There are various ways exercise can help us, if it is incorporated into our lifestyle on a regular basis. Even if you don’t like the idea of a gym, or have never been a sporty person, there are types of exercise you can take up to help you stay healthy. I am not going to give you a list, however, what I am going to do is give you the reasons you should follow some type of exercise regime, to stay healthy.
Exercise is good for us (I know you know this) and the benefits are supercharged if we have a positive feeling about it. The added benefits are not all in the head; physical improvements can be seen and measured. Researchers from the University of Freiburg say that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people believe that exercise will do them good, then it will; in fact, belief amplifies any health benefits.
The researchers tested the theory on 76 volunteers, aged 18 to 32, who were shown either a positive or negative film about cycling, before working out on a gym bike for 30 minutes. Those shown the positive film about exercise showed less anxiety and recorded more neurophysiological benefits at the end of the cycling session than did those who had received the negative message.
The researchers believe that similar effects may be seen across a wide range of physical activities, such as jogging, swimming and cross-country skiing. “The results demonstrate that our belief in how much we will benefit from physical activity has a considerable effect on our well-being in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said lead researcher Hendrik Mothes.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder usually controlled by powerful drugs. However, it can also be helped by strenuous, aerobic exercise. Sufferers who have exercised regularly for 12 weeks function better at work and in social situations, new research has found.
In fact, aerobic exercise is able to help patients in ways that drugs cannot, especially with ‘cognitive deficits’, as scientists call impaired brain functioning, such as poor memory, inability to concentrate, poor information processing and learning difficulties.
Patients who exercise are better able to understand social situations and improve both their attention span and working memory, say researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK.
Exercise is good for us and the benefits are supercharged if we have a positive feeling about it
In a review of 10 previously published clinical trials which tested 385 patients with schizophrenia, the researchers found that 12 weeks of aerobic exercise, including the use of treadmills and exercise bikes, “significantly improved” mental functioning compared with patients who didn’t exercise. If started early enough, exercise could play an essential part in the recovery of schizophrenic patients, allowing them to function more fully in life and work.
A meniscal tear is a common knee injury that usually requires surgery, doctors say. However, a new study has discovered that exercise can be just as effective. People who exercised for three months had similar levels of muscle strength and function as those who had knee arthroscopy, which is a form of keyhole surgery.
Although knee arthroscopy is routine, with two million procedures performed every year around the world, the results are poor and the patient doesn’t see much improvement. Researchers from Martina Hansens Hospital in Norway decided to test the procedure against a supervised exercise programme in 140 patients with meniscal tears. Half underwent arthroscopy, followed by simple daily exercises at home, the remainder had a three-month programme of supervised exercises, two to three times a week.
At the end of the three months, there was no clinical difference between the two groups; their pain, function, muscle strength and quality of life were similar. Interestingly, 13 of those in the ‘exercise only’ group later decided to opt for surgery. However, they saw no improvements following the surgery.
In an accompanying editorial, Teppo Jarvinen at the University of Helsinki and Gordon Guyatt at McMaster University in Canada, asked how a surgical procedure could become so popular and widespread despite little or no supporting evidence that it works. “Essentially, good evidence has been widely ignored,” they concluded (BMJ, 2016).
How much exercise is enough when you are aged 60? Just 15 minutes of moderate exercise every day (such as taking a brisk walk) is enough to keep older people healthy and reduce their risk of premature death, new research has found.
It is a very realistic goal and offers just as many health benefits as the current guidelines that recommend 21 minutes of moderate exercise every day, or 150 minutes each week.
Fewer than half of older people meet the current guidelines, say researchers from the University Hospital of Saint-Etienne, so they wanted to find out just how little the over-60s need to do to reduce their risk of major chronic disease and premature death.
They reviewed past study data from more than 122,000 people, aged 60 to 101, in the US, Taiwan and Australia, and looked at their levels of exercise and their risk of death over 10 years. They found that the risk of dying fell as the amount of physical activity increased. Those who exercised the most had a 35 per cent lower risk of dying prematurely, while those whose activity levels were low were only 22 per cent less likely to die.
The researchers estimated that the optimal amount of moderate exercise works out to around 15 minutes a day, or 105 minutes a week, which can be achieved by brisk walking.
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