Exercise is my favourite Wellness ‘tool’.  It has numerous benefits as you can see in the list below. Exercise:

1. Increases your confidence and self-esteem.
2. Helps you look younger.
3. Improves your sleep.
4. Releases endorphins (‘happy’ hormones) and improves your mood.
5. Improves anxiety and depression.
6. Helps you burn fat better.
7. Helps reduce your food cravings.
8. Lowers your risk of breast and colon cancer.
9. Improves your energy.
10. Improves resistance to leptin (the hormone that tells your body to eat more).
11. Enhances your immunity.
12. Increases your metabolism, which helps you burn more calories during exercise and at rest.
13. Improves your brain function including learning and memory.
14. Helps reduce your risk of dementia.
15. Improves your fat to muscle ratio, so you become leaner.
16. Lowers your body fat levels.
17. Reduces your blood pressure.
18. Improves your cholesterol levels and lowers blood triglycerides.
19. Improves your insulin sensitivity, so you process sugar more efficiently.
20. Helps you live longer.
21. Reduces your resting heart rate.
22. Reduces the workload on your heart.
23. Reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease.
24. Increases your blood supply to the brain and muscles.
25. Stimulates your bone growth and improves bone strength and density.
26. Helps prevent obesity.
27. Boosts testosterone (needed by both males and females) production, and increases your sex drive.
28. Improves your balance and coordination.
29. Improves your flexibility through increased mobility.
30. Improves your muscular and cardiovascular endurance.
31. Increases your thyroid hormone, which is important for metabolism.
32. Improves your strength.
33. Gives you stronger ligaments, tendons, and joints.
34. Improves your posture.
35. Lowers the risk of diabetes.
36. Helps manage diabetes.
37. Increases your growth hormone levels to help increase muscle.
38. Helps prevent muscle loss if you are trying to losing weight.
39. Improves your V02 max (a measure of fitness).
40. Increases your lung (breathing) capacity.
41. Helps soothe the pain from arthritis.
42. Increases your pain tolerance.
43. Protects you from injury.
44. Improves your recovery from injuries.
45. Makes you more efficient and productive at work and during other challenging tasks.
46. Helps your relationships.
47. Is a way to meet people.
48. Helps you to become a positive role model.
49. Can help you quit smoking and other addictions.
50. Improves overall quality of life.

I hope this gives you an incentive to exercise.  I’ll be delving more into exercise and how to go about it, safety tips, the building blocks of exercise, the best types of exercise, and tips for keeping it up in future blogs.