Benefits of getting your body moving!
Exercise is defined as any movement that makes your muscles work and requires your body to burn calories. There are many types of physical activity, including swimming, running, jogging, walking, and dancing, to name a few.
Being active has been shown to have many health benefits, both physically and mentally. It may even help you live longer. Here are just some of the ways regular exercise benefits your body and brain!
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 to 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.
Interestingly, it doesn’t matter how intense your workout is. It seems that exercise can benefit your mood no matter the intensity of the physical activity. In fact, in a study in 24 women diagnosed with depression, exercise of any intensity significantly decreased feelings of depression.
The effects of exercise on mood are so powerful that choosing to exercise (or not) even makes a difference over short periods of time. One review of 19 studies found that active people who stopped exercising regularly experienced significant increases in symptoms of depression and anxiety, even after only a few weeks.
Some studies have shown that inactivity is a major factor in weight gain and obesity! To understand the effect of exercise on weight reduction, it is important to understand the relationship between exercise and energy expenditure (spending).
Your body spends energy in three ways:- digesting food
- exercising
- maintaining body functions, like your heartbeat and breathing
While dieting, a reduced calorie intake will lower your metabolic rate, which can temporarily delay weight loss. On the contrary, regular exercise has been shown to increase your metabolic rate, which can burn more calories to help you lose weight. Additionally, studies have shown that combining aerobic exercise with resistance training can maximise fat loss and muscle mass maintenance, which is essential for keeping the weight off and maintaining lean muscle mass.
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 cell damage caused by compounds known as free radicals. This can damage the structure of the cells and negatively impact your skin.
Even though intense and exhaustive physical activity can contribute to oxidative damage, regular moderate exercise can actually increase your body’s production of natural antioxidants, which help protect cells. In the same way, exercise can stimulate blood flow and induce skin cell adaptations that can help delay the appearance of skin ageing.
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 enhance the growth of brain cells. Plus, the ability of exercise to prevent chronic disease can translate into benefits for your brain, since its function can be affected by these conditions.
Regular physical activity is especially important in older adults since ageing — combined with oxidative stress and inflammation — promotes changes in brain structure and function. Exercise has been shown to cause the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s vital for memory and learning, to grow in size, which may help improve mental function in older adults. Lastly, exercise has been shown to reduce changes in the brain that can contribute to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.