According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 70 percent of North Americans do not get enough exercise and 40 percent say they never engage in any leisure-time physical activities (In D. Deen, 2007). Exercising is something extremely important to our health. Regular exercise helps releases tension, improves appearance, and increases stamina. The majority of people make up some excuse to not exercise. Whether it is because they don’t like to sweat, they’re lazy, they are “too busy”, they don’t need to exercise etc. I understand because I use to be that person. But once it starts to affect your health, a change needs to happen.
There are many benefits to exercising, for example: losing weight, helps with your mental health, your bones and joints become stronger, helps with sleep, your memory, gives you more energy and much more. The majority of people all over the world have some sort of mental illness, whether they know it or not. Mental health has become such a huge issue nowadays, especially with all the suicides that has been occurring and the overdoses. I for example have depression and anxiety. As my stress became worse, so was my depression and anxiety. I didn’t want to end up taking medication since there’s a lot of side effects to it. So, my doctor recommended exercise. I tried it, and I can tell you my anxiety has lowered so much than how it use to be before and helped with my depression as well. According to Harvard Medical School Commentaries on Health stated “Medical studies have shown that people who engage in a steady program of physical activity report a more cheerful mood, higher self-esteem, improved sleep and less stress. People who remain active and physically fit are less likely to develop clinical depression.” (LeWine, H., 2014). Now there are different forms of exercises that you can do, there is: cardio, lifting weights, yoga, dancing, swimming, riding your bike etc.
Doesn’t strictly have to be running on a treadmill for an hour. You can make it fun or to whatever style you want. “The sessions should be at least 30 minutes daily of real physical activity” (LeWine, H., 2014). I personally like to lift weights for an hour, and then do 30 minutes of cardio. It gives me the adrenaline I need to continue my day. So, by doing 30 minutes of moderate intense exercise it can help improve your sleep, your self-esteem, increase your stamina, etc. It has helped me with my sleep, my confidence, my self-esteem, anxiety and my depression. I feel much better about myself than I did a year ago. Exercising helps you if you have back problems. If you have back problems like myself; I have Minor Scoliosis; then exercising is a huge help.
My scoliosis is in my lumbar L3-L5. I was notified in 2011, but I feel like it has moved up a little, but I haven’t got checked recently. Ever since I started to lift weights and do some cardio, I don’t have as many back problems like I used to. I would go to urgent care frequently because of how horrible the pain was. It was caused for the littlest things like: picking up something I dropped on the floor, putting on a sock, reaching for a cereal box and just simple things you can’t imagine getting hurt by. Once I started exercising, I haven’t been back to urgent care once. According to the Gale of Encyclopedia of Fitness, states “a strong back is provided for better overall health and fitness to the entire body. Back exercises also help to rehabilitate the spine and alleviate muscle pain when back pain occurs…. When back exercises are performed properly, they help to add flexibility and strengthening to the back muscles, which helps to avoid injury and to minimize its severity when injury does occur” ( Odle, T. G., 2012). In the beginning I would lift very light weights. As time went by I added more weights, but only what my back can handle. I don’t want to put too much force on my back either. But before doing any of this, stretching is a must. Can’t exercise with your body being stiff.
Stretch for a good 10 minutes and then start working out. Not only is strengthening your back one of the benefits, but you also get better posture and even lose some weight in that area. My back has become stronger and hurts a lot less now. Not saying it cured it, I still do have pain every now and then. But it’s not like before where I would be crying of how strong the pain was. Another benefit of exercising is disease prevention. Right now, students being young and naive, we aren’t worried about getting diseases because we are young and strong. But we hardly ever think about when we get older. We don’t think of the consequences of eating unhealthy and what it might do to our bodies in the future. Being healthy and active can prevent heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. Depending on the exercise that you do can help prevent certain disease. For example, according to The Gale of Encyclopedia of Fitness, states “the stress of weight-bearing exercises would help make new bone tissue grow. This makes the connection between exercise and preventing osteoporosis, a disease in which the bones become less dense and more fragile, an easy one to see. It also is easy to see how exercise can help maintain or lower weight’ (Atkins, W. A., 2012). I think the biggest help is lowering the risk of heart disease. “more than 2,200 Americans each day die from cardiovascular diseases”(Odle, T. G., 2012).
Even just walking a couple of times during the week can help lower the risk. Not only that but exercising helps reduce high blood pressure therefore lowering the risk of getting plaque in your arteries. If you have a lot of plaque in your arteries you are more at risk of getting a stroke. As long as you are doing some sort of exercise you will live for a long time. But you need to make sure you have the right form and doing the exercise right. You can still get injured while you workout. Talk to your doctor or trainer to see what they recommend you doing. But remember it’s not just about exercising, you also need to have a clean diet, drinks lots of water and enough sleep. I’m not saying to have a diet with only fruits and vegetables. Every once and a while you can have a cheat day, but with moderation. I slice of pizza once every 2 months won’t kill you. Who doesn’t like to eat carbs. I know it is difficult at first, but it becomes a routine after. You just need to continue and not give up. I’m sure none of us want to have any health issues as we get older. We need to worry about our health now because if we don’t we will end up with so many diseases and none of us wants to end in the hospital.
