by ANDREA FRENCH Section Editor
It is no secret that exercise is proven to be fantastic for your health. Recently, new research suggests that exercise does more for your body than just help you shed a couple of pounds.
Exercise has been directly proven to help treat essentially any health issue you are facing, such as anxiety, insomnia, back pain, depression, hot flashes, etc.
Anyone who exercises regularly can vouch for the fact that when they exercise, they feel better afterwards. This feeling is commonly referred to as a ‘runner’s high’.
When you exercise, endorphins are released in your brain, and they make you feel great. A runner’s high is a state of euphoria that is more-likely experienced after a vigorous workout. It is described as a feeling of being ‘one with the world’ and a total our of body experience.
A proven way to ease anxiety is to get your heart pumping with a quick 30 minute cardio workout. When your heart starts pumping, it allows your body to release mood-stabilizing neurotransmitters, like norepinephrine, serotonin, and GABA. All of these neurotransmitters are one of the reasons why you feel like you are sweating off stress.
In addition to relieving your anxiety while you exercise, a quick 30 minute moderately difficult exercise can put you in a better mood all day and continue to make you more resilient against stressors. Just as anyone would expect, people who work out consistently have reported less overall stress, anxiety, and depression in their lives.
Most people today are really reliant on caffeine to stay awake and alert throughout the day; exercise can cure all of that day-time sleepiness. People who exercise the recommended amount per week (150 minutes) are 65 percent less likely to feel tired and drowsy during the day.
In addition to exercise making you more awake, it can also help you sleep more soundly and not have the negative side effects that caffeine has.
Yoga is one of the most effective forms of exercise for helping people be more relaxed and at ease. Also, insomnia is known to be treated with yoga and deep-breathing exercises.
“Everyone knows how much exercise is important for your body, but I did not know all of the health benefits that exercise has. Sometimes I get nervous with day-to-day activities, so I am going to try and do yoga everyday to eliminate all of these feelings,” says sophomore Casey Schieda.
Back pain is one of the most common forms of health problems that people feel. You can throw out your back essentially doing anything. Playing sports, sitting uncomfortably for long periods of time, and lifting that huge heavy box are all ways that the muscles around your spine can become less resilient with age. An easy and long-term fix for this pain is to develop lower-back, abdominal, and oblique muscles. These muscles will take the pressure off our your spine and improve the way your back feels and moves
“Most people think that when you are hurt, you should rest for long periods of time until you feel better. However, this study shows me that the next time I feel any pain I can just reduce the amount of exercise I do, but continue to do some in order to recover faster,” says sophomore Alex Infosino.
Everyone has experienced that crazing chocolate cravings at one time or another, and exercise can also fix that. When your body wants chocolate, it really just wants dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is released when eating chocolate. When you exercise, that same neurotransmitter is released, causing you to forget about all that chocolate.
Anyone who is commonly affected by the winter-time common cold should try and do aerobic exercise. It is known to strengthen your immune system by forcing immune cells out and into the bloodstream, and raise your heart rate, which will also strengthen your immunity.
Ask any post-menopausal woman, and she will tell you that the hot flashes are almost unbearable. One 30 minute walk or run on the treadmill relieved the severity of the hot flashes by 74 percent over a 24 hour period of time.
Most of these benefits of exercising are something that most of us already know. All of these benefits of exercising are trying to get people out and moving again, and to show that exercise is not only good for your weight.
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