We’ve all heard that exercise is good for you. It can trim your waistline, build muscles, improve your sex life and add years to your life.
But many of us are too busy or sedentary to make exercise a regular part of our lives. Fitting exercise into your day may feel like a struggle, but small changes can bring immediate rewards.
Weight Loss
Whether you are trying to lose weight or maintain your weight, exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Although exercising is not a guarantee of weight loss, it burns calories and helps prevent conditions like heart disease and diabetes that are associated with being overweight.
Aerobic exercise is any activity that involves repetitive movements of large muscles and increases your heart rate. Some examples include team sports, jogging and swimming. Regular aerobic exercise can help lower blood pressure and reduce your risk for heart disease and diabetes.
Aside from burning calories, exercise also improves mood by boosting brain chemicals such as serotonin and norepinephrine. These chemicals may help alleviate depression, anxiety and stress. In addition, exercise increases your bone density and muscle strength and helps you get a better night’s sleep.
Getting started with physical activity can be challenging. Cost, injury or illness, lack of time and concerns about body image are all barriers that may prevent people from getting enough exercise. However, practical and emotional support from friends and family can make the difference. In addition, women can overcome body image anxieties by attending a female-only exercise class or by exercising in a private setting such as an indoor pool.
Heart Health
Moderate exercise includes brisk walking, swimming laps and biking, while vigorous exercise can include running, dancing or heavy yard work. Exercise also strengthens muscles and improves balance and flexibility, which can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Regular exercise can also help control blood pressure, reduce levels of cholesterol and other fats in the blood, lower inflammation and help maintain a healthy body weight.
In addition, regular exercise builds muscle mass, which increases your body’s metabolism rate and burns calories more quickly even at rest. Exercise also releases feel-good hormones called endorphins, which can improve your mood and reduce your stress levels, both of which may contribute to a healthier heart. And although a good workout can make you feel tired and out of breath, it shouldn’t leave you feeling so exhausted that you can’t get up the next day.
Blood Sugar Control
Exercise helps keep blood sugar levels in a healthy range, which prevents the long-term complications of diabetes such as heart disease. It increases insulin sensitivity and helps the muscles absorb glucose from the blood, even when the body doesn’t have insulin, lowering blood sugar levels. It’s important to check your blood sugar levels before and after exercising, especially if you have diabetes. Having a carb-rich snack before exercise can help you avoid low blood sugar.
The best types of exercise to reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes are aerobic physical activity and resistance training. Aerobic exercises include brisk walking, swimming, biking and dancing, and they make your heart and lungs stronger. Resistance training, such as lifting weights, improves bone density and strength and helps you build muscle.
Being physically active most days of the week can decrease your risk of developing prediabetes and type 2 diabetes by 58%, and helps you maintain better blood sugar control if you already have diabetes. Aim for 30 to 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week, and include aerobic exercise such as walking and dancing, as well as resistance training like free weights and gym machines and body weight exercises.
Mood
Everyone knows exercise is good for your muscles and bones, but many people don’t consider how good it is for your mental health. The mood-boosting effects of exercise are often attributed to the release of endorphins, which are your body’s natural painkillers and mood elevators. However, there’s more to it than that. A variety of factors affect your mood during and after exercise, including the type of activity you choose and how long you work out.
Exercise may also help with symptoms of depression and anxiety, and it can boost your self-esteem by giving you a sense of accomplishment. It can even help you sleep better, which is important for a healthy mind and body.
If you’re trying to tackle anxiety or depression with exercise, try scheduling your workouts for times of day when you tend to have the most energy — like first thing in the morning before work or school, or right after lunch before that afternoon lull hits. Also, find a form of exercise you enjoy, because it will be easier to stick with your exercise routine if you look forward to it.
Exercise can also be an effective way to socialize. Exercising with a friend or family member can make it more fun, and it can also help you feel less nervous about how you look in front of other people.
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