The Immediate Health Benefits of Exercise

Sharon Moore January 28, 2014

A healthy lifestyle is not really healthy without regular exercise. Even if you are eating lots of fruits and vegetables, and you are not smoking or drinking too much alcohol, you can’t be healthy if you will sit in your desk all day long. Study after study shows that exercise is crucial to a long and healthy life. And to reap the full range of benefits physical activity has to offer, you should sweat for two and a half hours weekly. But those hours can be reduced if you increase the intensity of your workouts. Sounds too short right? It is. Unfortunately, majority of people are not able to achieve their weekly exercise goals.

There are so many reasons why you should start exercising today. Even just a single period of physical workout can already improve your health in significant ways! So, you should be proud of every single minute you spent exercising. Hope the following immediate rewards of exercising can motivate you to move and sweat more!

You will feel good, pinky swear. Bad day? Just sweat it out! As your heart beats faster and your sweat starts to drop, your brain will start to release a number of feel-good chemicals, including feel-good neurotransmitters, that you usually get from engaging in pleasurable activities like eating and cuddling. Your brain will also produce serotonin, the natural hormone that has a beneficial role in depression and other mood disorders.

You will be more productive at work. Don’t ever think that the time you spend on exercise will ruin your work schedule. Exercise speeds up the flow of blood into your brain, kicking your brain cells to a higher level. As a result, you become more alert, focused and creative! A 2012 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that exercising, even for just 10 minutes, leads to improvement in focus.

Your stress levels will go down. Burned out? Walk in the treadmill. The mood-enhancing effects of exercise can give you better protection from stress. Plus, its physical benefits (such as increase in blood flow) helps you ward off symptoms of stress like headache, fatigue, and pain.

You lower your risk of diabetes. A 2007 study by the University of Michigan found that a single cardio workout increased storage of fat in muscle, which actually improved insulin sensitivity (insulin resistance) – a major risk factor for diabetes.

Your DNA can change, for the better. Scientists from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found that among healthy but inactive adults, mere minutes of exercise altered genetic material in muscle cells.

Your respiratory system will benefit. When you exercise, you breathe quicker so as to get more oxygen into the lungs. Your heart will then transport more oxygen to your working muscles. This increases the capacity of your lungs. Over time, your respiratory system will improve dramatically.

These are just the immediate effects of exercise. You can just imagine how great the long-term benefits are! So no matter what age you are and how busy you are, make exercise one of your health priorities. You need not complete the two and a half hours in one routine. You can break it down to smaller durations for the entire week. If you feel bored doing usual gym workouts, explore other ways to exercise, such as gardening, dancing and cycling and just have fun with it.