You know the benefits of regular exercise are good for your overall health. However, do you really know how good it is? Exercise is the key if you want to feel better, have more energy, and even add years to your life. The health benefits of regular physical activity are hard to ignore. Everyone benefits from it regardless of abilities, gender, or age.
Key Takeaways
- Exercise can help you control weight, fight chronic diseases, and boost your overall health, no matter your age or fitness level.
- Regular physical activity doesn’t just improve your body. It also enhances your mood, energy levels, and mental sharpness by releasing feel-good brain chemicals.
- You don’t need to become a fitness superhero overnight. Start small and gradually build up to recommended activity levels for maximum health benefits.
Going from being inactive to regular physical activity can be hard at first, but with proper planning, you can be a fit and active person. Still not convinced? Here are ten benefits of how exercise will improve your life and make you happier and healthier.
1. Weight Control
Regular exercise can help you manage your weight. When you engage in any physical activity, you burn calories. The more intense the activity, the more calories you burn. Without exercise, it’s easy in modern society to consume more calories than you need daily.
Regular exercise and a balanced diet are the key to controlling your weight.
2. Exercise Lowers Your Risk For Developing Chronic Diseases
The absence of regular exercise is a primary cause of many chronic diseases. In fact, it can lead to significant increases in weight, which increases your risk of certain conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
However, physical activity can reduce your risk or prevent altogether the following conditions:
- Arthritis
- Heart Disease
- High Blood Pressure
- High Cholesterol
- Many types of cancer, such as breast, colorectal, endometrial, esophageal, gallbladder, gastric, kidney, lung, liver, ovarian, pancreatic, prostate, thyroid
- Type 2 diabetes
3. Regular Exercise Is Good For Your Muscles And Bones
As you age, you lose muscle mass and function. This can lead to an increased risk of injury. Yet, regular exercise reduces muscle loss and maintains strength. Furthermore, activities such as weightlifting can build muscles since exercise improves your muscles’ ability to absorb amino acids, which is a crucial component in building and repairing muscles.
Unfortunately, you lose bone mass as you age. Thankfully, impact activities such as running can maintain bone density and help prevent osteoporosis later in life. However, non-impact activities such as biking or swimming do not.
4. Improves Mood
Regular exercise stimulates various brain chemicals that can make you happier, more relaxed, and less anxious. Furthermore, it can increase your brain’s sensitivity to serotonin and norepinephrine. These two chemicals can relieve feelings of depression. Moreover, exercise can increase the production of endorphins that can help produce positive feelings.
You may also feel better about yourself and your appearance when you exercise regularly. This can boost your confidence and improve your self-esteem. One study has shown that people who stopped exercising experienced increased symptoms of depression and anxiety. More importantly, exercise can improve your mood no matter the intensity.
5. Boosts Your Energy
Regular moderate to vigorous activity boosts the cardiovascular system and improves lung health. Regular exercise makes your heart stronger and more efficient at moving oxygen into your body, making your muscles more efficient.
Over time, exercise becomes less demanding and requires less energy. This is one reason you’re less likely to become winded during vigorous activity, climbing stairs, or other everyday chores.
6. Regular Exercise Helps You Relax and Improves Sleep Quality
Regular exercise can help you sleep better and feel more energized while awake. Studies have shown that participating in a training program helps improve sleep quality and reduces the time it takes to fall asleep.
No matter what exercise you do, aerobic exercise alone or a combination of aerobic exercise and resistance training can improve your sleep quality. However, some people can be affected by exercising too close to bedtime because they may be too energized to sleep.
7. Improves Your Sex Life
Regular exercise can help improve sexual function and performance. In fact, one of the benefits of regular exercise for women is that it increases desire. For men, it could reduce the risk or help improve erectile function.
Regular physical activity strengthens the heart, tones muscles, improves blood circulation, increases stamina, and enhances flexibility. All of these factors can improve your sex life. Furthermore, it can improve sexual performance and pleasure while increasing the frequency of sexual activity.
8. Exercise Can Boost Your Skin Health
Our skin can be affected by oxidative stress. Oxidative stress happens when your body cannot produce enough antioxidants to repair your cells. Additionally, long-term oxidative stress may be involved in the development of certain health conditions such as ADHD, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, heart failure, infection, chronic fatigue syndrome, and depression.
Ironically, exercise can contribute to oxidative damage. However, the damage it does can actually increase your body’s production of antioxidants, which helps boost your immune system and protects cells. Moreover, exercise stimulates blood flow and helps delay the appearance of aging skin.
9. Regular Exercise Can Reduce Pain
For many years, health professionals recommended treating chronic pain with rest and inactivity. However, studies show that exercise helps reduce chronic pain and improves quality of life. Not only can regular exercise reduce pain, but it can also raise your tolerance and decrease the perception of pain.
10. Exercise Can Improve Your Memory
When you exercise, it increases the heart rate and flow of blood and oxygen to your brain. Furthermore, exercise can stimulate the production of hormones that affect the growth of brain cells. Regular exercise can cause the part of the brain that’s vital for memory and learning to grow in size.
Regular exercise is even more important as you age since it can help prevent chronic diseases that affect your brain. Moreover, it can improve mental functions for older adults.
How Much Regular Exercise Do I Need?
Although recommendations from around the world vary, they all agree that exercising regularly has many benefits. For most healthy adults, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity, 75 to 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity. Preferably, aerobic activity should be spread throughout the week.
Additionally, adults should also do muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week, as these activities provide additional health benefits.
That may seem like a lot of time, especially if you’re starting out or getting back into a routine. That’s ok. You’re not expected to go from 0 to 150 minutes a week. You can work towards that goal, but immediately reap the benefits of regular exercise. For example, you could start by doing a brisk walk for 10 minutes a day. That right there is 70 minutes a week! Maybe you prefer biking, running, or swimming. Whatever you prefer, as long as it raises your heart rate, it counts. So start your journey to a new you, and get started today!
Conclusion
Embarking on a fitness journey isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress. Every step you take, whether it’s a 10-minute walk or a full gym session, is a step towards a healthier, happier you. The beauty of exercise is its incredible versatility. It doesn’t care about your current fitness level, age, or background. What matters is that you start, you stay consistent, and you listen to your body.
Your health is the most valuable investment you’ll ever make. The benefits of regular exercise extend far beyond physical appearance. They touch every aspect of your life, from mental clarity and emotional well-being to disease prevention and longevity. So don’t wait for the perfect moment to begin. The best time to start is now, and even small, incremental changes can yield remarkable results. Your future self will thank you.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your workouts, weight, mood, calories, and more. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect supported gadgets to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
