Why is an active lifestyle so vital to improving your overall wellness and living a happy life? The reasons are numerous. An active lifestyle can benefit your physical appearance, improve your mobility, fortify your mental health and decrease your likelihood of contracting heart-related health issues.
how can an active lifestyle benefit your health And Life?
This article will discuss several reasons why people should maintain a healthy lifestyle and provide a few easy beginner tips to get going.
Active Lifestyle Helps Maintain Physical Appearance
Exercise, whether it be cardio or resistance exercise, has several physical benefits to the human body. Beyond the muscular and cardiovascular improvements, exercise also plays a positive role in skin and hair health. As people grow older, their body begins to age physically. Adults are prone to dry skin with age for several reasons, and the adverse effects; like breaking out, are associated with these conditions. Working out and breaking a sweat can work as a natural mini-facial, according to Audrey Kunin, MD, a dermatologist in Kansas City, Mo. Dr. Kunin reasons that “When the pores dilate, sweat expels trapped dirt and oil,” thus cleaning out your skin through exercise.
While some hair loss is hereditary, many men can use hair growth products coupled with an active lifestyle to help regrow hair. Additionally, exercise helps promote blood flow through the body, essential for hair growth. As people age, decreased blood flow to hair follicles due to lack of activity can play a prominent role in staggered hair growth or hair loss.
Active Lifestyle Lowers Chances of Heart Disease
Managing a healthy and active lifestyle is one of the top ways to lower the chances of heart disease. Just as a poorly functioning heart can reduce blood flow and decrease hair growth, a healthy heart can do the opposite. A healthy heart pushes more blood out per beat and works more efficiently. This increase in productivity can lower your blood pressure, thus decreasing stress on your heart.
Actively including cardio workouts in your weekly routine can improve cholesterol levels. Improved cardiovascular health can help increase healthy HDL cholesterol levels and lower poor LDL cholesterol levels.
Active Lifestyle Increases Your Sleep Quality
People spend a lot of time sleeping, nearly ⅓ of their lives. Importance of sleep is key to leading a healthy lifestyle, and regular exercise and activity can drastically improve sleep quality. Exercise can improve sleep, and poor sleep can be linked to insufficient exercise conversely. Per a study by the 2013 Sleep in America poll, 76-83% of respondents who reported moderate to vigorous exercise reported a sleep quality of reasonably good to very good.
Exercise benefits sleep in several ways, and in many cases, those who exercise fall asleep faster, waste less time lying awake in bed, and are less prone to insomnia. One reason is that exercise helps tire your body out by putting it under stressors it otherwise wouldn’t if you were sedentary.
Helps Reduce Stress and Anxiety
These days, it seems everyone experiences increased levels of stress and various forms of anxiety. While people are stuck at their laptops or have their heads down at work; it’s effortless to get caught up in the moment and begin experiencing stress or heightened; prolonged anxiety due to a specific action, setting, or situation. Sometimes, the best way to alleviate this is by getting up and moving. The term “mental break” isn’t new, and that’s precisely what can help reduce stress and anxiety.
An active, physical lifestyle, from a simple walk or quick High-Intensity Interval Training (H.I.I.T.) workout, can pump up your feel-good endorphins, rushing blood through your body and naturally decreasing your stress levels.
Improves Cardiovascular and Muscular Health
A physically active lifestyle can do wonders for your cardiovascular and muscular health. Depending on your fitness goals, these can be scaled up or back in combination with your fitness levels and experience. Forms of cardiovascular exercise can include anything from Low Intensity Steady State (L.I.I.S.) training such as walking to more intense, vigorous exercise such as running, hill sprints, and even swimming. Similarly, your weight training regimen can vary significantly from morning yoga to heavy resistance or weight training.
Both forms of exercise work by optimizing the blood pumping through your body. Increased physical activity helps decrease your resting heart rate, aids in sleep quality. It lowers your body’s reliance on your heart to work harder instead of allowing it to work smarter.
Active Lifestyle Helps You Manage Weight
Exercising is one of the most incredible ways to maintain a healthy weight when coupled with a sound diet. As we discussed earlier, an active lifestyle can lower your chances of various diseases, from high cholesterol to high blood pressure and even stress, all of which contribute to weight gain and an inability to maintain a healthy weight. Exercise can help increase your metabolism, which allows you to burn more calories and maintain lean body mass.
The C.D.C. suggests 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise per week to maintain your weight. Though these numbers are not concrete, it’s an excellent baseline to strive for in your fitness journey. Additionally, exercise is a proven long-term answer to maintaining weight by preserving muscle mass. While other methods such as crash diets may get you to your weight goals quicker, they are nearly impossible to maintain over time.
An Active Lifestyle Improves Quality of Life
While it may not be your primary goal, physical appearance is easily one of the most visible byproducts of exercise. Additionally, the results of exercise you can’t see, such as the decreased chance of heart-related diseases and lower stress levels, are profound in living a healthy life.
For all of these reasons, an active lifestyle increases your overall quality of life.
Moreover, the vital part of life, sleep, you can dramatically improve with an active, healthy lifestyle. As you age and maintaining weight and cardiovascular health becomes harder, exercise can be your best friend. All thanks to being fit and active, you can look, feel and act younger. Next time you’re indecisive about whether or not to prioritize your health, give this a read and take that step!
Images by Free-Photos, gonghuimin468 and Harpreet Batish