Exercise has countless benefits both direct and indirect. From making creative work easier to helping digestive system but most importantly keeping us away from hospitals.
Health
We don’t value the countless blessings we have been bestowed with except when its taken away from us. Most of the deaths in the world occur from non communicable diseases and majority of these diseases are preventable through an active and healthy lifestyle.
Obesity
Due to the bad modern lifestyle so many people are getting obese like never before in the history of the world. Just like HIV increases the risk of catching other diseases so does obesity. People who are obese have heart problems, develop cancer and diabetes, have weak bones due to increased wear and tear on them. I used to think that fat people must be very strong as they are carrying so much weight all the time, but we are only as strong as our weakest muscle. So a fat person might have few very strong muscles but as they don’t exercise so most of their muscles are very weak.
Taking a balanced diet is the best way to reduce weight. Exercise can’t reduce your weight but do stop it from increasing after you have lost it by eating less. Because exercise doesn’t burn high amount of calories as it is for a short period of time. If a person base consumption of calories is 2000 then half an hour of vigorous exercise would increase it only 10% to 2200 calories.
For most people eating less is more difficult than exercising because of the bad habits of eating. To get rid of the bad habits, look at the root causes that trigger the bad action. Like some people eat sweet things whenever they feel sad. So they can change the action of eating sugar to playing games when feeling sad.
Muscles 💪🏻
Muscles atrophy (becomes smaller) when they are not used. And the opposite is also true, when you use the muscles to the point of failure, muscle mass increases. Increase in strength leads to every task becoming easy because all tasks needs our body. Even for operating a computer one needs to sit straight.
Some other health benefits:
- Improved aerobic fitness
- Improved balance and bone health
- Improved joint mobility
- Reduced risk of falling
- Extended years of active life
- Boost immune system
Mental Health
Dopamine is also released before the activity in which we are sure to get reward, so we feel good with its release.
While Serotonin regulates our mood, appetite, and sleep. So if you feel that all your base desires like eat, sleep and fear are met; you can focus on your work at hand. Serotonin also has some cognitive functions, including memory and learning.
The general function of noradrenaline is to mobilize the brain and body for action. Noradrenaline increases alertness, promotes vigilance, enhances formation and retrieval of memory, and focuses attention. No need to drink caffeine (coffee, tea and energy drinks) to increase alertness as you can naturally get it, by half an hour of good workout.
Improve Focus
For a week or two my life was made miserable by insomnia. I would lie down in bed for hours but fail to sleep. Because of not having adequate sleep, I had constant headache, unable to concentrate on one thing for long and my mood was impatient/angry. But then I started doing exercise, my insomnia went away.
It turns out just like having full night sleep increases focus, so does doing exercise. After exercise the increase in focus lasts for two hours. For me exercise was a means for even next day’s increased focus because it helped me to sleep well.
Best Workout Regime
At minimum adults need two had a half hour (150 mins) of vigorous exercise to remain fit. So first of all we need to develop habit of exercising. To develop any habit we need to start small, lets say just 5 mins of walk around the block in the evening. Do the exercise everyday but keep on increasing both the duration and the difficulty of exercise.
Once the habit is formed, I would recommend that you learn martial arts like Karate, because they provide the most comprehensive exercise regime. There are four main types of exercises:
- Aerobic exercise is any physical activity that uses large muscle groups and causes the body to use more oxygen than it would while resting. The goal of aerobic exercise is to increase cardiovascular endurance. Examples of aerobic exercise include running, cycling, swimming, brisk walking, skipping rope, rowing, hiking, playing tennis, continuous training, and long distance running.
- Anaerobic exercise, which includes strength and resistance training, can firm, strengthen, and increase muscle mass, as well as improve bone density, balance, and coordination. Examples of strength exercises are push-ups, pull-ups, lunges, squats, bench press. Anaerobic exercise also includes weight training, functional training, eccentric training, interval training, sprinting, and high-intensity interval training which increase short-term muscle strength.
- Flexibility exercises stretch and lengthen muscles. Activities such as stretching help to improve joint flexibility and keep muscles limber. The goal is to improve the range of motion which can reduce the chance of injury.
- Balance exercises Improving your balance makes you feel steadier on your feet and helps prevent falls.
Karate includes all of these. A simple workout at the gym doesn’t include all the muscles and body parts, but karate is a training for an actual fight so it trains every part of the body.
End Exhaustion at the End of Day by Increasing Energy
The biggest benefit is having more energy to burn during the day to get more work done!
A very good concept Stephen Covey discusses in his book is of, produce and production capacity, if we don’t take care and grow our bodies then how can we expect it to serve us well? We want our body to do more for us but how can it when you don’t have the capacity?
Having an increased energy feels very good. You won’t feel exhaustion after climbing stairs or cleaning your car. All physical activities looks like a breeze like giving a massage to your grandparents or cleaning the floor till it shines. I have seen people when they get tired their mood turns bad and they become angry at everything.
Just imagine how much time you will get in your day, if you don’t get tired and need to take rest after every physical activity.
Becoming a Better Version of Yourself
Doing exercise is important for you but not urgent. So if you are able to do it, you build your proactivity muscles. Which result in you taking control of your life and living it to your dreams.
When you become strong and fit, you get a boost in your self-esteem, fueling the momentum that started with being proactive, which in turn helps you to become better version of yourself.
Exercise is more important than we think, it is necessary for our bodies proper functioning. Number one reason for premature deaths is unhealthy lifestyle.
Listen to the podcast about this topic, in Urdu: Search T-Syed in your podcast app. Google Podcast, Apple Podcast
