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At this time of year, most of us are still thinking about shrinking our waistlines in the aftermath of an over-indulgent Christmas and in just a couple of months from now, we’ll all be at it again trying to get our bikini bodies ready for the summer.
If you’re anything like me, you might find it a real struggle to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. When it’s all about shedding those pounds, it can all get a bit mundane and relentless right?
Well, it helped me to learn that there are numerous benefits to be had from regular exercise. Knowing this somehow made it easier for me to make a real lifestyle change. And since it helped me so much, I thought I’d share it with you.
- Improves Your Posture
Regularly exercising strengthens muscles and areas of your body that have an effect on your posture. It will help to start improving and correcting any problems with your posture that you may have at the same time as maintaining your good posture.
Yoga is a great way to strengthen your hip flexors, which is a step forward to correcting a forward hip tilt if you so happen to have one. If you suffer from rounded shoulders or hunchback you can start improving this by strengthening the muscles in your upper back.
- You’ll Sleep Better
The National Sleep Foundation says that exercising regularly can help you to improve your sleep. However, they warn that exercising before bed can actually have the opposite effect, so choose the morning or the afternoon to do your workout. The scientists say that physical exertion during exercise helps to regulate your circadian rhythm. And if better sleep isn’t reason enough to start exercising, you should know that better sleep results in an improvement to your immune functioning, which means a lowered risk of becoming ill.
- Lowers the Risk of Dementia
As exercising improves blood flow throughout your body your chances of developing dementia caused by cardiovascular illness decreases as a result. 64% of people surveyed by the Alzheimer’s Society were unaware of the effect that exercise has on the risk of developing dementia. Susannah Spencer – a dementia specialist – from Country Court Care says, “What’s good for the heart is good for the head and regular exercise is one of the best ways to reduce your risk of developing dementia, so it’s worrying that so many people questioned didn’t know that.”
- Mood Booster
A study found that people suffering with depression who exercised regularly showed a similar level of improvement as those taking medication for their symptoms. Exercising is known to release endorphins that make you happy, the University of Bristol found that on the day of exercise a person’s mood significantly improved.
- Protect Your Eyesight
Research suggests that regular cardiovascular exercise is one of the best ways to keep age-related vision loss at bay. The research carried out found that active mice compared to non-active mice retained twice the amount of retinal neurons over time, it has been found that there is a correlation between the effect of exercise on the mice’s eyesight and that of a human’s in another study.
- Better Memory
Clear your mind with a bit of exercise. Working out delivers your brain more oxygen and energy due to the increase in blood flow throughout your body. During exercise the hippocampus – the part of the brain absolutely vital for memory and learning – becomes highly active and stimulated, and this is said to improve our cognitive functioning.
