Exercise is good for our health
Prevention is far better than cure and being physically active and eating a healthy balanced diet is the best thing that you can do to look after your health.
Looking after your back
Exercise helps to keep the spine flexible and able to cope with the movements that it is designed to do. It also helps to keep the muscles that support the spine strong and equally balanced so that there are no weaknesses that could lead to injury.
Looking after your heart
The heart is a muscle and like any muscle it responds well to exercise, making it stronger and more efficient at pumping blood around the body. Exercise helps to improve blood circulation which can reduce the risk of developing clots or the build-up of fatty deposits in the coronary arteries which can cause a heart attack or angina.
Looking after your cholesterol levels
Exercise helps to keep the ‘bad’ cholesterol (LDL) at a healthy level and it increases the ‘good’ cholesterol, HDL which lowers the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes type 2.
Looking after your blood pressure
Exercise helps to keep blood pressure at a healthy level which reduces the force that the heart has to work against to pump blood around the body. This can reduce the risk of developing heart disease and a stroke.
Looking after your glucose levels
Exercise helps to keep your blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose and body fat at healthy levels which reduces the risk of developing diabetes type 2.
Looking after your mental health
Regular physical activity can help with poor mental health not only because of the improvement to our overall fitness but the social aspect that it brings: meeting new people, having a place to go regularly and the enjoyment factor. It also helps to improve lethargy and sleep patterns.
Looking after your joints
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease due to wear and tear or damage to the smooth cushion (cartilage) between the bones, sometimes due to ageing, hereditary or injury. Regular exercise can help to increase muscle strength around joints to protect them so that there is a delay, or even postpone, the need for a joint replacement.
Looking after our bones
Weight bearing exercises such as walking, jogging, jumping, dancing and resistance training helps to build and maintain bone density by stimulating bone growth. Inactivity can lead to the development of osteoporosis which is a condition that affects the bones making them weaker, fragile and more likely to break.