Long-Term Health Benefits of Exercising Regularly

Do you exercise regularly? Increasing your level of physical activity can help you to live longer, may prevent chronic disease and can help improve your quality-of-life. Here are some reasons why you should take regular exercise.

• Exercising reduces the amount of fat stored in your body.
• It makes it easier to control your weight and to keep it at a healthy level.
• Exercising increases good cholesterol or HDL and reduces levels of bad cholesterol or LDL.
• Insulin resistance can improve, making it easier to control blood glucose levels.
• Exercising helps to reduce blood pressure.
• Your heart function and blood flow improve with exercise.
• When you exercise, it releases feelgood hormones that help reduce stress, anxiety and depression.

Physical activity can help to prevent or reverse the effects of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, osteoporosis, and obesity and depression. Exercising aerobically helps to strengthen the heart and lungs, and enables your blood vessels to function better, reducing cardiovascular disease or reversing it entirely. Exercising aerobically and combining this with resistance exercises can help to decrease your risk of Type II diabetes. The effect is enhanced if you lose even a small amount of weight. Doing weight-bearing exercises important for bone density, and especially as you age.

Even a moderate amount of physical activity will help tremendously but check with your doctor before beginning a new fitness regime.