Physical activity

Benefits

Physical activity decreases the risk of:

Physical activity:

1. Maintains a healthy weight – increases the amount of energy expenditure; therefore, helps maintain optimal weight or reduce overweight and obesity. In addition, it also impacts the appearance and boosts self-confidence.

2. Prevents various diseases:

• Increases HDL levels (the good cholesterol) and decreases triglyceride (the bad fats) levels in the blood 👩‍🎓
• Trains the heart and lowers blood pressure 👩‍🎓
• Reduces anxiety and depression 👩‍🎓

• Increases tissue sensitivity to insulin; prevents diabetes👩‍🎓

• Decreases the risk of cancer 👩‍🎓
• Strengthens our bones, maintains the necessary movement in joints, helps prevent osteoporosis, thus, falling 👩‍🎓
• Improves immunity response 👩‍🎓

3. Boosts your mood – exercise releases endorphins (happy hormones) in the brain 👩‍🎓

4. Makes you sleep better – regular exercise helps you fall asleep faster and makes the sleep deeper and a good quality one  👩‍🎓

5. It’s a fantastic way to spend time with your family and friends or meet new people.

How to start?

You can start whenever, even during senior years. How to start doing sports regularly?

• Make exercise the first task on your to-do list. Do it right in the morning so nothing can come up later.
• Don’t exercise alone. What about your dog? It needs to exercise as well. Don’t have a dog? Ask your friend. Arranged exercise is worse to abandon when someone’s waiting for you. You can motivate each other.
• Make the exercise a thing on the calendar. Determine a stable place for it in your schedule and take it as a high-priority appointment.
• If you can, add exercise to the way to/from work. Ride a bike, run or walk.
• Are you not enjoying it? Then don’t do it! Choose a sport you’ll like. It’s easier to stick to it.
• It won’t be perfect every day, and some days it’s harder to force yourself to do it. Remember that every minute counts. A short walk is better than nothing.
• Set achievable goals. You don’t run, but you want to run a marathon? Start off with small goals – 3/5/10 km. You’re more likely to reach it and motivate yourself to set more goals.

How much exercise is enough?

A healthy adult should exercise moderately at least 5 times a week for 30 minutes; or heavy for 75 minutes weekly.

What does that mean? Power walk for 30 minutes 5 times a week; or go for a run 3 times a week or engage in any heavy exercise for 25 minutes. Double the time benefits our health – 60 minutes 5 times a week.

Children should engage in physical activities adequately, diversely and amusingly. Shorter periods of moderate to heavy physical activity are better for them – one hour a day.

When is the time to consult your doctor about exercise and its intensity? If you’re over 35 and your or someone in your family suffers from cardiovascular disease.

What exercise intensity should I do?

What’s the difference between moderate and heavy physical activity intensity? It’s necessary to do a stress test. For starters, we can apply these simple rules:

• You can say three words continuously without gasping for breath while doing a moderate activity
• You wouldn’t be able to do it during heavy exercise.
• If you can sing during the activity, the intensity is too light.
• If you can’t say a word, it’s too heavy.

Examples of exercises’ intensity:

• Light: walking, regular house chores, riding a bike in town.
• Moderate: power walking, more challenging house chores and work, walking fast, jogging. Fast bike riding, scooter riding, conditioning exercises, recreational sports (basketball, tennis, table tennis, ice/roller skating, skiing, cross-country skiing, short-distance swimming, aerobics, etc.).
• Heavy: running, hard manual jobs (loggers, builders, etc.), intensive bike riding, running (marathons, terrain), competitive/high-performance sports.