Exercise Well to Age Well

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going........Jim Ryun - Exercise Well

What Exercise Does for You

• Exercise Well to Look and Feel Well Most people who exercise feel better, more positive and enjoy life more as exercise releases endorphins; the feel good hormones that guard against depression and anxiety and make us feel healthy. They usually look better too, because happy people look more attractive and because exercise improves posture, clears the skin, helps burn off fat and keeps the body in good shape.

• Exercise Guards Against Disease However, exercise does not only make one look and feel good. Physical activity actually reduces the risk of age-related illnesses, such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, strokes, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases, potentially extending longevity. According to some experts, exercise also helps to build up your immune system. A brisk 30-minute walk each day is the minimum exercise you should take to keep well. However, you should also try and use the stairs instead of the lift or elevator and keep active as much as possible, by practicing a sport, such as swimming, cyling, Nordic walking or power walking. Dancing is also excellent exercise and good for the morale.
  

  So remember, exercise well to age well. Playing with your grandchildren is great exercise too and they and their parents will love you all the more for it.

• Exercise Tones the Body
  Aerobic exercise helps to burn excess fat from the body, which helps you lose weight. It will also help to keep the heart and lungs working efficiently. Resistance exercise, on the other hand, helps to model and sculpt the body. It is particularly important as you age, because it helps guard against osteoporosis. You stop gaining bone tissue after 25, after which time you gradually begin to lose it. This bone loss tends to accelerate after the menopause, so women need to take action at this time. However, contrary to popular belief, osteoporosis is not a women’s disease - men can also suffer from it. Resistance exercise helps to slow this process and keep the bones strong. You also lose muscle too as you age and you need to practice resistance exercises to build up the muscles and eliminate and skin that is becoming flabby or sagging.
  

• Exercise Slows down the Aging Process
  
  According to an article in the Washington Post in January 2008, "physically active people actually have cells that look younger on a molecular level than those of couch potatoes". The article was based on new research that gives some insight on how exercise helps to slow down the aging process. The study involved over 2,400 British twins. It discovered ground-breaking evidence that exercise helps to slow down the shortening and aging of the protective tips on bundles of genes inside cells. The evidence suggested that this process would keep cells from becoming increasingly frail, thus considerably slowing down the aging of the active individual, keeping him or her stronger and youthful for longer.

  "These data suggest that the act of exercising may actually protect the body against the aging process," said Tim D. Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College in London who led the study, which has been published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

  Tim D. Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College in London who led the study, published in January 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, says that the act of exercising may actually protect the body against the aging process.

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