Of the many ingredients that go into the pot of how to live better, stronger with better sleep, better sex and a quick wit, there’s one that stands out. Could it be the silver bullet?
This particular ingredient is so big, it lends a hand in all those things that we’d love to have more of and more often. We’d love to live better lives, be stronger, have better sleep and better sex (go on, admit it), and having a quick wit has always been a hallmark of fun and smarts.
So, what is this ingredient that seems to be able to roll all the qualities we look for into a one-step process? And by doing so, it contributes to our sense of wellbeing, a quality of life we’re in constant search of. Exercise!
We’re really talking about how to boost our physical wellbeing with our emotional wellbeing. Exercise gives us a clear definition and a direction for health and fitness over 50.
“…it has been found that engaging in physical activity on a regular basis may be one of the most important factors for improving quality of life, both in the case of psychological well-being and in relation to health-related well-being.”
Bolstering Your Life and Your Wellbeing
The benefits of exercise are hard to ignore, especially when it has such an influence on our ability to live better and live longer.
Exercise improves our physical, mental and emotional health and gives us the energy and enthusiasm to be more productive both in our work and in our relationships.
The effects of exercise over mood are very powerful. By increasing the brain’s sensitivity to hormones, it decreases feelings of depression, anxiety and stress. Generating those marvelous endorphins that we look forward to give a rise to positive feelings while the perception of pain decreases.
Stimulating various brain chemicals improves mood and can even make you feel better about your appearance, boosting your confidence and self-esteem.
Exercise balances the positive with the negative, giving you a sense of control, autonomy and optimism.
Improve Your Strength, Build Muscle and Save Your Bones
We can improve our strength no matter what age. In fact, it’s essential for us maturing adults to incorporate strength training exercises regularly to stay strong and vital. Funny enough, being physically strong also promotes our mental and emotional health.
Building muscle helps maturing adults with healthy and successful aging.
The primary benefits of building our muscle mass are to improve balance which minimizes the risk of falls, maintain bone health to reduce risks of osteoporosis, to lessen the aches and pain as with arthritis, and to burn more calories to help us with weight management. In other words to obtain and maintain fitness over 50.
Weight training can also improve your walking pace, make stairs less difficult to climb, helps improve your mobility and endurance (you can walk longer) and improves your range of motion (you can reach more easily).
Several ways to incorporate strength training exercises into your day:
- Body Weight work.
- Squats, push-ups, planks, mountain climbers, bridges, single leg deadlifts, and lunges.
- Resistance Bands
- Used for building strength and for rehabilitation
- Various types of bands that are color coded indicating how much resistance they provide
- Weights
- Start with light weights and work slowly, allowing your muscles to work harder.
- Allow recovery and rest days in between training with weights.
- Work all major muscle groups.
- Get professional guidance to achieve goals without injuries.
Better Sleep
Fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer by regularly incorporating moderate aerobic exercise into your week. Aerobic exercise may realign your internal clock and help you fall asleep faster. Moderate aerobic exercise is found to be most effective to relieve insomnia.
When you’re exercising, your core temperature rises. When you finish exercising, your core temperature drops. Research suggests that these changes signal your brain that it’s time to sleep.
Also, moderate aerobic exercise can increase the time you spend in deep sleep, a stage of sleep that restores and replenishes the body.
Better Sex
Exercise to the rescue…again! If there was a silver bullet, exercise must be it. So, it shouldn’t be surprised to see exercise helping us enjoying physical intimacy. You might be asking how this happens. Glad you asked.
Exercise boosts energy, increases confidence, and improves self-esteem. You’ll not only have more energy, but you’ll feel good about yourself and how you look.
Benefits from moderate to vigorous exercise may enhance arousal for women and reduce the likelihood of erectile dysfunction for men.
- Swimming seems to have a particular effect on ramping up the pleasure because it builds endurance, boosts blood flow, improves flexibility, strength and reduces stress.
- Core work because all movement starts in the core.
- Pelvic floor strengthening exercises mean more intense organisms and prevent premature ejaculation.
- Strength exercises help stabilize, build stamina and flexibility.
- Flexibility exercises limber your spine and help with focus staying power.
A Quick Wit
You can take steps to become a quick wit like practicing becoming a quick thinker or making unexpected associations or taking classes. But isn’t it nice to know that by you regularly exercising you are optimizing and preparing your brain so it can log in and retain more information like how to be a quick thinker, a quality needed to be a quick wit.
Being creative or solving problems are also qualities of being witty. You’ll be glad to know that there are links between exercise and imagination.
With exercise, our brains have more blood flow, oxygen and nutrients, all good things that clean, fuel and nourish. Exercise promotes and sharpens brain function, binds nerve cells together retaining information, and creates more and new brain cells.
So, it turns out that with exercise you can improve your mental and emotional health, build stronger muscles and bones, love your body, get quality sleep, have quality sex, improve your mind for new and more information, and lots of fun doing it all!
Our 8 Proven Strategies for Better Health After 50 and our 5 Steps to Boost Your Health and Your Productivity include strategies and tips on the top concerns of men and women cresting middle age and beyond. It also includes practical easy-to-do solutions that fit into those busy schedules so you can improve your health and fitness. C
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