Exercise is the miracle cure we’ve always had, but many of us neglect to take our recommended dose. Our health is now suffering as a consequence.
Whatever your age, there is strong scientific evidence that being physically active can help you lead a healthier and happier life. People who exercise regularly have a lower risk of developing many serious health conditions, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and some cancers. Research also shows that physical activity can boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy, as well as reducing your risk of stress, depression, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Given the overwhelming evidence, it seems obvious that we should all be physically active.
What Counts?
For any type of activity to benefit your health, you need to be moving quick enough to raise your heart rate, breathe faster and feel warmer. This level of effort is called moderate intensity activity. If you are working at a moderate intensity you should still be able to talk but you won’t be able to sing the words to a song.
An activity where you have to work even harder is called vigorous intensity activity. There is substantial evidence that vigorous activity can bring health benefits over and above that of moderate activity. You can tell when it’s vigorous activity because you’re breathing hard and fast, and your heart rate has gone up quite a bit. If you are working at this level, you won’t be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.
No one gets to choose how you exercise other than you. Your body, your call. And whatever that looks like, we think it’s worth celebrating.
Here are some links to great free content on Youtube for a variety of different exercises to suit most tastes and abilities to help get you motivated and moving more.
POPSUGAR Fitness
Popsugar fitness has a huge variety of exercise videos ranging from 1 minute fitness challenges to 45 minute full body workouts.
With activities such as yoga and Pilates through to dance inspired workouts and boxing, there should be something for everyone.
Joe Wicks became a household name this year in the UK due to his free PE with Joe videos but there is a lot more to Joe than workouts for kids!
There are beginners workouts, cardio fat-burners, workouts aimed at new mums and lots more.
From How to…videos that teach you the basics to gentle Stretch and Flex and full body workouts with Bootcamp, Our Parks is for all levels of fitness.
The NHS have physical activity guidelines for each age group and great resources to help you meet the recommended amounts of exercise in the Fitness Studio. Choose from the 10-minute workout series if your time is limited or take on the popular Couch to 5k programme is you are a beginner and don’t know where to start.
Try it out!
Why not try to think of one way that you could improve the amount of activity you do.
This could be something small like walking every morning for 10 minutes before you start your day or a bigger goal like joining a local sports team.
Maybe you if you love dancing, you could commit to dancing every day to one of your favourite songs. If you would like to get stronger, start building muscles by doing squats whilst you wait for the kettle to boil or used tinned food cans or bottles of water as weights to make your arms stronger.
Whatever you chose to do to increase your activity, try to choose something that you can stick to. Don’t commit to running a marathon in a month if you have never run before and don’t have any running shoes!!
Let’s Reflect
In the area of exercising, which small changes do you think will make the biggest difference to your wellbeing long-term?
What are you doing to make sure you are exercising more? Share with iamtheCODE what you are doing to take care of your wellbeing by tagging us on social media with the #wellbeing