Exercise improves the quality of life is a given. It is one of those things we should do on the unconscious competence level. This means that it should be automatically done. There should really be no resistance whatsoever in having to exercise. It is not even that we are asked to do much for walking around the block is acceptable.
It is easy to see how exercising improves one's quality of life. Not only does it make one be more energetic but also it boosts one's health and well-being. In a study, women who were sedentary claimed they had a lot more energy after they started exercising. They also experienced being in better mood than before getting active.
What was even surprising was that the more exercise they indulged in, the better they felt. And get a load of this: Even ten minutes of daily exercise gave them added benefits when you think of the quality of life they acquired. One of the authors of the study, Tim Church who is also Pennington Biomedical Research Center's director of preventive medicine research, agreed.
The women in the study were more self-assured in doing their work activities daily like carrying in bags of groceries, keeping up with their grandchildren and climbing the stairways. It was the same thing in their social interaction. They improved in this aspect too even though some did not lose weight.
Now the above benefits are just the physical manifestation of the benefit for there are more, like in lower blood pressure level. The regular physical exercise also reduced the risks of diabetes, cancer and heart disease although it mentioned that the cholesterol level also was reduced.
We have to be careful about lowering the cholesterol level because there is a new study in town that says this could affect the cognitive functioning of the brain. Perhaps, this could be the start of our talk with the doctor. Or what I will do is strike the happy medium. I will have to lower the cholesterol level only up to a certain point.
This is what Tim Church and company did. They signed up 430 women who were both postmenopausal and sedentary. They assigned them to any of four groups. One is the group that did not do any exercise. One exercise group had to walk briskly or got on the stationary bike for just over an hour per week. Another group did the same but for a little more than two hours and the third one, you guessed it, did three hours a week.
The women had to complete questionnaires at the start and end of the study to check on the improvement. And the improvement is something that these women appreciate because they improved in all areas like energy, agility, physical and mental health as well as emotional health.
The only area they did not report improvement on was when it comes to pain in the body but then they did not report much of this at the start. The group that reported the most improvement was the three-hour a week group.
Suffice is to say that regular physical activity is our friend and we should keep it that way because it looks like it improves all areas of our life. So it's not really how long your life is but how well you live that life. So do you exercise?
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