Health as a lifestyle choice. Exercise can have many effects on your body including many positive effects

by tillybu (student)

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Exercise can have many effects on your body including many positive effects. As long as you balance the right amount of exercise with the right diet you can lead yourself to a healthy lifestyle. It is recommended by the NHS that 19-64 year olds do 2.5 hours of exercise a week including muscle strengthening exercises as well as an aerobic activity. This can improve many aspects of your health including physical, mental and social health. Then on top of this it will improve fitness, muscle strength, flexibility, weight control,

Physical Health

Fitness

Doing exercise can keep you fit and this means you can keep your body in shape and improve all sorts of aspects of your body. These improvements won’t happen straight away but as you keep exercising they will gradually get better. To be classed as ‘ideally fit’ you need to be able to run for the bus without getting out of breath and so exercising daily will make this a more reachable task for you. It will also make many other every day things easier to complete without getting breathless and having more energy to do it.

Muscle Strength

Exercise can also increase your muscle strength and this contributes to things like core stability; reducing the risk of osteoporosis and it can make you stronger and more able to lift things reducing the risk of strain of injury while doing so. To improve your muscle strength you must do exercises than are specific to improving this, but you must be careful as too much of this exercises straight away can cause damage to your muscles as you have to build up to doing the bigger exercises. Examples of these exercises are mostly exercises involving lifting heavy weights and using equipment in the weights room.

Flexibility

Flexibility is being able to bend and move your body in a full range of motions. This will then prevent injuries during exercise and keep the body comfortable after exercise; meaning a flexible person should be able to do their exercise and not ache or have trouble after the activity. Being flexible will help to improve how easy every day activities are to somebody, it will improve posture and it will stop the body becoming achy and sore.

To increase your flexibility, it does not take much: static stretching 3-5 times a day would be a normal amount for someone to do; this involves stretching your muscles for 10-30 seconds each time. But when stretching you must be careful not to overwork yourself as this can then make the exercise unsafe. Keeping to your 3-5 stretches a day will be enough to start you off and improve your flexibility. You can take part in various activity such as yoga or pilates to improve it. As you do these exercises you will gradually find yourself feeling better during and ...

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Weight Control

Exercise can help you to control your weight but on its own it will not be the easiest or best way to do so. It is very important to control your weight because if you are overweight you are more at risk of diabetes, heart disease and hig blood pressure. When trying to control weight using exercise, you have to take into account the muscle in your body as if you strengthen your muscles you may gain weight rather than lose it. This means some top athletes may have a higher BMI than others, but not because they are unhealthy but because their muscle means they are heavier even though they are fit.

Also when exercising to control weight you must first take into account your starting weight so you know how much exercise and what exercise your body can take before you improve and become able to do more. Once you have reached an optimal weight it is recommended all adults do 30 minutes of exercise at least 5 times a week and for people under 18 it is recommended they do an hour a day, but this does not mean that is all you need for instance, if you do tend to be larger, once you’ve lost the weight you may need to do more than the recommended amount of exercise to keep your body at a steady weight.

Effects on body systems.

When you exercise it has many effects on your body, all over your body including your bones, your muscles, your cardiovascular system and much more. When you exercise many things will happen immediately including faster heart rate, rise in blood temperature and the blood vessels near your skin will open to allow heat to escape. Whereas other things will happen as you start to get healthier when you train regularly. Examples of these effects are your heart muscle will get bigger and stronger, your risk of heart disease will go down, your BPM at rest will go down and you will have a quicker rate of recovery after exercise and the amount of blood pumped out of your heart in a minute will improve as well.

When you exercise you will lower your blood pressure, increase your good cholesteral and decrease your levels of bad cholesteral, it will help with weight loss and will also help your circulation, all of these things will decrease your risk of Coronary Heart Disease.

Exercise can also help to improve your skeletal system, it will improve your bone mass and bone strength and this then decreases your risk of fractures and falls, this can also improve your coordination and balance. It will improve your posture and this will reduce the risk of musculoskeletal problems like aches and strains. Posture exercises can align your body so there is a correct balance between your bones and muscle reducing the forces that end with bad skeletal problems. Lastly it can improve your joints and their health. Just like the rest of your skeleton, your joints get healthier with exercise, provided that you balance it.

All these things can help to reduce the risk of osteoporosis. Osteoparosis is a thinning of the bones which many people will develop over their life. It is most common in women but still occurs in men. There are 1. 2 million bone fractures related to osteoporotis a year.

It has been found that women who were most active in their day to day lives had a greater bone density in their bones that the less active women. So these women are definitely less likely of developing osteoporosis. The best type of exercise to help osteoporosis are weight bearing, flexibility and resistance.

Mental health

Exercise can also affect your mental health:

Doing exercise can improve many aspects of your mental health and the benefits of this exercise is;

less tension, stress and mental fatigue
a natural energy boost
improved sleep
a sense of achievement
focus in life and motivation
less anger or frustration
a healthy appetite
better social life
having fun.

Self esteem

There have been many studies looking into how exercise affects your self esteem and ‘Six out of ten said that physical exercise helped to improve their motivation, 50% said it boosted their self-esteem and 24% said it improved their social skills‘

When people exercise they may use weight loss as their inspiration and as they get to their goals, a sense of personal achievement and confidence will find them. As well as personal achievement, when people get their goals it can boost their self esteem now they see themselves as an ‘ideal weight’ that they feel is attractive to others, it may also relieve stress if their weight is something that is causing problems and affecting them in that way.

On the Mental Health Foundation website, somebody said "When I left the gym that morning I felt as if someone had given me a million pounds, it was the sense of achievement." And there are many more examples of people who feel the same way as this when they have exercised. From this quote you can see that exercise does have a positive affect on the way we are feeling and it can be a way of improving your mood and self esteem.

Stress relief

If you were a stressed person, with a lot going on in life, exercise can be a way of getting away from everything and having some alone time, away from a busy life. Knowing that you have your hour at the gym or yoga class to look forward to can relieve some of the stress you are feeling and make you feel happier throughout the day. Exercise can also start to release the pain of stress related aches and pains which will then make you feel comfier and this can take a factor of your stress away.

Sense of well-being

When you exercise, your body releases the natural chemicals called endorphins into your body and this rush of good feeling and happiness can become addictive to some people, making them exercise every day just to get that feeling. Even just doing a small amount of exercise a few times a week can give you this rush and start to improve your overall well-being and mood.

The NHS say that exercise can reduce the risk of depression by 30% as well as a lot of other illnesses and diseases reduced by huge amounts, just by exercising.

Social Health

Doing exercise can also improve your social health because when you do exercise through a gym or club there will be many other people at the same place who you can interact with and talk to. This will also make you more likely to keep going and exercising as you will want to meet your friends and if you decide not to go to the class you will not only be letting yourself down you will be letting them down as well.

There are also exercise opportunities where you will have to go away with a team for a weekend or more to play in a competition or something and having a friendship as you go away can make the whole experience go quicker and seem like you are doing a fun activity with your friends rather than actual exercise.