Despite the importance of exercise and fitness to one’s health, only one out of three adults are accomplishing 150 minutes of exercise weekly. Worse, roughly 50 million Americans are experiencing a sedentary life, leading them to an early grave.
In order to stay healthy and fit, regardless of one’s age and health condition, living a healthy lifestyle and maintaining good lifestyle habits is of paramount importance. This is because having a healthy and balanced diet and performing consistent exercise are the pillars of excellent health.
In this article, you’ll be exploring the numerous impacts of working out on your health. Also, stay tuned for some physical fitness tips to make your working out sessions more fun and exciting!
Reduces Risks of Health Conditions
Several chronic diseases are highly associated with unhealthy levels of bad cholesterol, high blood pressure, irregular heart function, and weakening of the heart muscles. Simply put, these conditions can be easily aggravated by a lack of physical activity. By working out regularly, you can manage your symptoms better and improve your overall health.
Cutting down body fat can significantly lower your chances of developing type II diabetes. It can also prevent obesity by improving how your body uses calories and conserving muscle mass. It’s well known that obesity is a precursor of diseases such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, and body pain.
If you want to make the most out of your physical activity, consider swimming. There are many health benefits of swimming, but it’ll primarily work out your heart and lungs, enhancing your cardiorespiratory fitness.
Increases Energy Levels
During your initial workout sessions, you’ll feel sore for the next few days, which is completely normal. While exercise can be a tiring activity to do, its impact is actually the other way around since it increases your energy levels. This is because working out stimulates the production of mitochondria, the powerhouse of your cells.
However, you won’t feel your energy rising right after your workout. You’ll see the boost in your energy levels after a couple of hours when you start generating more mitochondria. To help your body combat fatigue after exercising, stick to low to moderate intensity training, then slowly build up, instead of immediately engaging in a high-intensity workout.
Improves Brain Chemistry
Energy levels are significantly related to mood and behavior. Therefore, exercise can greatly affect your brain chemistry, or how the chemicals found in your brain influence your mood, energy, emotions, and overall health.
Whenever the body performs something that requires spurs of energy, chemicals called endorphins are released, which triggers a euphoric response in the body known as the “runner’s high.” As you experience the release of endorphin, you’ll be more motivated to consistently work out and eventually improve your focus and concentration.
Generally, aerobic exercises are best for improving your mental health by alleviating the symptoms of depression. In terms of immediately improving one’s mood, low-intensity workouts, like yoga, are recommended. If you’re having consecutively bad days, there are countless types of exercises you can engage in, such as walking, running, cycling, boxing, Pilates, and dancing.
Enhances Sleep Quality
Outdoor exercises in the morning are the best way to start your day. You might not know this, but the sunlight helps improve your sleep quality. Exposure to natural light establishes a healthy sleep-wake cycle.
By consistently being exposed to sunlight, your brain will be encouraged to produce the mood-boosting and focus-inducing hormones, serotonin. In this way, you’ll feel calmer and more focused on your daily activities. Then, the absence of natural lighting at night stimulates your brain to take a rest after a long day.
If you’re suffering from sleeping troubles, check out these no-frills exercises that are perfect even for busy individuals:
- Running, brisk walking, or cycling in the morning
- Yoga accompanied with breathing exercises
- Strength training exercises like sit-ups, push-ups, shoulder presses, lunges, and squats
Regulates A Healthy Weight
Perhaps the top reason why people suddenly have a boost in working out is to manage and control their weight to the right levels. While this shouldn’t be the only reason why you’re working out, it’s still an excellent first step towards a healthier body. Whether you’re planning to lose or gain weight, working out is undoubtedly in your favor.
When you workout, your body uses up more energy than what it regularly does, hence burning off more from your energy source—calories. Along with burning more calories, it’s also important to decrease your caloric intake to successfully achieve weight loss.
Maintains Muscle and Bone Strength
Proper muscle and bone function are vital to your locomotion, weight support, organ support, nutrient absorption, and many more. Without establishing a good foundation of your musculoskeletal system, you can be susceptible to muscle, bone, and skeletal conditions, like back pain, bursitis, osteoporosis, and higher risks of injuries.
Muscle and bone weakening are increasingly common in seniors. As people age, their muscles become more sensitive to stress and impact. Also, the amount of fluid surrounding the joints decreases and the cartilage tissues thins out, restricting movement and body support.
Thankfully, working out can aid this aging process. Despite having limited, painful movement, it’s crucial for older adults, especially people over 60, to exercise regularly to maintain the strength of their muscles and bones.
However, individuals with health conditions should consult with their physician first to identify the risks of exercising. Ideally, they should have personal trainers who specialize in senior exercise programs to ensure that the exercises are safe and they’ll have low, to none, chances of getting injured.
Bottom Line
Contrary to conventional belief, working out isn’t just for bodybuilding enthusiasts who want to tone their body for aesthetic purposes. Every individual of any age, especially those at risk of health conditions, should take the initiative to work out for the betterment of their health.
The benefits of working out discussed in this article are only a few of what you would experience, as each type of exercise may contribute more to your health according to your condition. Along with regular exercise, make sure that you’re also doing the same efforts to your diet and, most importantly, your lifestyle.
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