Health And Exercise

Today, people live in a very technologically evolved society. This has many benefits in terms of making their lives easier, more comfortable, and more convenient. In fact, it makes their lives a bit too convenient. Now people take their cars to and from work, we sit at a desk all day, and come home to houses that are heated and cooled automatically, and that have water available at the turn of a tap. Car, indoor plumbing, computers, these might seem like commonplace things, but they are all relatively recent inventions, and they all lead to their living sedentary lifestyles.

This means that people do actually not get enough exercise, which is one of the primary causes of overweight and obesity, which, in turn, cause high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and premature death. Even a small increase in the daily level of physical activity can dramatically improve the health. For every bit of exercise people do in a day, they use up calories, which translates into weight loss, and maintenance of healthy weight. The more people do, the less they are at risk of developing number one killers like heart disease and certain types of cancer.

Regular physical activity or work out can also help people to combat depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. These are often caused by chemicals that build up in their bodies until they flood their systems and make them feel miserable. Exercise helps the body to flush these excess chemicals out. Furthermore, the musculoskeletal and immune systems benefit hugely from regular exercise. This is important when people are young, of course, but many people do not realize that it is just as important in our later years.

Older people need physical activity or work outs in order to maintain their immune systems, and to keep their muscles, joints, and bones strong. This reduces the risk of falling, improves internal coordination, and defends against many of the illnesses and injuries that tend to plague us later in life. But people should not jump off the couch like a crazy person and begin an intense anaerobic exercise regimen. Many people who want to become more physically active fail because they begin by setting tremendous, dramatic goals that are impossible to achieve. People should not be exercising just to get healthy. They need exercise in order to be healthy, and that means that they are going to need to get into doing regular physical activity on a daily or near-daily basis, for the rest of our lives.

This may seem discouraging at first, but people should never let themselves to get overwhelmed. In fact they do not need to run 10 K every day, or do two hundred crunches every morning, in order to be active. Studies show that moderate levels of daily physical work out will dramatically improve the health of a sedentary person, and that any increase in their regular exercise level has big health benefits. This means that if people can walk at a brisk pace, cycle, or swim for just 30 minutes each day, or even every second day, they will be reducing their risk of contracting heart disease, diabetes, and other obesity-related health problems that lead to a difficult, unhealthy old age, or even to premature death.

• John Palsson
• 11/12/2008, 8:59 AM
• 0 Comments