Always Find Time to Exercise

By Coach Karen

It is easy to stop exercising as soon as you gain new commitments or time restraints, but why should you always keep a form of exercise in your life no matter what?

For many exercise is a huge part of their normal, everyday life; however, it is easy to quickly lose this routine, as soon as something happens in your life- whether it’s extra work load, exams to study for or something completely out of your control. It becomes easy to cut off your exercise routine, despite evidence and research showing that exercise is crucial to an individual’s perspective, energy and mindset.

Exercise doesn’t just have physical benefits to the individual, the psychological benefits of exercise can easily be overlooked but are huge. Looking at the sheer science of exercise and the effect it has on the brain and neurological system, it is known and has been shown that exercising releases endorphins, dopamine and serotonin, for many it’s hard to understand the exact scientific effects of these chemicals on the human brain and so why exercise is crucial.

Let’s break it down and cover each one separately:

Endorphins

Endorphins are produced by the central nervous system and the pituitary gland. Endorphins act on the opiate receptors in our brains and help to reduce pain and boost pleasure, resulting in a feeling of well-being.

Dopamine

Dopamine is a messenger molecule in the brain that allows certain nerve cells to communicate with one another. Dopamine is critical to the central nervous system functions such as movement, pleasure, attention, mood, and motivation.

Serotonin

Serotonin is an important chemical and neurotransmitter in the human body. It is believed to help regulate mood and social behaviour, appetite and digestion, sleep and memory.

It is clear to see from these the scientific, psychological benefits of exercise but it can sometimes be hard to understand how these can correlate directly to your own personal life. During busy periods in your life or times that could be more stressful, no matter the cause, it is crucial to make time to exercise whether that’s a walk, a run, a yoga session or  a training session at Tek, for many this is the crucial time people need to spend solely focused on themselves. This will not only boost your positivity, increase your well-being but it will help you to prioritise and bring perspective to any potential problems or issues that may shadowing your mindset.

The physical benefits of exercise may seem obvious in terms of helping to decrease body fat, increase muscle mass and improve overall ‘fitness’ but there are even more physical benefits of exercise that may seem more hidden.

Decreasing Body Fat

Many people want to lose weight or body fat and so buy into a decreasing calories within their diets. Although ensuring that you eat less calories than you burn within a day will aide fat loss, if calories are decreased too much it will in turn reduce your metabolic rate (how many calories your body burns per day).

Carrying out physical exercise will increase your metabolic rate which will put you safely in more deficit and will continue to decrease your body fat percentage (as long as you’re eating a calorie-controlled diet alongside it).

Increasing Muscle Mass

Physical exercise can help to stimulate your body to build more muscle, this is due to the fact it helps to release hormones that promote the ability of your muscles to absorb amino acids (the building blocks of proteins and thus hence muscle).

However, it isn’t just for aesthetic reasons why you should want to increase your overall body muscle mass. It has however, been proven that as we age, our body will naturally lose muscle mass and function, which in turn can cause injury. So, as you age it is crucial to carry out regular physical activity in order to reduce muscle loss and maintain strength.

Increasing Bone Density

Increasing bone density is a physical benefit of all weight training and impact sports, have that is regularly overlooked. However, as an individual enters their late 20s, they reach their peak bone density. After this, it is common for individuals to in fact lose bone density, which can in turn make them more susceptible to osteoporosis, which weakens the bones meaning that they can easily break.

Bone density, can either be increased or maintained by any form of exercise in which you’re bearing your body weight or extra weights, including running, weight lifting and especially impact sports such as kickboxing and Martial Arts.

The above all shows the crucial benefits exercise has both physically and psychologically on any individual, however it is very easy to allow your exercise time to be the first thing to be removed from your daily lifestyle, when you gain extra commitments or responsibilities or a situation may seem more ‘stressful’ and need more attention and time. However, finding that extra 10 minutes, that walk to work or that extra Tek class is crucial to boost your physical and psychological well-being, increasing your mood and enabling you to keep perspective throughout.

Remember no matter how hard, take time out to go for a run, get on your bike or get to a Tek class, you will feel both physically and mentally refreshed, refocused and with a more focused, calm perspective.