Exercise is good for the mind and for the body. It sharpens the
mind and it boosts mood. It provides energy and a sense of mastery. It
improves the quality of your sleep so you wake up feeling better rested.
It keeps the heart and blood vessels in working order. It protects
against such common conditions as diabetes. It is invaluable in weight
control.
Now comes more good news. Intense exercise may curb your sweet
tooth. Animal studies show that exercise decreases preference for
sweetness.
Scientists aren’t sure why exercise has this effect. It may
be that intense activity revs up endorphins and related substances in
your brain, and that powerfully positive blast of pleasure might decrease
the need for satisfying food.
The danger for athletes is that such an effect might keep them from
consuming enough food to replace calories lost in exertion. But most of
us have no such problem.
But wait: There’s more good news. Long-term exercise improves
your immune system with 30 minutes of exercise a day. Three times a week,
adults strengthened not only their muscles but the immune system’s
first line of defense against viral infection. Blood tests showed them to
have more active natural killer cells.
They had no such boost in immune function if they exercised for
only three months. It took 11 months of working out to impact the immune
system. The results were especially important because the exercisers were
older adults. The researchers say the study demonstrates how a little
exercise can help people maintain their health and independence with
advancing age.
And that leads directly to other new findings. Working out is
great, but when you stop doing it, you lose the benefits.
As the saying goes, use it or lose it. When you stop exercising,
you lose not only the physical benefits but the psychological benefits as
well.
In this case, researchers looked at adults with lung disease and
found that after just 10 weeks of exercising -- doing aerobic
workouts, strength training and stretching three times a week -- there
were significant gains mentally as well as physically. Exercisers boosted
high-level cognitive abilities and were better able to maintain train of
thought. They also showed fewer signs of depression and anxiety.
If they kept on exercising, they maintained the benefits, but there
were no subsequent gains in mental or physical function even if they kept
up the good work for a year. There comes a point where the gains max
out.
However, those who stopped exercising returned to their original,
pre-study level of functioning. They lost all they had gained. No matter
what, you just have to keep up the physical activity to get the
benefits.
And don’t expect a single bout of exercise to do much good,
at least for your sleep. If exercise isn’t habitual, a single
period of exertion -- whether it’s aerobic exercise or
resistance-type exercise -- can actually disrupt your sleep.
If losing weight is one of the benefits you seek, then studies show
your exercise has to consist of aerobic and calorie-burning activities,
such as walking, jogging, swimming or bicycle riding. Weight training
offers many benefits -- building muscle and strength, boosting
immunity, reducing the risk of low-back injury -- but by itself it
won’t burn enough calories to promote much weight loss.
So get the habit. Choose an activity that you like and one you can
keep on doing. And just keep going at a nice steady pace.
Tags:
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aerobic,
animal studies,
blood tests,
blood vessels,
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exertion,
immune function,
immune system,
intense activity,
intense exercise,
muscles,
natural killer cells,
older adults,
psychological benefits,
sweet tooth,
three months,
three times,
viral infection,
weight
