Most everyone knows, or is aware by now, that getting plenty of exercise is absolutely key to good health in general. But how many know that by exercising, you end up living longer as well?
Exercise: Cut Your Risk of Disease
First off, exercising vigorously cuts your risks of many known weight-related diseases by about 30-50%. Belly fat, for example puts you at risk for both cardiac issues and diabetes. Yes, you can regulate your diet and switch out the unhealthy foods and replace them with healthy ones. That’s always a good thing. But even if you do this, daily exercise of any kind, especially if it’s vigorous—hard breathing and sweating—aids the whole process by helping to burn the calories around your middle.
Exercise: Aid Your Mind-Body Connection
Another study showed that people who exercised a lot in their 20s and 30s paved their own way for better memory recall in their 50s and beyond. Also, obesity has been linked with cognitive brain decline, owing to the number of inflammatory cytokines in the brain, which are highly damaging. A study in the Journal of Neuroscience reported that the body may treat fat as an invader, leading to higher numbers of cytokines, thus people have chronic inflammation.
So apparently, lowered cognitive function due to obesity is a real thing.
Exercise: Mind the Dosage
If you’re seeking to use exercise as a way to get healthier, that is, using it as “medicine,” keep in mind your “dosage.” While older folks may get sufficient benefits by just moving for longer periods every day, younger folks need to seriously pick up the pace and intensity.
Also, keep in mind that compared to those who exercise, and do so vigorously, those who are sedentary stand a much higher chance—up to six times—of dying of heart disease, in a fifteen-year time frame. There is absolutely no pill that can grant you that kind of life expectancy.
More Mind-Body Ideas
Not only does vigorous exercise such as high-intensity interval training and weight-training boost your mind body connection in a dynamic way, more calming and mindful exercises such as yoga and Tai Chi aid reduction in mental stress, thus also reducing the levels of cortisol in the body, which is responsible for adding belly fat. The calmer you are, the higher the chances you have of getting healthy and living longer and ultimately, staying that way.
Exercise: A Word About Diet
Pairing exercise with a proper diet, of course, you get better results than just doing either one by itself, especially when you’re looking to decrease any inflammation you might have at the start. Good foods to try toward this end are: fish, tomatoes, olive oil, dark leafy greens, and nuts.
Naturally, anything processed like soda, refined flours and sugars, and foods with lots of sodium in them are more likely to cause inflammation, so staying away from these is a good thing to do.
If you wish to live longer and have a healthy body, brain and mind, exercise is the one surefire way to get going down that path.