Movement Is Medicine: Harness the Power of Exercise!
While you know exercise is good for you — you’ve heard so a million times — newer research on its far-reaching benefits is astounding! The latest evidence shows that exercise not only strengthens your heart and may trim your waist, but regular physical activity can actually slow the aging process on a cellular level and potentially add years to your life.
The good news: nothing, it seems, rivals exercise. The bad news: it takes more time and effort than ingesting pills or employing some type of gimmicky hack.
My $0.02: You might not feel like exercising, but your daily effort is worth the reward both for the moment, and for the benefits down the road.
Just HOW beneficial is your effort?
Mortality - one study, showed all-cause mortality decreased by about 30% to 35% in the physically active. Two other studies, which followed more than 10,000 adults over several decades, reached a similar conclusion that certain types and amounts of exercise can reduce one’s risk of prematurely dying by up to 70%.
Biological Age - Brigham Young researchers examined volunteer DNA samples; measuring the lengths of study participants’ telomeres, the molecular caps at the end of chromosomes that tend to get shorter with age. People with higher activity levels had longer telomeres and a “biological age” that was about nine years younger.
Memory - new research shows that there’s yet another reason exercise is beneficial: It might help improve your cognitive score.
Organs - a recent study found that men and women in their 70s who exercise regularly have the heart, lung and muscle fitness of healthy people 30 years younger.
Life Expectancy - a study review found that fit people can increase their life expectancy by 2 to 4 years, and this was a conservative estimate. But in combination with four other healthy lifestyle factors - including not smoking, a healthy weight, a healthy diet, and moderate alcohol intake - it can prolong a 50-year-old female’s life by 14 years and extend a male’s life by 12.2 years. Sorry guys, you get the short end of the stick, but it’s still good news.
Disease Prevention - regular physical activity helps reduce your risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, many types of cancer, depression, anxiety, and dementia. Here’s the evidence.
Bottom line: I can’t think of another lifestyle intervention that has nearly the beneficial impact on human longevity. There is literally no downside to exercise. You look better, feel better and think better. If intensive, well-formulated exercise does not occupy your first, second, and third priorities for good health and longevity, it’s time to re-examine your priorities.