The Benefits of Exercise
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1. Exercise makes you feel happier
Exercise has been shown to improve your mood and decrease feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress. It produces changes in the parts of the brain that regulate stress and anxiety. It can also increase brain sensitivity to the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine, which relieve feelings of depression. Additionally, exercise can increase the production of endorphins, which are known to help produce positive feelings and reduce the perception of pain. Interestingly, it doesn’t matter how intense your workout is. It seems that exercise can benefit your mood no matter the intensity of the physical activity.
2. Exercise helps with weight loss
Some studies have shown that inactivity is a major factor in weight gain and obesity. Regular exercise has been shown to increase your metabolic rate, which will burn more calories to help you lose weight. Additionally, studies have shown that combining aerobic exercise with resistance training can maximize fat loss and muscle mass maintenance, which is essential for keeping the weight off and maintaining lean muscle mass
3. Exercise is good for your muscles and bones
Exercise plays a vital role in building and maintaining strong muscles and bones. Activities like weightlifting can stimulate muscle building when paired with adequate protein intake. As people age, they tend to lose muscle mass and function, which can lead to an increased risk of injury. Practicing regular physical activity is essential to reducing muscle loss and maintaining strength as you age. Exercise also helps build bone density when you’re younger, in addition to helping prevent osteoporosis later in life
4. Exercise can increase your energy levels
Exercise can be a real energy booster for many people, including those with various medical conditions. Aerobic exercise boosts the cardiovascular system and improves lung health, which can significantly help with energy levels. As you move more, your heart pumps more blood, delivering more oxygen to your working muscles. With regular exercise, your heart becomes more efficient and adept at moving oxygen into your blood, making your muscles more efficient. Over time, this aerobic training results in less demand on your lungs, and it requires less energy to perform the same activities—one of the reasons you’re less likely to get short of breath during vigorous activity.
5. Exercise can reduce your risk of chronic disease
Lack of regular physical activity is a primary cause of chronic disease. Regular exercise has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, heart health, and body composition. It can also decrease blood pressure and cholesterol levels. More specifically, exercise can help reduce or prevent the following chronic health conditions.
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Type 2 diabetes: regular aerobic exercise may delay or prevent type 2 diabetes. It also has considerable health benefits for people with type 1 diabetes. Resistance training for type 2 diabetes includes improvements in fat mass, blood pressure, lean body mass, insulin resistance, and glycemic control.
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Heart disease: exercise reduces cardiovascular risk factors and is also a therapeutic treatment for people with cardiovascular disease.
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Many types of cancer: exercise can help reduce the risk of several cancers, including breast, colorectal, endometrial, gallbladder, kidney, lung, liver, ovarian, pancreatic, prostate, thyroid, gastric, and esophageal cancer.
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High cholesterol: regular moderate intensity physical activity can increase HDL (good) cholesterol while maintaining or offsetting increases in LDL (bad) cholesterol. Research supports the theory that high intensity aerobic activity is needed to lower LDL levels.
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Hypertension: participating in regular aerobic exercise can lower resting systolic BP 5–7 mmHG among people with hypertension. In contrast, a lack of regular exercise—even in the short term—can lead to significant increases in belly fat, which may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
6. Exercise can help skin health
Your skin can be affected by the amount of oxidative stress in your body. Oxidative stress occurs when the body’s antioxidant defenses cannot completely repair the cell damage caused by compounds known as free radicals. This can damage the structure of the cells and negatively impact your skin. Even though intense and exhaustive physical activity can contribute to oxidative damage, regular moderate exercise can actually increase your body’s production of natural antioxidants, which help protect cells. In the same way, exercise can stimulate blood flow and induce skin cell adaptations that can help delay the appearance of skin aging.
7. Exercise can help your brain health and memory
Exercise can improve brain function and protect memory and thinking skills. To begin with, it increases your heart rate, which promotes the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain. It can also stimulate the production of hormones that enhance the growth of brain cells. Plus, the ability of exercise to prevent chronic disease can translate into benefits for your brain, since its function can be affected by these conditions. Regular physical activity is especially important in older adults since aging—combined with oxidative stress and inflammation—promotes changes in brain structure and function. Exercise has been shown to cause the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s vital for memory and learning, to grow in size, which may help improve mental function in older adults.
Lastly, exercise has been shown to reduce changes in the brain that can contribute to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
8. Exercise can help with relaxation and sleep quality
Regular exercise can help you relax and sleep better. With regard to sleep quality, the energy depletion (loss) that occurs during exercise stimulates restorative processes during sleep.
9. Exercise can reduce pain
Although chronic pain can be debilitating, exercise can actually help reduce it. In fact, for many years, the recommendation for treating chronic pain was rest and inactivity. However, recent studies show that exercise helps relieve chronic pain. Several studies also show that exercise can help control pain associated with various health conditions, including chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia, and chronic soft tissue shoulder disorder, to name a few. Additionally, physical activity can also raise pain tolerance and decrease pain perception.