If you want to have more energy, feel better, and even add a few years to your lifespan, all you need to do is exercise.
The benefits of physical activity and regular exercise are difficult to ignore. Everyone can benefit from exercising, no matter their age, physical ability, or sex.
If you need a bit more convincing to get you moving, check out the following rewards of exercising.
A Fitness Credit Card?
Not all of the benefits of exercising and staying active are related to your health. Now, there is an app that rewards you for staying active, and you can even get your own fitness credit card along with it! This app tracks the amount of time that you’re active. If your heart rate goes above a certain threshold and remains there for a certain period of time, you get rewarded.
Aging
You don’t need to be an athlete to improve the length of your life. Moderate and regular activity, like walking briskly, can actually help those determined to stave off the process of aging. Of course, nothing can stop the passing of time, but exercise can help to slow down the results. It can even increase life expectancy by quite a few years in some instances. As an example, if you exercise for more than 150 minutes each week, your life might be as much as 7 years longer than those who don’t exercise. This benefit is regardless of health conditions, age, and weight.
Weight
Physical activity can assist with the prevention of additional weight gain and even help to maintain any weight loss. When you’re physically active, you’re burning calories. The more intense the activity is, the more calories you’re burning.
Even though going to the gym on the regular is fantastic, you shouldn’t worry if you can’t sacrifice a lot of time daily for it. Getting any activity at all is better than nothing. Try taking the stairs as opposed to the elevator or rev up the energy as you’re completing household chores.
Sleep
Do you find it difficult to get to sleep at night? Regular exercise can assist you when it comes to falling asleep faster, getting better sleep, and snoozing deeper. Just try not to get too much exercise too close to going to bed. If you do, you might find that you have too much energy to drift off.
Diseases and Health Conditions
If you’re worried about preventing high blood pressure or heart disease, regardless of what your weight is, being active tends to boost HDL (high density lipoprotein) cholesterol. It can also decrease triglycerides that aren’t healthy. This means your blood can flow more smoothly and in turn, reduces the risk of cardiovascular issues.
Regular exercise can also help to manage or prevent quite a few other health issues, such as stroke, high blood pressure, depression, diabetes, and more. On top of that, it can improve your cognitive function and help to lower your risk of death from many causes.
Energy
If you find that you’re winded by your household chores or the grocery shopping, regular activity can boost that endurance and improve your muscle strength. That’s because exercise delivers nutrients and oxygen to the tissues while making the cardiovascular system more efficient. When your lung and heart health improves, you’ll find you have more energy to get things done.
If you’ve not been overly active or are considering increasing the amount of activity you get, make sure you have a conversation with your doctor about it first. Based on whatever your current health might be, your physician might have a few recommendations for types of activities you should try and the number of reps to incorporate.