How do you feel after you exercise? You feel energized. Whether you’re going for a walk, Riding a bike, or even working out in the yard will give you that feeling. There are a lot of good reasons to stay active. Maybe you want to lose weight, lower your blood pressure, have less stress, and anxiety, or maybe you just want to look and feel better.

Did you know that chronic diseases, such as asthma, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes account for 70% of deaths in the United States and affect nearly every American directly or indirectly, to some degree?

Staying active helps you think better. As we age we seem to forget more, maybe you feel fatigued, or you lack a sense of focus, like a brain fog, which we all do at times, but maybe it’s more than usual that this happens. It can also be the result of an unhealthy lifestyle, such as lack of sleep, stress, and an un-energetic lifestyle.

In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, The kind of exercise that gets you sweating and heart pumping, exercises like a faster-paced walk or riding your bike, playing pickle-ball, Tennis, or swimming appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning. This same study was done for Resistance training, balance, and muscle toning exercises but did not have the same results.

Exercise helps memory and thinking through both direct and indirect means. The benefits of exercise come directly from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation, and stimulate the release of growth factors—chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells, the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, and even the abundance and survival of new brain cells.

Indirectly, exercise improves mood and sleep and reduces stress and anxiety. Problems in these areas frequently cause or contribute to cognitive impairment.

So what should you do? Start exercising! I have spoken in different blogs about this but if you’re just starting, I would recommend walking. Jumping into a more aerobic routine coming from a sedentary lifestyle can result in getting injured. Start slow and include stretching and other stability exercises.

How much should you exercise? at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardiorespiratory exercise, and  75 minutes of vigorous-intensity, or a combination of both exercises per week. That comes out to be about 30 min a day of walking. If you can’t walk every day, work up to maybe 10 min walks each day and build on that.

It’s never too late and you’re never too old to become better

I understand that sometimes it’s not easy, Not having a place to walk or you have chronic issues that limit you from exercising. If you have lower back pain, Knee Injuries, or musculoskeletal injuries some can be caused by muscle imbalances. With a physical assessment, we can narrow it down to find out where those imbalances either the shortening of a muscle; that needs to be stretched or the lengthening of muscles that need to be strengthened.

Please remember that some types of medication can limit you from some types of exercises you can do. This is where you ask your doctor about the effects of the medication and that you would like to start an exercise program. If this is what you want to do, YOU can make it happen. There are so many different modalities that can be incorporated into an exercise program and I speak on this subject at Lunch & Learns at Assisted and Independent Living villages.

I have competed in many sports, but it was never easy, and I wanted to stop so many times and have experienced all sorts of injuries; broken bones, torn ACL, and a number of road rashes, If you want it bad enough you can do it. And when you get there, you can look back and know that you are much stronger than you think.