Top Ten Reasons for Regular Exercise - Part 2
August 4th, 2008 Posted by David Lemberg
6. Have more fun with your kids. Your kids, your grand-kids, your friends’ kids, big kids (like us). Basically, have more fun.
It’s tough when you walk in the door of your brother’s or sister’s house and your 5-year-old niece or nephew runs toward you with outstretched arms, ready to giggle, laugh, and scream with joy. The kid is anticipating you’re going to swoop her off the floor and swing her high over your head, up, down, and around.
Big-time fun. But, your back is stiff and tight, you’ve got a shoulder injury, or something else is not quite right. Bummer. The best you can do is kneel down and hug the kid, giving them a warm smile and maybe tousle their hair a bit. They know you love them, but the fun part is not quite the same.
Regular exercise gives you the flexibility, strength, and overall fitness to play freely, with abandon, the way children like to play.
7. Power up your brain. Recent medical research is showing that regular exercise makes people smarter. Not in the sense of increasing your IQ points, but rather by making more of your brain available for use.
One explanation makes use of the fact that regular exercise improves circulation throughout your body. More blood flowing means more energy-providing glucose is reaching the cells that need it most. And, as your brain is your body’s biggest consumer of glucose, more available glucose means more and better brain activity. You just got smarter!
8. Creativity boost. It’s well-known that regular exercise enhances creativity. It’s a Zen thing. Your conscious mind is focused on the repetitive actions of your exercise, leaving the creative part of your brain (sometimes called the subconscious) free to do its job.
A few years ago I was finishing work on the third act of a screenplay. This terrific project had gone pretty smoothly, and yet I was a little stuck on how the different plot lines would come together at the end. I wanted the climax to be both surprising and thrilling, and I wasn’t sure how to get there.
Finally, I remembered that many of my good ideas have popped into my head while I was running. I put on my New Balance 990s and headed off to Central Park, vowing to clear my mind and let go of everything I had been thinking about.
Toward the end of my 4-mile run, just jogging around the reservoir at the north end of the park, my gaze landed on the unusual superstructure of a Fifth Avenue high-rise. Suddenly, the entire third act climax unfolded in my imagination, stimulated by the shape of the building.
I remember that moment as if it were yesterday. Exercise boosts creativity, allowing you to tap into a vast storehouse of new ideas!
9. More restful sleep. As a society, Americans do not sleep well. In 2005 the number one sleeping aid, Ambien, earned $1.7 billion in annual sales. At the time, Lunesta (number two) earned more than $300 million in its first year on the market.
There are many complex causes for sleeplessness and restless sleep, but regular exercise often provides a simple, cost-free cure. Restful sleep is yet another unexpected and welcome benefit from regular exercise.
As a case study of one, when I’m exercising regularly (that is to say, most of the time) I fall asleep right away. I turn out the lights and that’s it. I’m asleep. If I’ve gone for a week without any exercise (truth in advertising - this does happen), I notice I start to have difficulty falling asleep. And, I start to toss-and-turn. There’s a direct correlation. As soon as I’m exercising again, I start falling asleep easily.
The explanation is straightforward - you’re doing vigorous physical work and your body needs to recover. Sleep allows your body to repair and rebuild, getting stronger in the process. Regardless of one’s stresses and worries, vigorous exercise makes a physical demand on your body that will put you right to sleep.
10. Increased sense of well-being from enhanced endorphin production. Endorphins are a natural opiate, produced in your brain in response to vigorous physical activity. The well-known “runner’s high” has been linked to the endorphin response.
Endorphins cause you to feel good. You feel “on top of the world” - problems lose their sense of oppression, you begin to see solutions more clearly and easily, and new ideas start to flow. This is all very good news.
The post-exercise endorphin rush literally puts a smile on your face. You experience a renewed sense of “being alive” and you can’t wait to get into action and put your ideas to work.
Thanks to endorphins, regular exercise provides a natural “attitude adjustment” that doesn’t require ingesting artificial substances. This good feeling can last all day long. The immediate and long-term results are totally empowering!
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