Why we should make time for exercise?

The benefits of exercise for employee wellbeing are plentiful. Fitter employees tend to be healthier, more engaged in their work and more productive. It’s impossible to escape the daily reminders about how much more exercise we should be doing. We all know it’s good for us but do we know exactly why?

Let’s first look at some of the physical benefits:

Weight Management

Cultivating an active lifestyle burns calories, which helps you to keep your weight under control. Excess bodyweight and obesity are huge risk factors for many health problems that are avoidable with adequate exercise.

Heart Health

Physical activity has enormous health benefits for your heart. Regular exercise will contribute to keeping your blood pressure within normal ranges as well as boosting HDL or ‘good’ cholesterol. In fact, research shows that exercise reduces the chance of developing a wide range of health conditions including strokes; metabolic syndrome; type 2 diabetes; depression; certain types of cancer; arthritis and, thanks to strengthened muscles and joints, can even help to prevent falls!

Health Markers

You’ll notice that when you go for a regular check-up at the doctor they will test your basic health stats. These include your blood pressure, oxygen saturation levels, lung capacity and resting heart rate. Regular vigorous exercise will help you to improve all of these basic health markers, allowing you to pass your tests at the GP with flying colours, year after year!

The Importance of Exercise for Mental Health

The benefits of exercise are not limited to physical health. Busting-a-move can also enhance psychological and mental wellbeing, which in turn influences our general health. See where we’re going with this? As Plato said, ‘the part can never be well unless the whole is well’, and he wasn’t wrong. Good old Plato.

Stress, anxiety, depression and a negative attitude can all lead to the breakdown of physical systems within our bodies. From an employer’s perspective, this increases the risk of absenteeism and unhappy, unproductive employees. Let’s examine exactly how exercise helps our mental health.

Mood

When our mood is low, even the most positive of events become worthless. People who struggle to regulate their moods can bring down morale in the whole office! Dynamic exercise boosts the release of chemicals in your brain known as endorphins that reduce the perception of pain and enhance feelings of wellbeing. This can lift employee mood even for hours after exercise, making people feel more alert, more engaged and calmer. This is where the term ‘runner’s high’ comes from.

Enhanced Self-Esteem

Exercise helps us raise self-esteem in several ways. Not only can it improve our physical appearance as we lose weight and appear more toned, but it can also boost confidence. Setting out to achieve a goal that is important to you and systematically taking steps to reach it over time can lead to great individual fulfilment. The great thing about it is that you don’t even need to wait until you achieve your goal…just knowing that you are moving closer and closer to it through positive daily activities is of great benefit to your self-image!

Stress

Finally, and most importantly, exercise is a very effective way to relieve tension from a busy schedule and life’s little (or large) frustrations. Allowing an outlet for daily stresses calms us down, reduces anxiety and helps us maintain harmonious personal relationships. In turn, the stress-buffering effects of physical activity will contribute to our levels of happiness and productivity in the office.

A healthy workforce is able to focus on their work with more clarity, express more creativity and handle setbacks with greater poise and fortitude. Not only are many work hours lost through unnecessary illness which can drag down office community morale, simple health and lifestyle changes can vastly increase the effectiveness and contentment of any workforce.

Exercise should be a pleasure and not a chore. It should be something we want to do, and not something we have to do, or ought to do.

The Telegraph’s men’s fitness columnist and achievement consultant Scott Laidler built his reputation as a fitness professional by delivering transformations in the entertainment industry. Scott now offers online personal training packages providing custom meal plans and training programs to clients across the world, find out more about these services at www.scottlaidler.com”

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Replies

  • Brilliant article Mike.  The other key ingredient of exercise is making time to eat but properly.  The saying "you are what you eat" says a lot.  To achieve all of the points you made also depends on what you consume, both foods and liquids and the times of the day they are taken.  Foods and liquids affects your mind, body and soul and is an exercise too in how to educate yourself in what you eat and drink and when you do this.  It can be difficult and contains a lot of commitment.  Eating is one of the hardest benefits to achieve but it can also be the easiest when managed well and the rewards? Your physical, mental and behavioural well-being!

    • Great points Mike - I'm training for a triathlon at the moment and can't believe how much diet influences and impacts training and your general well-being. Some one threw a stat at me the other day to say that as much as 80% of fitness and exercise is influenced by your diet and only 20% the actual activity. Take your diet seriously but make sure you are exercising regularly so they work with each other and not against each other. Wise words.

  • Great article, great thoughts. Exercise also causes neurogenesis (new neurons to form) in the hippocampus region of the brain which greatly enhances learning and memory.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160803124445.htm

    • Great link Simon thanks for sharing.

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