Wellness Done Right!

Don't like visiting your doctor too often?? Turns out it takes more than just an apple a day, but thankfully not too much more! It is no secret that exercising is good for your health, but too many of us link the two with images of ourselves keeled over in pain, gasping for breath, and a trainer leaning over us demanding we work harder. Meanwhile, research keeps piling up that shows moderate intensity exercise for 30-minutes a day is all it takes to reap some pretty amazing health benefits!

I want to be very clear here that moderate intensity is probably much less than you think! Walking, golfing (without the cart, sorry!!), hiking, yoga, mowing a lawn, weeding your garden, and even washing a car can all be enough to push you into the "moderate" range of exercise. Basically if your breathing is slightly laboured but you are still able to have a conversation, you are working hard enough! Exercising more strenuously, of course, can still be very good for you and contribute further to health. I'm just here today to talk about the benefits of the lighter stuff.

The health benefits of this type of regular exercise are numerous. It can lower your blood pressure by 5-10 points, ultimately lowering your risk of high blood pressure by 19%. It will help lower your bad cholesterol, and improve you overall cholesterol ratios. Regular exercise will allow your body to deal with sugars more efficiently, which is very important in the management and prevention of type II diabetes. Through regular exercise you can achieve a 50% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease, a 27% reduction in the risk of stroke, and up to a 40% lowered risk of colon caner for men and breast cancer in women. Regular resistance training has very positive effects in maintaining good bone density, and also significantly reduces the loss of muscle mass as we age. In the elderly, the rate of falls, fractures, and admittance into care homes goes up at the same rate as muscle mass goes down. And if all of this improved quality of life stuff isn't enough for you, regular exercise as described can also add up to 4.5 years to your life!

Some pretty big numbers, right? Sounds easily attainable, right?? Well Statistics Canada even reduced the criteria to five 30-minute sessions of exercise per week (still good by the way!)... and only 15% of Canadians meet it! If anyone is suggesting this is because the average Canadian is far too busy, I call balderdash! Again, according to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian watches roughly 4 hours of television per day. So it really comes down to this: regular exercise is near the bottom of the priority list for most Canadians.

Check Out my Twitter Challenge!

My hope is that together we can motivate ourselves, our family, and our friends to get a little more active and start nudging our own long-term health a little higher on our priority list. To help the motivation process along, I am starting a little twitter challenge 'here'. Please check it out and spread the wellness!

Please also visit my blog, "Wellness Done Right". If you have a suggestion for a future topic please do drop a comment, or better yet tweet it to me @derekbrownDC. Until next time!