EVERYTHING IS HELPED BY EXERCISE
Spring has arrived, and the month of May is blooming with a myriad of health observances. May health promotions include:
- Allergy and Asthma Awareness
- Arthritis Month
- Better Sleep Month
- National High Blood Pressure Month
- Mental Health Month
- Older Americans Month
- Osteoporosis Prevention Month
- Physical Fitness and Sports Month
- Stroke Awareness Month
These varied health and wellness topics all have a common denominator— everything is helped by exercise. If you want to breathe better, move more easily, sleep sounder, normalize blood pressure, elevate mood, reduce anxiety, delay the decline into the disability zone, build strong bones, become physically fit, and reduce your risk of stroke, there is one prescription: exercise.
If you are currently unsure of your fitness level, or how much exercise you need, or how to get started, progress, or move off a plateau, consult your physician if you haven’t done so already to obtain the “go ahead”. Then, meet with a certified personal trainer to design and implement an exercise program tailored to your needs.
Keep realistic goals in mind for improvement in endurance, strength, flexibility, co-ordination, and balance. If you’ve been sedentary, consider buying a pedometer. Depending upon your stride length, your lifestyle is sedentary if you take fewer than 2000 steps a day. So, check out your average number of steps per day and add steps in small increments ~ this applies the exercise principal of progressive overload. Little by little, we go far. Research has shown that working up to 10,000 steps a day (approximately 4½ – 5 miles or about an hour or so total of brisk walking) reduces the risk of all lifestyle related diseases, while elevating mood. And the good news is, it can be cumulative throughout the day. It isn’t necessary to do it all at once. Things like parking farther away and taking the stairs really add up!
So, lace up those walking shoes and take a walking tour of Springtime.