Most of us want to be healthier, and daily activity is a big part of creating a healthier you. What kind of daily activity should you do? Anything that gets you moving, anything that increases your heart rate. You don’t necessarily have to exercise 20 minutes a day 3 times a week. Any time you are active you are burning calories, strengthening your heart and other muscles. Below is a list of activities and their benefits that will help you get started.
Stretching
Benefits: relieves tension, promotes flexibility, keeps your muscles from tightening up before and after exercise.
What to do: gradually move through a range of motion until you feel some gentle tension. Then hold that position for up to thirty seconds. Please, don’t bounce. Relax, then stretch again. (Fitting in Fitness. American Heart Association p.17)
Strengthening
Benefits: prevents injuries, reduces lower back pain, improves posture, improves overall ability in sports, builds stamina (for hiking, shoveling snow…), preserves lean body mass.
What to do: calisthenics, such as sit-ups, push-ups, leg lifts and squats. weights: hand weights, weight machines, use home-made weights or stretch bands.
Aerobic Activity
Benefits: Prevents cancer, prevents heart attacks and heart disease. Helps prevent diabetes and control blood sugar in diabetics. Improves lymphatic flow and increases perspiration (removing toxins and cellular waste, rounding up bacteria, viruses and bringing them to the lymph nodes where they are killed by white blood cells.) Aerobic exercise can triple the rate of lymphatic flow. (The Seven Pillars of Health by Don Colbert p. 121).
Lowers stress, promotes weight loss and decreases appetite (raises metabolic rate).
Slows down the aging process (reduces oxidation).
Builds strong bones.
Improves your digestion and promotes frequent bowel movements.
Gives you restful sleep. (Researchers found that women who participated in forty-five minutes of aerobics in the morning were about 70 percent less likely to have trouble sleeping than those who exercise less.) (It’s better to exercise 3 hours or more before going to bed or it may cause insomnia).
Reduces depression (by increasing serotonin and dopamine levels).
Improves memory retention and reaction time (lowers cortisol levels-especially for those with high stress).
Slows Alzheimer’s disease.
May help prevent Parkinson’s disease.
Increases lung capacity.
Increases energy level.
Helps alleviates pain in diseases with chronic pain (releases endorphins).
Regular exercise and activity are vital components to maintaining good health. It is important to set goals on how to incorporate more activity into your daily life. To start with, choose an easy approach to implementing a routine, such as parking a block from the store, dancing with the kids, or doing squats while vacuuming. You can request a copy of Fitting in Fitness from Stephanie Kidman at Destiny. This book has hundreds of great practical ideas. So, come on, let’s get moving...