There are many types of physical activity, including swimming, running, jogging, walking and dancing, to name a few. Here are the top 6 ways regular exercise benefits your body and brain.
1.It Can Make You Feel Happier
Exercise has been shown to improve your mood and decrease feelings of depression, anxiety and stress. It produces changes in the parts of the brain that regulate stress and anxiety. It can also increase brain sensitivity for the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine, which relieve feelings of depression. Additionally, exercise can increase the production of endorphins, which are known to help produce positive feelings and reduce the perception of pain.
Furthermore, exercise has been shown to reduce symptoms in people suffering from anxiety.
2.It Can Increase Your Energy Levels
Exercise can be a real energy booster for healthy people, as well as those suffering from various medical conditions. One study found that six weeks of regular exercise reduced feelings of fatigue for 36 healthy people who had reported persistent fatigue.
Furthermore, exercise can significantly increase energy levels for people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome and other serious illnesses.
3.It Can Help Skin Health
Your skin can be affected by the amount of oxidative-stress in your body.
Oxidative stress occurs when the body's antioxidant defenses cannot completely repair the damage that free radicals cause to cells. This can damage their internal structures and deteriorate your skin.
Even though intense and exhaustive physical activity can contribute to oxidative-damage, regular moderate exercise can increase your body's production of natural antioxidants, which help protect cells.
4.It Can Help Your Brain Health and Memory
Exercise can improve brain function and protect memory and thinking skills. To begin with, it increases your heart rate, which promotes the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain.
It can also stimulate the production of hormones that can enhance the growth of brain-cells.
Moreover, the ability of exercise to prevent chronic disease can translate into benefits for your brain, since its function can be affected by these diseases.
Exercise has been shown to cause the hippocampus, a part of the brain that's vital for memory and learning, to grow in size. This serves to increase mental function in older adults.
5.It Can Help with Relaxation and Sleep Quality
Regular exercise can help you relax and sleep-better.
In regards to sleep quality, the energy depletion that occurs during exercise stimulates recuperative processes during sleep.
Moreover, the increase in body temperature that occurs during exercise is thought to improve sleep quality by helping it drop during sleep. Many studies on the effects of exercise on sleep have reached similar conclusions.
One study found that 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity per week can provide up to a 65% improvement in sleep quality.
6.It Can Reduce Pain.
Chronic pain can be debilitating, but exercise can actually help reduce it. In fact, for many years, the recommendation for treating chronic pain was rest and inactivity. However, recent studies show that exercise helps relieve chronic pain.
0 Comments