Collaborative post
What are the lesser-known benefits of exercise?
Exercise has been at the centre of a huge public health push in the UK for decades, as public health messaging aims to instil the various benefits attributed to a healthy and balanced lifestyle. As the UK continues to suffer the tragic consequences of an obesity epidemic, with 64,000 deaths a year featuring obesity as a contributing factor, it is understandable that weight loss is advertised as a key benefit of exercise.
But exercise is much more than a weight loss strategy, and indeed is much more useful in other ways than it is with regard to burning excess fat. Other communities in the UK, such as those suffering from eating disorders or lifelong gastrointestinal conditions, are rightfully advocating for a shift in focus, away from the potentially harmful framing of weight as ‘wrong’, and towards a positive approach to healthy living.
With this in mind, what follows are a number of the less-talked-about benefits of exercising as part of a healthy lifestyle, which could make all the difference to the average person.
Heart Health
Exercise sees your muscles working harder, and demanding more from your body – both with regard to stored energy and oxygen. Your blood is a primary delivery method for glucose, fatty acids and oxygen; the harder you exercise, the harder your heart works to deliver blood around the body.
This exercise can serve to strengthen your heart and improve your blood pressure, heavily reducing the risk of heart disease and slashing stroke risk by up to 27%.
Rehabilitation
Exercise is an indispensable activity for rehabilitating your body after an accident or injury. Whether your injury related to a workplace error or a public trip, exercise will form a key part of your recovery. Recuperating from an injury can see you spending a lot of time sedentary, while the injury itself may have had an impact on a specific part of your body. Regular exercise can return you to form and strengthen your injury site quicker.
Mood
Many people focus on the physical impacts of exercise on the body, without properly reckoning with its mental impacts. Exercise is strongly linked to improvements in mood, enabling as it does the body to better regulate various hormones. Not only does exercise produce endorphins, but it can also help us to re-arrange our thinking for a calmer way of life.
Libido
Your sex drive is closely linked to your mental state. Less well-regulated hormones can result in a reduced libido as well as overall lethargy. Exercise can drastically reduce cortisol levels while increasing endorphins, with the ultimate effect of helping you keep your sex drive where it should be.
Sleep
Lastly, exercise is a time-proven method for tiring your body out. If you have been finding it hard to switch off before bed, and your sleep has been suffering as a result, exercise can be an extremely useful way to tire yourself out.