Regular physical activity is a major key when comes to living a healthy lifestyle and has many benefits. The biggest benefit is that physical activity helps improve your overall health overtime.
Regular physical activity can improve your heart health. The heart is to your body what an engine is to a car. Essentially, the heart makes the body go. Regular physical activity can improve the efficiency of the heart by lowering your blood pressure, reducing risk of a heart attack, and reduces risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. Regular physical activity can lead to increased bone, muscle, and joint strength which can lower risk of developing osteoporosis.
Regular physical activity is not something that just helps your heart, bones, and muscle health. Regular exercise has shown to improve our daily moods and contributes to increased and sustained energy. Studies have shown regular physical activity helps you feel more relaxed and helps improve our sleep and sleeping patterns. Moving our bodies is also great for the mind, a number of studies have shown that regular physical activity can help depression by blocking negative thoughts, and changing levels of chemicals in the brain, such as stress hormones, endorphins and serotonin levels. Incorporating regular activity into your day can help keep your thinking, learning and judgement skills sharp as you age.
Regular physical activity is also known to play a critical role in weight management, whether that is maintaining weight or losing weight. The easiest way to start your regular physical activity is walking. Walking for 30 minutes, 5 days a week can go a long way. This type of regular physical activity can increase the chances of living longer. The risk of premature death for adults 60 years and younger starts to level off right at around 8,000 and 10,000 steps a day.
Regular physical activity is a main component to living a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. With regular physical activity you are not only going to increase your health but change your quality of life. How do you plan to increase your physical activity this week?