“Health and Fitness”

 Ms. Lalita Anil Palange (lapalang@coe.sveri.ac.in), Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering, SVERI’s COE, Pandharpur

Health and physical fitness have a vital role in the life. Regular Physical activity and exercise can help you stay healthy, energetic and independent as you get older. Exercise plays avital role in preventing health diseases and stroke. The health benefits of doing regular Exercise have been shown in many studies. Physical activity and exercise can reduce stress and anxiety, boost happy chemicals, improve self-confidence, increase the brain power, sharpen the memory and increase our muscles and bones strength. It also helps in preventing and reducing heart disease, obesity, blood sugar fluctuations, cardiovascular diseases and Cancer.

The progress of the Nation lies in the hands of the people, who are healthy and physically fit. Every individual should develop physical fitness for a happy and effective living. In order to get physical fitness one has to involve in physical activities.Physical fitness makes you feel mentally sharper, physically comfortable and more with your body and better able to cope with the demands that every day life makes upon you.The benefits of physical fitness are numerous. The person who is physically fit has greater amount of strength, energy and stamina an improved sense of well being better protection from injury because strong well developed muscles safeguard bones, internal organs and joints and keep moving parts limbers and improved cardio respiratory function.

Physical fitness has been defined “as the development and maintenance of a sound physique and soundly functioning organs, to the end that the individual realizes in an optimum measure his capacity for physical activity as well as for mental accomplishment unhampered by physical drains or by a body lacking in physical strength and vitality”

Types of exercise:

 Exercise and physical activity fall into four basic categories— endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility. Most people have a habit of to focus on one activity or type of exercise and think they’re doing enough for their health. Each type of exercise is different; however, doing them all will give you extra benefits. Mixing it up also helps to reduce boredom and stop the possibility of injury.

Endurance– Endurance, or aerobic, activities increase your breathing and heart rate. They keep your heart, lungs, and circulatory system healthy and improve your overall fitness. Building your endurance makes it easier to carry out many of your everyday activities. Walking or jogging, mowing, raking, digging and Dancing are kinds of this type.

Strength– Strength exercises make your muscles stronger. Even small increases in strength can make a big difference in your ability. We can find this type of exercise in Lifting weights, using a resistance band with your own body weight.

Balance– Balance exercises help prevent falls, a public problem in older adults. Many lower-body strength exercises also will improve your balance. This type can be noticeable in Standing on one foot, Heel-to-toe walk.

Flexibility– Flexibility exercises stretch your muscles and can help your body stay limber. Being flexible gives you more freedom of movement for other exercises as well as for your everyday activities. Some examples for that in Shoulder and upper arm stretch, Calf stretch and Yoga.

Need of Exercise

Everybody knows that the need of exercise in our daily lives, but we may not know why or what exercise can do for us. Exercise means, the daily practice of doing some physical work. Exercise is the key to good health and fresh mind. The daily practice of some physical work does not mean to take stress on body, but it is actually the stress relieving activity. A good health is obligatory for doing a good work. A famous quote is there is awesome evidence that people who lead active lifestyles are less likely to suffer from illness and more likely to live longer. Exercise not only makes you physically fitter but it also improves your mental health and general sense of well-being. Getting fit is not just about running on a treadmill for hours in your local gym, it can be a dance class or a new hobby like fencing or mountain biking. It could be a group or team activity like football or a karate class. These recommendations can be achieved through 30-60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (five times a week) or 20-60 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise (three times a week) or a combination of both types. One continuous session combined with multiple shorter sessions (of at least 10 minutes) is also acceptable.

 Importance of Exercise

Each one of us has a physical body made of muscles, blood, bones and various other living tissue. When any of these are injured or not working properly, then we get ill. Nobody likes to be ill. So, it is important that we keep our body healthy and fit. Exercising the body is one way of keeping it healthy. If we do not exercise then our muscles become weaker and we are less able to do things properly. Also the bones can become weaker and thus break easily. It is performed for various reasons, including increasing growth and development, preventing aging, strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, weight loss or maintenance, and merely enjoyment. Frequent and regular physical exercise boosts the immune system and helps prevent “diseases of affluence” such as cardiovascular, diabetes, and obesity. It may also help prevent stress and depression, increase quality of sleep and act as a non-pharmaceutical sleep aid to treat diseases such as insomnia, help promote or maintain positive self-esteem, improve mental health, maintain steady digestion and treat constipation and gas, regulate fertility health, which has been found to be linked with higher levels of self esteem. Childhood obesity is a growing global concern, and physical exercise may help decrease some of the effects of childhood and adult obesity.Every adult should participate in moderate exercise, such as walking, swimming, and household tasks, for a minimum of 30 minutes daily.

Benefits of Exercise

 Exercise may also improve balance by increasing strength of the tissues around joints and throughout the body, thus helping to prevent falls. Weight-bearing exercise, such as brisk walking and weight training, strengthens bones and helps prevent osteoporosis. Other health benefits include the following:

Reduce stress and anxiety Stress relief

Boost happy chemicals

Improve self-Confidence and self-Image

Increase brainpower

Sharpen memory

Improves muscles and bones strength

Reduce the Risk of Heart Diseases

Preventing Obesity and overweight

Exercise prevent Diabetes, Cancer

Reduce your risk of heart disease

Exercise not only makes you physically fitter but it also improves your all body health and general sense of well-being. Physical activity or exercise can reduce the risk of developing several diseases like diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Daily exercise can reduce stress and anxiety, boost happy chemicals, improve self-confidence, increase the brain power, sharpen the memory and increase our muscles and bones strength. Physical activity and exercise can have immediate and long-term health benefits. Most importantly, regular activity can improve your quality of life. A minimum of 30 minutes a day can allow you to enjoy these benefits.

References:

[1] World Health Organization (Regional office for Europe) WHO. Reviewed on 12 July 2016.

[2] WHO: Obesity and overweight. who.int.

[3] https://www.fredhutch.org/en/events/healthy-living/TrimRisk.html

[4] Diet, Exercise, and Sleep. National Sleep Foundation. Retrieved 20 April, 2016.

[5] http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/exercise.html. Reviewed on 14-7-2016