We all know the health benefits of exercise, but it still bears repeating. From improving your posture and alleviating common pains and ailments to something relevant nowadays like boosting your immune system, exercising can help significantly. Especially in these very health-conscious times, echoing the benefits of an active lifestyle is necessary to remind everyone that they need to live healthily.
Living a healthy and active lifestyle doesn’t merit a lifestyle overhaul nor a complete dedication to fitness, simply adapting and integrating it into your daily routine is enough. Anyone can exercise, regardless of their fitness background or even schedule.
Even the immunocompromised and those living in elder care facilities are recommended by the doctors to exercise now and then to maintain their immune system. But how exactly does exercise help your immune system, and how can you start exercising? Let’s take a closer look.
How Exercise Helps the Immune System
The science behind how exercise helps the immune system is rich. Because exercise and physical activity are whole-body affairs, most of our bodies (even organs you wouldn’t initially assume to be affected) benefit from them. It can help improve the blood flow by promoting circulation during exercise, and the momentary increase in body temperature strengthens our natural antibodies. This allows our body to combat infection and diseases and even releases “happy hormones” that make us feel good.
A study reports that many low-to-moderate-intensity exercises that many overlook in favor of the more “hardcore” exercises are still beneficial. Even these low-intensity exercises can help boost the immune system by reducing internal inflammation and clearing the respiratory tracts. This, in turn, makes a person more resistant to common viruses like flu and colds.
Overall, exercises do more than help us manage our weight or improve our posture. It can help us become healthier in a holistic manner, so here’s how you can start working out.
How You Can Start Exercising at Home
Again, you don’t have to suddenly dedicate your life to fitness to be healthy. If you’re predisposed to liking fitness, perfect, this is another reason why you should get into it. For the rest of us, however, exercising can be time-consuming and energy-draining. Time and energy we spend in the gym can be spent elsewhere in our life. But the secret to getting into fitness is integrating it into your daily life. Here’s how you can do it.
-
Walk Instead
Unless you live a couple of miles away from work, it’s best to either walk or ride a bicycle to work. Or you can even walk to the grocery instead of riding a car. Not only will it help you save money on gas, but you’re getting the exercise that you need. And it’s a relatively low-impact exercise, too, as you won’t be lifting heavy weights, nor are you making motions your body is unfamiliar with.
-
Jog Every Morning
Alternatively, if you need to use a car when going to work, you can jog every morning instead. It’s basic advice, but it still works. You can do this first thing when you wake up, even before eating breakfast. The key is not to tire yourself but “wake” yourself up through a quick lap within your neighborhood. Keep doing this enough, and you’ll eventually have the motivation to dedicate jogging to your schedule. You can also bring your pet if it helps motivate you.
-
Join a Fitness Class with Friends and Family
It’s easier to start your fitness journey with someone with you; ask friends and family to help you get into it. You can join a group class where you exercise with others, allowing you to socialize and take the edge of exercising a bit. Working it into your schedule can be quite a challenge, but once you’ve done that, you’ll be satisfied with the results.
-
Do Home Workouts
You can also do home workouts if you have enough drive to do exercises on your own. There are many calisthenic exercises that you can do with almost no equipment, but you can also opt to buy modular workout implements. You can even hire a personal trainer who can coach you via videoconferencing software to ensure your form is correct.
Our health is undeniably a wealth to behold. In a time when there’s a risk of getting a fatal disease, being fitter and healthier is one way to defend ourselves from this unseen enemy. Hopefully, even after this pandemic subsides and the numbers drop, you get to keep the habit of fitness and carry it further in your life.
