One very important habit to adopt to stay healthy and happy is to exercise regularly. Regardless of age, sex and physical ability, exercising comes with load of benefits to the soul and body.
What then is exercise? Exercise is any movement that makes your body burn calories and makes your muscles work. There are several ways of exercising: running, jumping, swimming, jogging, dancing, walking, and many other kinds of body movement that qualify as exercising.
As a human being, you need at least 30 minutes of exercise daily to be fit mentally, physically and otherwise. Eating a balance diet alone is not enough to stay health, you need to devote time to exercise daily. It could be early in the morning, in the evening or spreading it out by walking every short distance during work hours.
There are basically three broad categories of exercise:
- Range-of-motion or stretching exercise,
- Endurance or conditioning exercise,
- Strengthening exercise.
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Every type of exercise falls under these three categories.
What are the benefits of exercising?
The benefits of exercising are numerous, but here are a few benefits.
- Exercise keeps your bones strong
- It helps you control your weight, maintain normal weight or loss weight
- Exercise helps keep the muscles strong
- Boosts circulation and delivery of nutrients to your skin
- Detoxifies the body, removing toxins
- Reduces the amount of stress hormones in the body resulting in slower heart rate, relaxed blood vessels and lower blood pressure
- Reduces symptoms of moderate depression and enhances psychological fitness
- Improves mood, reduces depression
- Jump-starts the immune-system, hence, reduces cold and flu
- Helps the brain to function better, sharpen memory, improves thinking
- Helps control addiction
- Prevents cognitive decline
- Alleviates anxiety
- Promotes better sex life
- Improve sleep quality
- Reduces risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, type II diabetes and others
- Reduces pain
- It makes you look younger
- Helps you live longer.
These may not be all the benefits of exercise as researches are still ongoing on other health benefits of exercise.
However, it is important to state that when we exercise, our body produces more heat, which is good. But to avoid dehydration, it is recommended that you take water before the exercise, and if thirsty while exercising, you can take some more water.
