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Benefits of exercising 30 minutes per day
Exercising is beneficial to our physical and mental well-being in several different ways. These benefits can be divided into three categories; Sociological, Psychological and Physiological.
Sociological benefits
There are social benefits gained from physical activity. Families and friends can enjoy spending time together doing some sort of physical activity – team sports are a great way to unwind and relax. You may even meet new friends through taking up a new activity or exercise. Being active will also help you to remain mobile and independent as you become older. This can have a major effect on your social situation and well-being.
Psychological benefits
There are the mental benefits, such as enhanced mood. During exercise your brain releases certain hormones (endorphins) that actually make you feel better and improve your mood and reduce stress. Exercise can also help improve your self esteem which is the way you feel about yourself. Many people exercise to keep a trim figure and a positive body image.
Physiological benefits
These are the physical benefits of exercise and physical activity. There are many ways in which increased physical activity and improved fitness can result in health benefits. The degree of health benefits will depend on:
- Intensity of Exercise
- Level of Fitness
- Type of Activity
- Your Age
There are several general benefits that exercise provides which help to improve our health and fitness:
Body composition
High levels of fat are linked to health problems such as coronary heart disease, cancer and joint problems. Aerobic exercise is a good way to help control your body weight. During a session of light exercise, lasting around 20 minutes or longer, it is mainly fat that is used to supply the energy. This can help you to lose excess body fat or maintain a healthy body weight.
Aerobic endurance
Doing regular aerobic activities such as walking, cycling, swimming and dancing regularly improves your aerobic endurance. Changes occur within your body that mean that you can do aerobic activities more easily. These changes include:
- Lower resting heart rate
- Lower heart rate for a given work load
- Faster recovery rate after exercise
- Greater ability to use fat for energy
- Increased ability to take in and use oxygen that allows the muscles to work harder
Through regular exercise, your heart is able to pump out more blood per beat and your muscles are able to take more oxygen from the blood than before. This means that your heart does not have to beat as often to get enough oxygen to your muscles. As a result, your resting heart rate and your heart rate for a given amount of work are lower. Your recovery from exercise is faster and your body is able to take in and use more oxygen.
The overall effect is that your aerobic endurance improves. This means that:
- You can cope with more strenuous activities than you could before
- You can do a lot of activities with greater ease than you could before
- You recover more quickly after physical activity or exercise.
Aerobic exercise increases the efficiency of your cardiovascular system, so it can help prevent diseases of the heart and circulation. An active person is less likely to get coronary heart disease because their heart works more efficiently. However, even active people can have heart attacks, but they are more likely to survive than someone who has been inactive.
For people with hypertension (high blood pressure), exercise can help reduce blood pressure. However, for people with very high blood pressure, exercise can be dangerous because they may not be able to cope with the extra strain exercise puts on the heart. People with hypertension need to consult a doctor before doing strenuous exercise.
Strength
Strength decreases with age, which means that many older people do not have enough strength to do everything they want to do. Activities such as lifting and carrying become more difficult or impossible, due to decreased maximum strength. Lower levels of muscle endurance also affect the ability to do repetitive movements and mean that fatigue sets in earlier. Levels of power are also affected due to a decrease in strength and speed. Together these changes can have a dramatic impact on your lifestyle.
By keeping active, you can slow down or even prevent the decrease in your strength, muscular endurance and power. Correct posture is an important aspect of health. Your muscle tone is developed when your muscles are stretched, and this helps to maintain posture. Physical activity can help improve muscle tone and hence posture. Physical activity will also help improve the control of movement.
Balance and co-ordination
Balance and co-ordination are important as they allow you to make a series of movements. Walking, climbing stairs and most other activities require balance and co-ordination. Tai Chi is an excellent example of a way of older people to exercise, as it helps to build strength in the hips, which increases stability, and reduces the risks of falls in elderly people.
Flexibility
You tend to lose flexibility as you get older. This means that you find things like reaching up to get something from a shelf, or reaching down to put shoes on, more difficult. This can have a major effect on the quality of your life. You may become dependent on others, and this limits your freedom and affects your health. Regular exercise will help prevent the decrease in flexibility with age and allow you to remain independent for longer in later life.
Speed and agility
Speed and agility are not usually considered essential for health but being able to react and move quickly can be very important. Speed of movement can help prevent accidents. If you come off the kerb while walking along a road, it is partly your speed of movement and agility that allow you to recover quickly and not fall. One of the reasons elderly people have more falls is because their speed and agility have decreased with age.
Bone strength
Exercise can help maintain your bone strength. This is particularly important for older people as their bones tend to weaken with age. This problem, called osteoporosis, is very common in
older women.
How much exercise do you need?
There are two main recommendations that have been made by the Health Education Authority:
Original recommendation – vigorous exercise at least three times a week for 20 minutes each time. This is the amount of exercise needed for maximum improvements in aerobic endurance and to reduce the risk of death. However, many people feel that this is too much for them to do.
The new recommendation is based on the fact that even moderate levels of physical activity can improve health. Moderate exercise, such as walking the dog, can improve health
New recommendation – at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least five days a week.
This may seem to involve more exercise than the first recommendation but there are two key differences that make it easier for people to achieve:
- The physical activity is moderate, so walking, cycling and gardening count.
- The 30 minutes can be split up into smaller amounts such as two fifteen-minute sessions. You could take fifteen minutes to walk to work and walk back again after work every day and you would have reached the recommended level.
Whichever recommendation you follow depends on your current level of fitness and how fit you want to be. We wish you luck in attaining your new fitness goals.
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