Why Exercise?
Increasing the amount of physical activity, you do can make enormous improvements to your health, wellbeing and lifestyle.
Exercise and health
The Chief Medical Officer recommends 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise (swim, brisk walk or cycle) or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise (running, taking stairs, playing sports) per week. They also recommend minimising the time spent being sedentary.
Older adults (over 65s) should also undertake activity to improve or maintain muscle strength.
Attending the sessions at the Rehab Centre can help with all of this!
Prevention is better than cure!
A physically active lifestyle has been medically proven to:
- Reduce the risks of developing heart and circulatory diseases
- Reduce blood pressure – both at rest and on exercise
- Help improve cholesterol levels – reducing LDLs (“bad” cholesterol) and increasing HDLs (“good” cholesterol)
- Better control blood sugar levels, reducing the risk of type II Diabetes
- Helps to manage your weight and levels of body fat
- Help lift depression and reduce anxiety.
- Improve your sex life
- Help prevent the tendency of the blood to clot
- Increase bone density
- Improve your wellbeing
- Increase energy levels
- Lessen the risk of abnormal heart rhythms
- Improve mobility
- Lengthen life
- It reduces the tendency of the blood to clot.
Unfortunately, modern lifestyles do not encourage an active lifestyle due to increased use of cars, increased use of computers in the workplace and at home, leisure time being spent in front of the television and increasingly busy lives. But with a bit of effort, you can make a big difference by being more active.
What counts as physical activity?
- Brisk walking to and from work
- Going for a lunchtime swim
- Taking dancing lessons with friends
- Doing housework and gardening more briskly
- A game of tennis or badminton
- Taking part in an exercise class
The key to enjoying physical activity is to incorporate fun activities into your everyday life.
