Aerobic Exercise Can Improve Your
Health & Increase Your Lifespan
When we exercise aerobically, our muscles demand more
oxygen and blood than when we're just reading a book or watching
television. To fill the demand, our hearts beat faster and stronger,
and we start to breathe more heavily. It's like a low-risk
investment that yields tremendous profits. Here are some of the
immediate benefits of exercise.
1. Boosts energy.
The next time you're falling asleep at your desk, go out and
take a brisk 10 to 15 minute walk. Chances are that you'll
feel refreshed and energized when you return. You feel like
your energy level is really surging. Your brain releases
feel-good chemicals called endorphins, the same ones that,
in excess, create the "runner's high" that marathon runners
often experience.
2. Boosts metabolism.
Aerobic exercise burns a lot of calories and elevates
metabolism Metabolism is so important because it's what
helps us control our weight. As it slows, so does our body's
ability to use up the calories we eat before they're
converted to fat, Exercise for at least 30 minutes every
day, and maintain or even lose weight by giving your
metabolism a daily boost.
3. Reduces stress and makes falling asleep
easy. Studies show that exercise
is a great stress buster. Aerobic exercise can improve your
sleep by reducing stress, tiring you out, and regulating
your body temperature. The best time to exercise for
improved sleep is in the late afternoon, according to
experts Peter Hauri, PhD., co-director of the Sleep
Disorders
Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,
Minnesota. The body goes through a cycle of rising and
falling temperatures throughout the day. When your
temperature is at its lowest point, its easiest for you to
fall asleep. Vigorous exercise in the afternoon can boost
your body temperature for up to 5 hours, so your temperature
will drop just in time for bed.
4. Revs up your sex drive.
Exercise may give your libido a turbo-boost.
Experts say that aerobic exercise can put the sizzle back in
your sex life by reducing stress. When we're more relaxed,
we're often more interested in having sex. Exercise can also
make you feel better about your body as you find yourself
becoming more fit. The more attractive we feel, the friskier
we usually are. Exercise has also been found to boost the
levels of the hormone responsible for sex drive in men, and
that effect may be similar in women.
While the immediate benefits of aerobic
exercise may be remarkable, its long-term benefits are even
more impressive. Regular exercise increases your vitality,
endurance, flexibility, and balance, all things that tend to
decline as we age. But the most significant benefit of
exercise is its role in disease prevention. If you look at a
list of all the health problems that occur as you age,
exercise has been shown to reduce almost all of them. Here
are just some of the conditions exercise can counteract.
5. Heart disease.
Regular aerobic exercise helps prevent heart disease by
improving several risk factors: It lowers blood pressure and
cholesterol, controls weight, reduces stress, and improves
cardiovascular fitness, says Elizabeth Ross, M.D., a
cardiologist at Washington Hospital Center in Washington,
D.C. Even people who already have heart disease can lower
their risk of having a heart attack by exercising.
6. Cancer. Women
who exercise several times a week cut their breast cancer
risk to half that of inactive women, while those who did
more vigorous activity such as swimming or running at least
once a week were 80% less likely to get breast cancer. When
it comes to colon cancer, in 1996 the Surgeon General's
report concluded that physical activity protects against
it.
7. Diabetes.
People who exercise regularly have a significantly lower
risk of developing type 2 diabetes. A 6-year study of more
than 8,600 subjects, conducted by researchers at the Cooper
Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, found that those
who were least fit had four times greater risk of developing
diabetes than those who were most fit.
8. Stroke.
Regular exercise can cut your stroke risk in half, according
to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Harvard
School of Public Health.
9. Depression.
Experts say that exercise can help relieve mild depression
by raising levels of feel-good substances in the brain and
by reducing stress. In fact, several studies have shown that
aerobic exercise is just as effective as psychotherapy at
treating mild depression.
10. Osteoporosis.
Regular exercise can help prevent osteoporosis. A study of
nearly 240 postmenopausal women between the ages of 43 and
72 found that those who walked about a mile a day had denser
bones than women who walked less than a mile a week.
11. Arthritis.
Exercise, especially walking, can ease arthritis pain. A
study at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, assigned elderly people with knee arthritis to do
aerobic exercise, strength training, or no exercise. After a
year, those who did best were in the aerobic exercise group.
They reported less pain and disability than the non-exercise
group and were able to walk, climb stairs, and get in and
out of the car more easily.
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