7 Reasons Why Physical Exercise Is Important

1. Helps Control Your Weight:

Who doesn’t want to lose weight or to maintain an ideal body weight for an entire lifespan? We all know that the right diet and physical exercise regime can help you with both. Exercise can help you burn off extra calories. These calories are the ones that are responsible for you piling on the extra kilos, one pizza a time.
So what do you do to maintain your weight? You can start by walking as it is the safest physical activity. Walking does not harm your body in any way. It is healthy for your joints, heart and muscles. You can make walking more intensive by increasing the pace and duration of your walk. Aerobic exercises and playing games can be the next on your list. This can help you by keeping your weight constant. We suggest that you do at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day to stay healthy and to maintain your weight. And you can accomplish this by simply being more active at home.
If you can’t join yoga classes or gym every day, just get more active throughout the day — take the stairs instead of the lift or fire your housemaid and clean your house instead of watching TV.
However, if you want to lose weight, just brisk walking for 30 minutes a day will not do the job. You will have to work up some sweat doing aerobics and also cut down
on fats and calories to trim the flab.

2. Reduces Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease:

Moderate exercise cuts down on the risk of both heart disease and stroke, leading causes of death. Just 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise can lower your risk for these 2 killers.
Regular physical activity can also lower elevated blood pressure and also get your rampant cholesterol levels back in control keeping your heart healthy.

3. Reduces Your Risk For Type 2 Diabetes And Metabolic Syndrome:

We all know that regular physical activity can bring down blood sugar levels and thus lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes and also a metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is an extremely dangerous condition where you can have a combination of too much abdominal fat, high BP, low good or HDL cholesterol, high triglyceride levels responsible for heart disease, and high blood sugar.
Research shows that regular exercise lowers your propensity to suffer from diabetes and metabolic syndrome after just 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise. You can reduce your risk further by increasing the time of physical activity.
If you already suffer from diabetes, regular exercise will help you control your blood glucose levels and prevent damage to your vital organs.

4. Reduces Cancer Risks:

Being physically active can keep you safe from breast and colon cancer. Research shows that people who regularly exercise have lower risks of colon cancer as compared to sedentary people. Similarly, physically active women carry lower risks of breast cancer.
There are linkages between endometrial and lung cancer too. Although the research is not yet over, few findings suggest that if you regularly exercise your risk of endometrial cancer and lung cancer may be lower.

5. Strengthens Bones And Muscles:

Osteoporosis is common in post-menopausal women because, in absence of optimum levels of the hormone oestrogen which protects bones, the bones start leaching out calcium. This makes bones weak and fragile and can lead to fractures and breakages of bones due to small injuries. Research shows that women can lower their risk for osteoporosis through regular exercise. Even moderate exercises like walking and swimming protect women from osteoporosis.

Evidence also suggests that older people, in general, benefit the most from doing moderate muscle and bone strengthening activity daily. Oldies that do about 130 min. moderate aerobic exercise has a lower risk of hip fractures, a life-altering condition for older adults. Regular exercise can also help you manage pain due to arthritis and other conditions affecting the joints.

6. Builds Strong, Healthy Muscles:

Exercise especially weight training increases and maintain muscle mass. You must have noticed that as we age, we kind of shrink. We lose both height and girth. This can be attributed to muscle shrinkage. Exercise can take care of this effectively. This helps you to maintain proper balance and prevent falls as you age.

7. Keeps You Happier:

Exercise is the best bulwark against mental diseases like depression. Regular exercise releases mood-enhancing endorphins into the blood stream which help keep the blues away.

Endorphins trigger a happy feeling in your body, similar to that of morphine. Ask runners and they describe a “euphoric” feeling after a workout. That’s their endorphins speaking. This is also known as a “runner’s high,” and can be accompanied by a positive outlook on life.

Endorphins act as analgesics, which mean that they reduce pain. They also act as sedatives.

This is perhaps the main reason that regular exercise has been proven to reduce stress levels and ward off anxiety and feelings of depression.

Physical activity is very good for the brain too. This is the reason that when low, it’s always better to go for a stroll, preferably in a garden.

You may also feel good and more confident about the way you look and about yourself in general when you exercise regularly as physical activity improves your self-esteem.

Exercising with others in a gym or yoga studio also boosts social contact and this is vital for alleviating symptoms of depression. And if you have fewer aches and pains, it also improves your outlook and mood, doesn’t it?