How Physical Activity Improves Your Health

Our current lifestyles are sedentary to say the least.

Form the hunter-gatherer period, our daily physical activity has decreased continuously, and in the modern era, people got used to making less and less effort.

We stay at the computer all day long, keeping everything we need at hand just to avoid the few steps we have to make to take food or water.

We take the car or public transportation to go everywhere, no matter if the destination is kilometers away or just a few blocks.

This way, we unconsciously live our lives without exercising our muscles or bones at all, transforming into inactive beings that get exhausted after the shortest fitness routine.

But we are not aware that our bodies were not meant to linger in office chairs or lay around on couches all day long, but they were created to run, jump, and put effort into various physical activities.

The fire element is in charge with the dynamics of your body functions, the energy level, the healthy way in which you digest food and stock nutritious substances, the balance of your mood through regulating your temper and your lust for life.

Whether your fire is burning out, being suffocated or, on the contrary, bursting into flames and devouring yourself, physical exercise is the best way to keep in control, in a steady rhythm that ensures your holistic health.

 

Without proper exercise our muscles whither, our stamina decreases drastically and our mood turns towards anxiety and depression.

The benefits of physical activity are numberless, but let’s go through some of the most important:

• Lower blood cholesterol;
• Reduced risk of heart attack;
• Reduced risk of type 2 diabetes;
• Maintaining the body weight and energy level at optimum levels;
• Strength in muscular and bone structure, lowering the risk of osteoporosis;
• Lower blood pressure;
• Balanced mood and better sleep;
• Reducing the risk of depression and anxiety – by balancing the levels of serotonin, endorphins and stress hormones.

 

Recommended actions to tend to the fire element:

• Engage in physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day – moderate intensity exercising your body, through walking, jogging, cleaning up the house, dancing or whatever makes you pleasure and comes easy for you;
• Do some 3-5 hours of moderate to vigorous intensity exercises per week – you may choose swimming, running, or Yoga;
• Yoga exercises helps strengthen your muscles, adjust your posture, balance the energy levels throughout your body; it also helps maintain a mindful state of being with a clear mind, a loving heart and good tonus of the body;
• Take a walk or a ride on the bicycle instead of taking the car or other transportation;
• Take pauses every hour when you are staying at the desk at your computer, and get up to stretch your muscles.

What has your experience been like when doing physical exercise to improve your physical wellbeing?

Do you recall any important improvement from acquiring this simple habit?