Exercise Benefits
Improves circulation and oxygen utilization
Lowers blood pressure
Improves muscle tone and strength
Improves balance
Strengthens bones
Strengthens your heart and cardiovascular system
Helps reduce body fat and maintain a healthy weight
Helps reduce stress, depression and anxiety
Reduces insomnia
Anti aging benefits
Fifteen minutes of exercise a day could extend your Life
Although thirty minutes of exercise a day is the US fitness guidelines recommendation. Further analysis suggests that just fifteen minutes a day could cover a range of health benefits.
Only about a third of Americans currently meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) guidelines for physical health, which advise a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, plus additional strength-training.
Exercise can do more than just keep your body fit—it can truly slow the aging clock. Continued research demonstrates that exercise can help your bones, heart, brain and skin act younger. The secret to a youthful appearance isn’t about creams and lotions; it’s more about constructing a strong body and mind.
Heart
An inactive lifestyle is a major risk factors for heart disease. Luckily you can do something about that with regular exercise, in particular aerobic exercise. A study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology saw that regular aerobic exercise prevents your heart from weakening. While sedentary adults saw a reduction in their heart size over time, the hearts of exercisers over the age of sixty-five who exercised more than six days a week grew and were about the same size as that of inactive people half their age.
Brain
The University of Cambridge researchers show that getting your heart moving can increase your learning abilities and improve memory. Published in the National Academy of Sciences, the report, found mice which were exercised often performed better on memory tests. In addition these mice also grew more new brain cells linked to memory than mice which did not exercise. Likewise humans that walking for thirty to fifty minutes three to four times a week increase blood flow to the brain by fifteen percent.
Yoga can also increase oxygenation of tissues—by improving breathing, yoga leads to more oxygen in the lungs and in turn to organs and the brain. Better oxygenation leads to better body function.
Balance
Older folks who exercise cut their risk of falling by thirteen percent according to a 2010 study. And since one in three adults above the age of sixty-five have a fall ever year, this is very encouraging news. In one study, people with Parkinson’s enrolled in exercise programs with periods that were longer than 6 months, showed substantial gains in functional balance and mobility as compared to tests of only two-week or ten-week periods.
For a low-impact routine, try picking up tai chi. A 2011 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that the ancient art helped prevent falls and also improve the mental health of older individuals.
Anti-aging
Oxidation and radical damage are at the forefront of understanding aging in the human body. Exercise seems to counter the effects of cellular aging according to a study in the journal Plos One. Scientists use the length of telomeres as a biomarker of cell age, and their size has been connected to longevity. Researchers believe that aerobic exercise boosts the process by which your body builds and protects your telomeres.
Bones
Resistance training improves bone health in older adults, and reduces risk factors for osteoporosis including improved strength and balance and increased muscle mass, in contrast to traditional pharmacological and nutritional approaches.
Research shows that weight lifting and resistance exercise increase bone mass in your hips and spine, where osteoporosis most often appears. You can strengthen your hips and spine by doing chair squats and the like.
Wrinkles
Gravity, sun and pollution are damaging your skin daily. Aerobic exercise boosts blood flow to the skin, and increases new cell growth and the making of natural oils and moisture. In other words, regular aerobic exercise helps retain the skin’s flexibility and aids in keeping it supple, inhibiting wrinkles. More blood to your dermis offers a better environment for collagen growth and helps in the appearance of younger looking skin. However, facial exercises can actually increase fine lines and wrinkles. So stop doing that!
Resources
http://www.icaa.cc/media/press2011/aging-will-never-be-the-same.htm
Fall prevention
http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf11/fallsprevention/fallsprevrs.htm
the Health Services Department at Hendrix College in Conway, Arizona. University Medical Center in Chicago skin
Younger cells
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0049912
Bone density
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9927006
Heart health
http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1358195