Some people struggle to find reasons to exercise but get motivated when they discover all the benefits that exercise provides. You already know that exercise is healthy for you, but the question is how healthy?
Exercise will enhance your life in many ways. It will add years to your life, put you in a better mood, and increase your overall energy.
Regular physical activity and exercise have many positive health effects that are difficult to deny, but unfortunately, many people aren't exercising and are becoming ill due to their inactivity.
Without immediate steps to encourage people to become more active, our planet will face an epidemic of preventable diseases like cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
Some studies even show that nearly 500 million people will become seriously ill by 2030 due to a lack of physical activity.
Let's dive into the various benefits exercise provides so you can make sure you don't become one of these statistics.
Weight Loss and Fights Disease
Exercise helps support significant weight loss if done correctly.
Calorie burning occurs during physical exertion, so you burn more calories when you engage in more vigorous exercise. In general, people who exercise more move more easily and efficiently.
People who exercise more often can play sports with their kids and dance at social events without feeling terrible the next day.
With that being said, any type of exercise you do is better than doing nothing at all. Regular weight training strengthens your neuromuscular connections. This improves a person's ability to control their body in general.
Injuries during training and in daily life are reduced as a result of regular exercise.
Weight loss and exercise can also help prevent:
- Stroke
- Metabolic syndrome
- High blood pressure
- Type 2 diabetes
- Different types of cancer
- Arthritis
- Heart Disease
Taking action to help prevent these diseases is a great reason to exercise.
Fights Depression and Anxiety
Depression and Anxiety. These two feelings are terrible for the body and soul, and it seems like people are dealing with this more now than ever before. Use exercise to combat them.
Exercise offers a way for individuals with depression and anxiety to direct that negative energy at something which physically exhausts the neuromuscular system.
By exhausting the neuromuscular system, you are essentially helping your body calm down, feel relaxed, and push away that anxious feeling.
Along with this, when you exercise a combination of biochemical hormones is released. These include epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine.
Epinephrine
Epinephrine is essentially a fancy scientific word for adrenaline and is pumped into the bloodstream from the adrenal glands. It widens our airways and blood vessels, which supply our muscles with more oxygen and increases the amount of blood flowing to our brains.
All of this increases our alertness, sharpens our senses, and promotes the release of positive energy.
Norepinephrine
Norepinephrine is another neurotransmitter/hormone that gets released when you exercise. This increases your heart rate and helps break down fat.
This chemical increases energy and alertness while also preventing those feelings of depression.
Dopamine
Dopamine, also known as the "happy hormone," is a neurotransmitter that is released in response to physical exercise. Dopamine is released in the brain when you engage in enjoyable activities such as eating food, hanging with friends, and yes- exercising.
Every time that you exercise, dopamine is released and reminds your brain that this is an awesome experience and that you should do this activity more often.
All of these biochemicals will help you fight anxiety and escape depression which is a great reason to exercise.
Makes You Tougher
Once you establish personal control over your fitness and health, you see how much of all other parts of your life are still under your control.
As mentioned earlier, different brain chemicals are stimulated by physical activity, which may make you feel happier, more at ease, and less stressed.
Sometimes after those long days at work, the last thing you want to do is hit the bench press or stationary bike.
However, when you make the choice to engage in vigorous exercise, even when you don't feel like it, helps create the mental fortitude necessary to accomplish other important things in life you don't feel like doing.
Due to your actions, both your body and your mind become stronger.
Increases Energy
The reason why you don't have energy to workout is because you don't workout.
Your energy is one of the most important parts of your success. Those days when you feel sluggish and groggy might have to do with your lack of exercise.
If you have no energy, how can you expect to accomplish your goals?
Every day isn’t going to be your best day, but if you can get some type of exercise in then you are ultimately going to feel more energetic.
Exercise helps your circulatory system function more effectively and distributes oxygen and nutrients to your tissues. You will have greater energy to complete daily tasks as your heart and lung health improves.
Reasons to Exercise
Exercising has so many benefits that are important for your success.
Your life will benefit greatly from exercise. It will lengthen your life, improve your attitude, and give you more vitality all around.
Don't believe it? Try it out.
