Elle woods, a main character in “Legally blond” movie (2001), while doing her internship in a lawyer’s office; defends her client Brooks Windham, a prominent fitness instructor, accused of murdering her husband. Elle says Brook exercises daily. Those who exercise daily are happy and happy people don’t murder their husbands. She believes in her client’s innocence. Such are the benefits of regular exercise. Regular exercise besides physical health benefits helps to elevate your mood. Keeps you happy, secretes neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, nor epinephrine etc. from brain. Exercise increases acuity of mind and feeling of well being. Neurotransmitters are naturally occurring chemicals in human body, involved in communication between the nerve cells of the body. These are mood elevators.
Self discipline is a great virtue in a person’s life. When we keep on doing a same thing at a particular time of the day, it becomes our habit. We need to have Regularity, time management to inculcate good habits such as regular exercise in our life. Simply giving excuses is not going to help us. so let us include regular exercise in 2017 year resolutions. There is flood of information in society about value of exercise, type of exercises, their videos, classes, Gyms and so on. So let us not discuss about common information here. Common exercises that we choose are walking, swimming, Yoga, aerobics, zumba, jogging, running. Each of the above mentioned exercise has its own benefits and shortcomings. Except walking, all the other exercises need training, special equipment and precautions. Walking is the best exercise suited for all ages, many diseases and it is even safe in pregnancy. Morning walk reduces depression. You meet people on your walking track which reduces your loneliness. Moving around improves your circulation, burns your calories.
Monotony in work out, doing same type of exercise daily reduces our enthusiasm and we tend to avoid exercising daily. Variety in day today activities and exercise will increase our interest and will maintain regularity in our habit of exercising. For example if I do aerobics daily for 20 minutes(after 5 minutes of warming up exercises), I can add 15 minutes of floor exercises or Yoga to my schedule. I can go for a walk or swimming or trekking on weekends when I have ample time to spare in the morning. If I get tired of aerobics, I can replace it with zumba for one or two days. We can hear music during workouts to feel relaxed. We can have weekly one day gap in our exercise schedule. By doing this we give rest to our sore and aching muscles.
We can ask our spouse or children to join us in this daily activity. We can get motivated by each others activities. This will have synergistic effect on health of all family members. Children are like monkeys. They imitate their parents. If we are regular in our exercises they will have a great impact on their mind. Not now, but any time later in their life our children will surely turn towards daily workout. I can vouch for this, because I am one of those monkeys who have imitated their parent’s regular exercise schedule.
Flexibility of a body is a sign of youth and stiffness is a sign of old age. Yogasanas gives you that flexibility. Removes all stiffness, pains, retained toxins in your body and regulates proper circulation of your vital energy. It is one of the greatest gifts of our Indian culture to mankind; number of Indians who practice yoga daily has increased manifolds in last decade.
Last but not the least, don’t get depressed if your weight is constant in spite of your daily workouts. Some people tend to get demotivated, frustrated and leave their regular exercise if they don’t lose their weight quickly. There are so many factors responsible for the weight gain. We have to consult expert medico for this problem and even while choosing type of exercise. So we have to keep on doing exercise daily religiously, with good hope in heart. You will surely see the difference which you and only you can make in your own life.
Exercise the option, to be fit or not.