19 Reasons why Exercise is Good for you, According to the Research.

Physical activity is any kind of bodily movement that results in energy expenditure. Exercise, on the other hand, is a term used to describe a physical activity that is structured, planned, and repetitive with the purpose of conditioning a part of the body.

Exercise can be categorized into two types: acute and chronic/training. Acute exercise refers to a single session, while chronic/training involves repeated exercise sessions weekly or monthly. Exercise training can also be aerobic, resistive, flexibility or meditative.

Aerobic exercise training, also known as cardiorespiratory fitness training, is designed to improve the capacity and efficiency of aerobic energy-producing systems and is effective in enhancing cardiorespiratory endurance.

It typically involves activities that use large muscle groups, can be sustained continuously, and are rhythmic and aerobic in nature. Examples include walking, running, cycling, rowing, aerobic dance exercises, and swimming.

Aerobic exercise can be performed at high, moderate or low intensity. Intensity is determined by your Maximum Heart Rate(HRmax). During high intensity, you are working at 70-85 percent of your HRmax. At moderate intensity, you're working at 50-70 percent of HRmax and at low intensity you are working at 40-50 percent of HRmax.

Resistance or Strength training, on the other hand, is a systematic program of exercises designed to increase an individual's ability to exert or resist force using weights, weight machines, or elastic cords. Resistance training can be achieved through isometric and isotonic muscle contractions.

Isotonic muscle contractions can be concentric or eccentric. In a concentric contraction, the muscles shorten while generating force, overcoming resistance. For instance, lifting a dumbbell towards the shoulder causing the arm to bend at the elbow.

In an eccentric contraction, the muscle elongates while still generating force, meaning that resistance is greater than force generated. An example of this is when you lower the dumbbell raised during the concentric contraction above, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Isometric muscle contractions generate force without changing the length of the muscle. An example is when you hold a dumbbell in one position with the elbow bent at 90 degrees or when you grasp something.

Regular moderate exercise can help maintain systemic homeostasis, promoting wound healing and preventing foreign agents' invasion into the body.

It can also improve systemic inflammation and reduce damage, protect against cellular senescence, and prevent the onset and progression of chronic diseases.

Regular moderate exercise is a safe and cost-effective way to boost the immune system and protect against pathogenic viral infections.

The aging process causes the human brain to shrink, resulting in a reduction of both gray and white matter, as well as an enlargement of the cerebral ventricles.

As neurons age, they become less efficient at removing dysfunctional and aggregated proteins and damaged mitochondria, leading to the accumulation of these substances.

However, physical exercise can help mitigate many of the harmful effects of aging.

While exercise cannot reverse the aging process, it can attenuate many of its systemic and cellular effects. Exercise is an excellent example of a physiological intervention that can help prevent many of the most common age-associated chronic conditions, which are diseases of physiology.

Moderate-intensity exercise has been shown to enhance implicit affective memory. It can even lead to increased gray and white matter in frontal regions, making it a potent strategy for mitigating brain volume atrophy associated with aging.

Exercise can also help combat muscle loss (sarcopenia), which typically results from gradual muscle denervation, low muscle protein synthesis, increased pro-inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, malnutrition, physical inactivity, low anabolic hormone levels, and oxidative stress.

Regular exercise has been shown to significantly improve skin integrity, especially in older adults.

According to one epidemiology study, individuals who don't exercise regularly have a higher risk of skin damage than those who exercise regularly.

Studies have reported improvements in skin elasticity and dermal structure, with increased expression of dermal extracellular matrix-related genes in normal human primary dermal fibroblasts, at the end of a training intervention.

Therefore, it is essential to maintain a regular exercise routine to promote healthy skin.

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by damage and loss of neurons and, therefore, the nervous system over time.

Recent research shows that exercise plays a significant role in protecting the brain by helping reduce neural apoptosis and neurodegeneration and may even have the potential to stimulate neuroplasticity.

One study reported that physical exercise is more influential in promoting remyelination during central nervous system (CNS) pathology such as multiple sclerosis than motor learning tasks.

Aerobic exercise can improve motor learning through increased plasticity in motor-related structures.

One study found that aerobic exercise may generate more efficient neuronal activity in the prefrontal regions similarly affected in Parkinson's disease than other types of exercise.

Another study found that in a 6-month aerobic exercise program, individuals with Parkinson's disease showed improved executive function, while another found improvements in working memory and verbal fluency.

These findings, however, have been demonstrated in individuals with minimal to moderate disease severity who are able to follow the training protocol.

Exercise modulates the body's circadian rhythms.

In one study, muscle endurance training combined with walking was identified as the optimal exercise program for enhancing sleep quality in older adults. It led to significantly higher sleep quality than regimens involving sleep hygiene, Pilates, only walking, health education, resistance training, Taichi, resistance training combined with walking, or yoga.

Another study investigated meditative movement therapies (Qigong, Tai Chi, and Yoga) and found that they were also effective in reducing sleep disturbances, fatigue, and depression in fibromyalgia syndrome.

Exercise can positively impact obesity, metabolic diseases, and neurological disorders by altering the microbial composition in the gut.

This alteration can regulate brain function and improve health status.

Studies have shown that moderate endurance exercise can increase the number of beneficial microbial species, enrich microflora diversity, and promote the growth of commensal bacteria.

Elite athletes exhibit more beneficial and diverse gut microbiome characteristics, including a higher gut microbial diversity and a shift toward bacterial species associated with increased production of short-chain fatty acids - the end product of fermentation of dietary fibers by the anaerobic intestinal microbiota.

Short-chain fatty acids help maintain intestinal barrier integrity and regulate host immune function, both essential for good health.

As mentioned earlier, exercise increases insulin sensitivity through several molecular pathways and has been recommended as the management strategy for patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Exercise training has an insulin-sensitizing effect on the liver, which contributes to improved whole-body glucose metabolism in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Falls are a significant concern for older adults, with one in four experiencing a fall, which doubles the risk of falling again.

Falls are also the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries.

Common risk factors for falls include lower body weakness and poor balance.

A home-based exercise program focusing on strength and balance retraining has been found to significantly reduce the rate of subsequent falls compared to the usual care by a geriatrician. The program includes five strengthening exercises and eleven balance retraining exercises.

Moderate-intensity group exercise programs (primarily based on walking and balance exercises) have effectively reduced fall risk and improved seniors' physical performance.

Over 70% of US adults are classified as overweight or obese, which puts them at risk of numerous health issues such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.

Exercise can reduce lipid content and inflammation, promote browning and thermogenesis in adipose tissue, and regulate the production of adipokines - protein molecules produced by adipose tissue that regulate insulin resistance and participate in pro and anti-inflammatory responses.

Exercise alone may not lead to significant weight loss unless combined with a reduction in dietary intake. This phenomenon may be due to the constrained energy expenditure hypothesis. In a study conducted with older adults experiencing obesity, a combination of aerobic and resistive exercises, along with a daily energy requirement deficit of 500-750 kcal, resulted in improved physical and metabolic function as well as reduced ectopic fat deposition.

In one study, 12 weeks of aerobic exercise (30 min of treadmill running) combined with respiratory muscle stretching improved the functional exercise capacity and reduced dyspnea in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Another systematic review of random controlled trials investigating the effect of inspiratory muscle training for individuals with COPD concluded that the training did improve dyspnea, functional exercise capacity and life quality.

Core stability is the ability of the lumbopelvic hip complex to prevent buckling and to return to equilibrium after perturbation.

Core stability benefits the musculoskeletal system, from maintaining low back health to preventing knee ligament injury.

Pilates training is a form of physical exercise focused on improving strength, core stability, flexibility, muscular control, posture, and breathing. In addition, Pilates improves coordination and core muscle control, leading to the optimal lumbopelvic stabilization needed for daily life activities and functions.

The findings from a meta-analysis of 49 prospective studies involving over 260,000 participants suggest that individuals who engage in higher levels of physical activity are less likely to develop depression.

Furthermore, another meta-analysis of 11 prospective studies, which included more than 69,000 participants, found that increased physical activity levels significantly reduced the incidence of anxiety.

Chronic pain can result from conditions with known and unknown origins. Some examples of chronic pain conditions are chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and migraines.

Low to moderate-intensity exercise tends to improve chronic pain symptoms. On the other hand, moderate to high-intensity activity, which is the level of intensity required to achieve cardiovascular fitness gains in the general population, has been shown to improve fitness in those patients with chronic pain who can tolerate this level of intensity.

Flexibility training, which includes exercises to improve joint range of motion and reduce muscle stiffness, is beneficial for chronic pain management. Flexibility training alone is modestly helpful for pain relief and has a more significant emotional effect.

Cancer can lead to metabolic dysregulation, which includes insulin resistance, hyperlipidemia (elevated levels of free fatty acids, cholesterol, and triglycerides in the blood), mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic inflammation, and muscle wasting (cachexia).

However, exercise is a safe and effective intervention that can improve metabolic health by correcting these dysfunctions.

Regular exercise has been linked to a lower risk of certain types of cancer, such as colon cancer, endometrial cancer, and breast cancer.

People who engage in moderate-intensity exercise for at least 3-4 hours per week have a 10-20% lower risk of developing cancer compared to those who are sedentary.

Exercise not only reduces the toxic and side effects of chemotherapy, but it also improves the therapeutic effect of these treatments.

Exercise enhances blood perfusion and the temperature of the whole body, leading to the rapid delivery of cytotoxic drugs and immune cells to the inside of the tumor.

Some cancers, such as breast cancer, have been shown to have reduced cell proliferation when exercise is incorporated into the treatment plan.

Additionally, exercise during chemotherapy can significantly alleviate cancer-related fatigue and prevent lymphedema caused by chemotherapy.

Bone mineral density loss is a prominent concern among both male and female cancer survivors.

Premenopausal women who have survived breast cancer are at particularly increased risk because of reduced levels of estrogen triggered by premature menopause due to chemotherapy, surgery, or hormonal therapy. This loss in estrogen leads to bone density loss.

Men taking hormone deprivation therapy for prostate cancer are also at an increased risk of developing osteoporosis and, hence, bone density loss.

One random controlled trial showed that the rate of decline in bone mineral density loss was significantly less in the resistance exercise group, with a greater benefit seen in the aerobic exercise group, particularly among premenopausal women.

Exercise can improve mental acuity, protect against diseases, and even reduce chronic pain.

Exercise offers holistic transformation by fostering benefits that extend to brain health, immune resilience, and skin integrity. It can mitigate cognitive decline, combat muscle loss, and preserve brain function, making it an excellent ally in the fight against aging.

The research also shows that exercise is pivotal in diverse spheres, from cancer treatment facilitation to sleep improvement, gut health enhancement, and beyond. It even presents hope for protection against neurodegenerative diseases like stroke, Parkinson's, and Multiple Sclerosis.

Exercise can also alleviate chronic pain when approached with tailored strategies, offering hope for those grappling with various painful conditions.

Ultimately, the narrative woven by the research emphasizes that exercise is not just a choice but a gateway to a life teeming with vitality and well-being. Embracing the transformative power of exercise can lead to a healthier, more vibrant life.