According to a survey, only 23% of Americans exercise enough to keep them healthy and fit. One of the biggest reasons why people don't exercise as much as they should (some don't exercise at all) is the lack of time. We're living in a fast-paced world. Our routines are so hectic that making time for exercise becomes impossible. Whatever reason you've got for not exercising, you aren't doing yourself any good.
We spend most of our days sitting in one place thanks to our sedentary lifestyles. We don't engage in healthy physical activities as much as we should, which has put us at a massive risk of developing serious health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and musculoskeletal disorders.
This blog post intends to educate you on why regular exercise is so important and how you can incorporate it into your routine without compromising on the work that keeps you away from it in the first place.
The Many Benefits of Exercise
We all know exercise is healthy for you, but how exactly? How is it that moving some muscles and sweating a bit can do good for our overall health and well-being?
Well, exercise offers a lot more benefits than just working your muscles up and burning calories that can help you lose weight. There are so many more ways in which exercise can benefit you. We've listed the many benefits of regular exercise below to help you understand why we stress so much about incorporating exercise into your life.
Helps You Lose and Maintain Weight
One of the most obvious and known benefits of exercise is weight loss. Exercise helps you burn calories and lose weight. If you've already achieved your ideal weight, exercising regularly can help you maintain it. Now, you may argue that why put yourself under so much physical stress when you can diet and lose weight?
Well, you may not know this, but limiting your calorie intake lowers your metabolic rate (the rate at which the body burns calories), and this can delay your weight loss. However, when you exercise, your metabolic rate increases and you burn calories faster and lose weight more quickly.
Strengthens Muscles and Bones
Exercise strengthens muscles and bones by building muscle mass and improving bone density. Exercise enhances your muscle's ability to absorb amino acids and reduce muscle breakdown by promoting the release of specific hormones. It becomes even more important to exercise as you age because as you grow older, your muscle mass reduces.
Exercising will help build muscle mass and reduce muscle loss, thereby ensuring the strength of your muscles. High-impact exercises like cycling and swimming are also known to improve bone density and strengthen your bones. With stronger muscles and bones, the risk of injuries like fractures is greatly reduced.
Improves Your Mood
If you feel stressed and gloomy due to workload or personal reasons, you'll be surprised to know that exercise can reduce stress levels and improve your mood. When you exercise, there are certain changes in parts of your brain that regulate anxiety and stress. This increases your brain's sensitivity to norepinephrine and serotonin, more commonly referred to as feel-good hormones. Having said that, you'll instantly feel elated, happier, and de-stressed after an episode of exercise.
Boosts Your Energy
While you may think that exercise can drain your energy, it's actually the opposite. You may feel fatigued initially, but eventually, you'll feel more pumped and reenergized. Not only exercising reduces fatigue, but it also boosts lung and cardiovascular health.
When you exercise, your heart will pump more blood to meet the oxygen requirements of your muscles. Exercising regularly makes the heart more efficient, which means your muscles will receive plenty of oxygen at all times. The muscles will become stronger, and you won't feel fatigued following an episode of even the smallest physical task.
When the muscles get sufficient oxygen, the lung load is reduced, improving overall respiratory health. You'll notice how less you experience a shortage of breath once your body has become accustomed to physical activity. This is a sign that your lungs and heart health have improved and are performing well.
Reduces Risk of Type-2 Diabetes
Exercising regularly improves insulin sensitivity and lowers the risk of you developing type-2 diabetes. Lack of physical activity can lead to insulin resistance, where your body doesn't respond to insulin, resulting in blood sugar hikes. However, regular exercise prevents that from happening.
Reduces Risk of Heart Diseases
As we said earlier, exercise improves cardiac health by enhancing its pumping efficiency. By doing so, it reduces the risk of you developing chronic heart diseases like hypertension and stroke. Regular exercise also increases the good cholesterol (HDL) and keeps bad cholesterol (LDL) in check, thereby further reducing the risk of heart disease.
Boosts Brain Health
Exercise also boosts your brain health and overall brain function. Exercising improves the heart's pumping efficiency, which means the heart pumps blood more efficiently to all parts of the body, including the brain. An adequate supply of oxygen promotes the growth of new brain cells. This enhances the functionality of the brain and also improves your memory. Exercise makes you mentally sharper, which helps you in every aspect of your life.
Improves Sleep Quality
Do you find it hard to fall asleep? Well, you can benefit from exercise. Exercise causes depletion of energy stores because your muscles utilize all the energy when you work them up. This stimulates sleep because when you sleep, the body initiates restorative processes. Not only this, exercise raises your body temperature. This results in better sleep quality due to the fact that body temperature drops back to normal during sleep.
Boosts Sex Drive
One of the lesser-known benefits of exercise is the boost in sex drive. As you know by now, regular exercise improves the blood-pumping efficiency of your heart, tones your muscles, and enhances flexibility, improving your sex drive (and your sex life!).
How Can You Incorporate Exercise into Your Routine?
What comes to your mind when you hear the word "exercise"? Most people would say a gym. Well, that's where people are mistaken. People think going to the gym is the only way to incorporate exercise into their life, but in reality, incorporating healthy physical activity into your day-to-day life isn't all that difficult.
Activities like walking, jogging, and climbing stairs are also forms of exercise. Let's look at some of the many ways you can make exercise a part of your daily life.
Walk to Work
Walking helps you burn calories and enjoy all the benefits of exercise, like improved heart health, reduced stress levels, etc. If you don't have the time to exercise, start walking to work. If your workplace is far from home, park your car a bit far from your office's entrance and walk the remaining distance.
Take the Stairs
Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. Climbing the stairs improves leg power and reduces the risk of injury due to falls. It also helps you maintain a healthy weight and boosts muscle, bone, and joint health.
Don't Have Lunch on Your Workstation
Take the lunch hour as an opportunity to exercise. Instead of having lunch at your workstation, walk to the nearest café or a park and enjoy your lunch there. Not only will you get the chance to take in some fresh air, but you'll also eliminate the fatigue build-up from prolonged sitting.
Invest in a Fitness Office Chair
Replace your regular office chair and invest in a fitness office chair like the F1 Sit2Go 2-in-1 Fitness Chair. It's a 2-in-1 chair with a seat where you can sit and work and pedals that allow you to cycle while working. With a fitness office chair (or desk bike), you can work out while working without having to compromise on any one thing.
Use an Under-Desk Treadmill
The treadmill is one of the finest exercise machines ever. They enable you to walk and stay fit without having to leave home. However, using a regular treadmill means you'll have to take time out to use it. This is where an under-desk treadmill comes to your rescue.
An under-desk treadmill is a compact treadmill that can be adjusted under your standing desk at work, and you can use a treadmill while you're working on your computer. With an under-desk treadmill, you don't have to worry about compromising your work or fitness!
Final Word
Exercise impacts various aspects of your health, including physical, mental, and psychological. When you exercise, you don't just feel healthier, but you also feel happier and more active. A lot of people don't exercise today, primarily because they don't have the time for it. But as they say, when there's a will, there's a way! If you're really committed to your health and well-being, you can incorporate exercise into your life with zero hassles!
