23 health benefits of exercise & physical activity for adults

health benefits of exercise book

Updates: 05/5/2014

A lot of people hit the gym or pound the pavement to boost their cardiovascular health, or build muscles, and get rocking body as well. For the past decades, studies showed that physical activity and exercise can help people improve their overall health naturally and safely. Today, take a walk with me to explore how exercise can be beneficial for the human health via top 23 health benefits of exercise and physical activity for adults & elderly right below.

I. General Health Benefits Of Exercise And Physical Activities For Adults

health benefits of exercise free1. Decrease Stress

As usual, people often get stressed after hard working days at the office. Then, taking a walk or going to the gym for quick workouts will be the best solution to relieve stress. In fact, one of the most popular health benefits of exercise is stress reduction. Due to exercising, you will work up with sweat; therefore, you will manage physical as well as mental stress. By exercising, people also can improve their concentration dramatically with a chemical called norepinephrine, which can moderate the response of brain to stress. Hence, right from today, you should go ahead to do exercise and get sweaty working out in order to alleviate your stress and enhance the ability of your body to handle with mental tension. That is simple win-win!

2. Promote Happy Chemicals

Exercise can release endorphins that create the feelings of happiness and euphoria. Even, studies indicated that exercise could lessen the symptoms among the clinically depressed. So, experts recommend those people who are feeling stressed or just blue to go the gym regularly to control their problem. In several cases, exercise could be considered as the most effective antidepressant pills in curing depression. You do not need to count on the hours spending on gym, just 30 minutes of exercising several times per week could immediately speed up your overall mood

3. Regulate Blood Pressure

Regular physical activity could regulate blood pressure in those people with imbalance blood pressure levels. Physical activity also alleviates body fatness, which is associated with high blood pressure.

4. Enhance Self-Confidence

health benefits of exercise bookWhen exercising, you will naturally boost self-esteem as well as promote self-image. Regardless of weight, gender, size, or age, physical activity or exercise will rapidly elevate the perception of a person of his / her attractiveness, that is, self-worth.

5. Heart Disease And Stroke

Daily exercise could assist you in preventing heart disease and stroke by strengthening your heart muscle, enhancing your good cholesterol levels called high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and lowering bad cholesterol levels named low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Also, it can boost blood flow and enhance your heart’s working capacity. Once you optimize these above factors, they can supply extra benefits of reducing the risk from Peripheral vascular disease.

6. Prevent Cognitive Reduction

When people get older, it is unpleasant, but it is true, their brains get a little hazy. As degenerative and aging diseases, such as Alzheimer’s kill the brain cells, the noggin really shrinks, reducing a lot of important brain functions in the process. Whilst a healthy diet and exercise cannot cure Alzheimer’s, they could shore up the brain against the reduction of cognitive functions which start after the age of 45. Exercise, especially between the age 25 and 45, can increase the chemicals in the brain which prevent the degeneration of the hippocampus, a critical part of the brain for learning and memory.

7. Speed Up Brain Power

Logging miles on the treadmill can give people a trim body, but adding more cardio to your life will also boost your productivity, renew your energy and turn you into an unstoppable success machine.

Just one 30-minute cardio session can pumps extra blood to the brain, delivering the nutrients and oxygen it needs to perform at its best. Cardio also floods the brain with chemicals, which boost other functions, like problem solving, memory, decision making. Recently, some studies found that this kind of exercise can lead to permanent structural changes to the brain.

health benefits of exercise for seniors

8. Maintain Healthy Weight

Exercise could prevent excess weight gain and maintain weight loss. When you engage in physical activities, you will be able to burn calories. The more intense the exercise is, the more calories you can burn. It is not necessary for you to set aside too many hours for exercise in order to reap weight loss benefits. In case that you cannot engage in actual workout, you can get active throughout the day by taking stairs instead of using elevator.

9. Control Addiction

Exercise can help addicted recovery. Short exercise sessions could also efficiently distract alcohol or drug addicts, making the de-prioritize cravings. Over-consumption alcohol can disrupt many body processes, result in serious outcomes. One of them is sleep disorders. As recommendation, when working out, alcoholics will fall asleep naturally without drinking alcohol. Exercise can help reboot the body clock, helping people feel asleep at the right time.

health benefits of exercise pdf

10. Get Things Done Easily

When you feel uninspired in the cubicle, then you should spend time on walking or jogging. By this way, you will be more productive and have higher energy levels than normal. Whist busy schedules could make it tough to do regular workouts in gym clubs in the middle of the day, some experts claim that midday is the ideal time for doing exercise because of the body’s circadian rhythms.

11. Help With Arthritis Sufferers

As you age, it is critical to protect your bones, joints, and muscles as well. Keeping healthy bones, joints, and muscles also ensure that you can do your daily activities and be physically active. Doing muscle-strengthening, bone-strengthening physical activity or aerobic exercises can slow the loss of bone density which comes with age.

Regular physical activity helps arthritis as well as other condition impacting the joints.  In case that you have arthritis, doing moderate-intensity or low-impact activity aerobic activity could not only enhance your own ability to manage pain, but also makes your life better.

12.  Promote Better Sleep

health benefits of exercise articlesIf you are struggling to fall asleep, or stay sleep, then regular exercise will assist you in falling asleep more quickly and deepening your sleep. However, you should not exercise too close your bedtime because you might be too energized to feel sleepy.

People can refer ways to stop snoring and other sleep disorders in our website right here.  

13. Boost Your Sex Life

Do you feel too exhausted to enjoy physical intimacy? Then, regular activity can help you look better, feel energized, leading to positive effects on the sex life. However, there is more to it than that. Doing exercise regularly will lead to improved arousal for female. With men who exercise daily are less likely to have problems with erectile dysfunction than those who do not exercise.

14. Improve Skin Condition

When it comes to health benefits of exercise, we cannot overlook the effect on skin. Exercise can boost circulation and the delivery of nutrients and oxygen to the skin, helping to detoxify your body by removing poisons.

When exercise boosts oxygen to your skin, it also increases the natural production of collagen, the connective tissue which plumps the skin. Also, your skin is improved after doing exercise due to the enhancement in blood flow.

15. Lift The Mood

health benefits of exercise and physical educationAs mentioned above, regular exercise alleviates the symptoms of depression and boosts psychological fitness. Even, it can produce positive changes in some chemical levels in the body, which might have an impact on the psychological state.

Endorphins are hormones associated with a positive, happy feeling. A low level of endorphins is linked with depression. When exercising, this substance will be increased. Therefore, it might help people ease symptoms of stress and depression. In other words, exercise can promote the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain, which sends specific messages among brain cells. Though only a small amount of all serotonin is located in the human brain, this neurotransmitter still plays a key role in keeping the mood calm.

16. Reduce Cancer Risk

Many studies confirmed that the chances of suffering from some types of cancers could be greatly decreased in regularly active people. Physically active women tend to have a lower risk of breast cancer than people who are not active.

In reality, physical activity protects you from developing certain cancers, containing colon and breast cancer, and possibly lung and endometrial (uterine lining) cancer. Physical activity most likely influences the development of colon cancer in multiple ways. Physical activity might protect against colon cancer and tumor development through its role in hormone metabolism, insulin regulation, energy balance, and by reducing the time the colon is exposed to potential carcinogens. In other words, exercise also alters some inflammatory and immune factors, some of which might influence colon cancer risk.

II. Health Benefits Of Exercise And Physical Activity For Elderly

1. Increase Metabolism

Moderate exercises are good for older adults. They help to boost metabolism that tents to slow with their ages. Besides, exercise also helps old people maintain muscle mass and burn calories to stay motivated.

2. Reduce Chronic Diseases And Illnesses

For over 50 year old adults, exercise helps reduce illnesses and chronic diseases. As a result, they will have the improved immune function, heart health, controlled blood pressure levels, stronger bone density, and better digestion. It is also proven that older people who take exercise regularly have lower risks of chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, osteoporosis and colon cancer.

3. Enhance Flexibility, Balance And Mobility health benefits of exercise with enhance flexibility, balance and mobility

Exercise is an essential part of the elderly’s health care to enhance flexibility & mobility, posture, coordination and balance. Strength exercises also help alleviate chronic conditions related to flexibility in older people like arthritis and falls.

4. Prevent Dementia

Exercise helps enhance brain functions and control brain disorders in the elderly. It keeps their brain being active, prevent cognitive decline, memory loss and dementia.

5. Prevent Injuries & Muscle Weakness

Many older people of the age 60s have serious health consequences like the loss of independence, hip fracture, institutionalization, muscle weakness, weak legs, reduced grip strength, poor balance, cognitive impairment, visual impairment, impaired gait, injuries and death caused by falls and other injuries. By regularly taking exercise, they can lower the risk of those unexpected injuries and aging problems.

Among these health problems in the elderly, muscle weakness is the biggest risk causing their falls and injuries. Tai Chi exercise is considered an ideal method to improve balance, so it helps reduce the risk of falling for seniors.

Read on: How To Prevent Sports Injuries

6. Cure Diabetes

As you know, diabetes is linked to obesity and overweight. In older people, the ratio of their muscles to the fat declines and it raises their insulin resistance, a contributor of diabetes.

Doing exercise regularly can actually protect you from diabetes. A study indicated that non-diabetic older people with borderline-elevated blood sugar levels practiced more physical activities and they had lower incidences of diabetes, in the comparison with the controlled group.

Both strength training and aerobic exercise routines can help control blood sugar levels in patients who have diabetes. In other words, lifestyle habits, including exercise is a natural remedy to control sugar levels and save old peoples from diabetes. Remember to choose the right exercises for seniors, if not they may get unwanted effects and unsolvable consequences.

7. Reduce The Development Of Knee Osteoarthritis health benefits of exercise with reduce the development of knee osteoarthritis

Knee osteoarthritis rises quickly after the ages from 50 to 80. According to a study, there is 50% of women and 1/3 of men suffer from knee osteoarthritis. The osteoarthritis progresses can increase pain, reduce mobility and cause difficulty in daily activities for seniors. As a result, this symptom leads the elderly to the disability and reduces the quality of their lives. To prevent knee osteoarthritis, as an adult among middle ages, you should take exercise regularly to enhance mobility and reduce the risks of symptomatic osteoarthritis.

Working out can have positive effects far beyond the gym. Gaining different health benefits of exercise like confidence improvement, muscle building, or smarter thinking are some of the most typical health benefits of exercise, which are also the motivations for you to take tie for exercise on a regular basis.

If you are interested in this topic, leave your comments at the end of this post to let us know what you think. We will answer all soon!

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