is a reduced risk of falls. In addition, research suggests that doing muscle-strengthening activities or moderate aerobic exercises help prevent falls.
- Reduces Pain And Stiffness
Exercise is significant in reducing muscle pain and stiffness. In addition, WebMD may help with joint and back pain by increasing your pain threshold (4). These experts argue that, when you are experiencing chronic pain, your pain threshold tends to drop.
In simpler terms, this means that it takes less pain to make you feel uncomfortable. In addition, exercising especially using flexibility, strengthening, and cardiovascular exercises can help improve this pain threshold (4).
- It Boosts Energy Levels
It may seem weird that your doctor recommends exercise after telling them you have been feeling tired lately. Most people never understand the relationship between exercise and energy. Well, according to Health Harvard, exercise can actually boost your energy levels and in several ways, including:
By Changing The Cellular Level Occurring Inside Your Body
When you exercise, exertion causes your body to produce more mitochondria inside your muscle cells. Mitochondria are vital as they help create fuel out of glucose from your food and oxygen from the air you breathe. Having more mitochondria makes your body increase the energy supply (3).
By Boosting Oxygen Circulation Inside Your Body
When you work out, there is an increase in oxygen inside your body. It supports the production of more mitochondria, which, as we’ve noted, helps in increasing the body’s energy supply. Similarly, it allows your body to function better and use its energy more efficiently. Your body also gets a boost from an exercise-induced increase in hormone levels, making you feel more energized.
These are the top 10 benefits of exercise that you need to be familiar with in order to help you bring more physical activity into your lifestyle.
How To Incorporate Physical Activity Into Daily Routine
How do you go about incorporating physical activity into your routine?
Here is what experts recommend:
- Speak to a healthcare professional. Before you adopt any exercise program, you are urged to first talk to a doctor.
- Walk. The simplest and safest of all exercise programs that doctors first recommend you to embrace is walking. Although most people ridicule this activity, it does help burn calories. The number of calories you burn will depend on how long you walk or undertake this activity, how intensely you walk, and your diet. A combination of a healthy diet and more intensity in this activity will burn enough calories to help you lose weight.
- Start small. You do not necessarily have to start with weight lifting. Start with simple activities like walking, jogging, and swimming, and continue to walk your way up the ladder.
- Reward yourself. Always reward yourself for small achievements as it will increase your motivation. For example, you can reward yourself if you consistently woke up early the entire week to go jogging. With time, you will discover that you do not even need a reward of any kind to be motivated to engage in physical activity.
- Choose a physical activity that you like. Do not settle for swimming if you are afraid of water. Similarly, do not settle for running if you hate running. Always stick to something you enjoy, as it is easier to build consistency.
The Bottom Line
As we all know, exercise is paramount in increasing an individual’s quality of life. We can attest to its importance through its wide array of physical and mental health benefits. Some of these include triggering weight loss, improving cardiovascular health, improving sleep quality, and joint pain and stiffness. So choose to improve your health by incorporating an exercise activity today. Remember, however, to talk to your doctor first to get the green light.