We all know that exercise is good for us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we take time to do it. I was an avid anti-exerciser for many years until I finally got tired of feeling rotten and decided to start walking daily. I was surprised to see what a huge improvement it made in my energy level and overall health, and now I crave my daily walk, much to my own surprise. You might be surprised to see how good you feel when you exercise, too.
Aerobic Exercise Benefits
Aerobic exercise presents a multitude of benefits to your health. Aerobic exercise, also known as cardio, is low intensity exercise like walking, jogging, swimming, or biking. It offers many major benefits to your health, including the following seven:
- It improves your level of physical fitness.
- It increases brain functioning.
- It can prevent many diseases, including Type 2 diabetes.
- It improves the health of your eyes.
- It reduces the risk of developing certain types of cancer.
- It improves your immune system.
- It helps you to create a good balance between work and life.
Aerobic exercise also improves the health and function of your heart and lungs. It lowers your blood pressure, helps the heart to pump and circulate more efficiently, and helps you breathe better.
Exercise Strengthens Your Brain
We tend to think of exercise as being good for the body, but it is also vital for the health of your brain. Exercising regularly affects hormones in the brain, which results in improved brain health and cognition. Taking regular exercise helps to prevent dementia and memory loss and can actually slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Exercise Prevents Chronic Diseases Associated with Obesity
Being overweight significantly increases your risk of developing a variety of chronic diseases, particularly Type 2 diabetes. In fact, people who are overweight increase their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by seven times. If you are obese, the risk is even higher. You can decrease the risk by exercising regularly and losing weight.
Exercise Improves Eye Health
Even your eyes can improve with exercise. Research has shown that damaged retinal nerve cells actually improve in both structure and function with exercise. Researchers believe that regular exercise can slow the progression of degenerative eye disease.
Exercise Reduces the Risk of Developing Breast Cancer
According to research, regular exercise affects the way that the body metabolises oestrogen, which in turn reduces the risk of developing breast cancer. Women who are undergoing treatment for breast cancer and are taking aromatase inhibitors often suffer from complicating joint pain. Moderate exercise can help to decrease the pain level.
Exercise Improves Immunity
Regular exercise can help protect your body from developing minor illnesses, like colds and viruses, as well as chronic inflammatory diseases. When you engage in aerobic activity, your body secretes myokines (a type of protein) from the muscle cells. This helps your body to grow new tissue and repair old tissue, which decreases your risk of developing inflammatory diseases.
Clearly, aerobic exercise presents many important benefits for your mind and body. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get started on an exercise programme. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be difficult or intense. All you need to do to get started is go for a walk each day.
Don’t forget to protect your feet. Head over to Foot Solutions to get started. We will measure you for shoes and help you to choose a pair that provides the comfort, support, and stability that you need. Visit Foot Solutions today to find the perfect pair of athletic shoes.
