The Importance of Exercise in Our Daily

The Importance of Exercise in Our Daily Life
Its Effects on Our Health, Brain and Mood
Mohamed Amine Lourak
PSY 3301
Stephan McDaniel
26th April, 2013

This research paper was prepared for Psychology 3301, taught by Professor Stephan McDaniel

Abstract This paper explores several published sources that reports on the importance of exercise in our daily life and its impacts on our health, brain and mood. Many people do not see the need to practice any kind of activity to keep their body and health in a perfect condition. Some of them do not think that they have enough time to exercise, while others think that there are no benefits when exercising hardly. In contrast, researchers show the positive effects of working out. Exercising improve the physical and mental health, its controls the weight, eliminates the stress and regulates the sexual life. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to show that, an activity as Aerobics for example, can generate interesting changes in one’s daily life if practiced regularly.

The Importance of Exercise in Our Daily Life
Its Effects on Our Health, Brain and Mood

As a matter of fact, when you are giving your body a higher dose of effort than usual, it has a natural reaction of trying to go along with this new rhythm. While exercising is natural act of moving some parts of our body which lead the heart to pump blood in our system, it is becoming an ignored act by our current society as everything is being automatized and people are becoming more and more depended of what the machine can do for them. Yet, only a few percentage of adult from our modern societies is practicing a certain physical activity regularly at a level compatible with basic health requirement. In Europe for instance, based on 2009 data, more than 60% of adults do not engage in any kind of physical activity (Pedro J Teixeira, p-1, 2012). This behavior may have a direct impact on your intellectual performance. For instance, in the University of Columbia, researchers found that people who were the most active physically were half likely to suffer brain lesions (James S Fell, p-2, 2012). This paper considers the main effects of physical activities on our daily life by answering the following questions which are: 1. How exercising affects our health? 2. How exercising affects our brain? 3. How exercising affects our mood?
Understanding the impact of the physical activities in our daily life will highlights the importance of such a practice in our current society and will shows realistic solutions to avoid some negative excuses for not practicing any kind of sport.
How exercising affects our health? Exercising affects positively our health. It surely prevents from different well-known and wide spread diseases that our society suffers from. According to Judy Kilpatrick (2011), regular exercises will considerably decreases the likelihood of having in the future any kind of illnesses or disorders related to age or weight. It has a positive impact on biochemical substances in our metabolism as it increases the good cholesterol for instance, and decreases unhealthy triglycerides (Kilpatrick, 20). The testosterone and estrogen may be increased in a considerable way which may increase the sexual arousal for women and prevent men from erectile dysfunction. Jennifer R. Scott (2008) claims that there are several benefits of exercising as it prevents from some kind of cancer, hypertension and Type II diabetes. Many other diseases can be due to a lack of physical efforts, diseases related to heart and blood. According to Gretchen Reynolds (2012), some scientists who experienced the body reaction after training, found that even a 1-minute hard, 1-minute easy training, repeated 10 times, will have some positive repercussion on the person metabolism as it will improved blood sugar regulation the next day, especially just after meals. This kind of training, during two weeks may help the body to prompt proteins cells that are involved in energy production. This study effectively shows the importance of exercising on our health. Moreover, in addition of increasing your overall well-being and health, the practice of regular physical activity will make you develop a regular kind of eating and a strict discipline in your workplace, with family and friends. It will also increase in a significant way your intellectual performance.
How exercising affects our brain? According to Judy Kilpatrick, there is a strong relationship between the mental health and the physical training because “engaging in physical activities for work or entertainment increases physiological well-being and impacts mental health.” This means in other words, that our mental health will be improved in different way as it will decreases the daily stress, increases endorphins in our bloodstream and strength our self-esteem and sense of self-confidence. Basically, According to an article from Fitday.com, this neurotransmitter, endorphin, can be a source of pleasure in a long-term for athletes and is produced in the pituitary gland:
Endorphins are often produced during exercise, moments of excitement, anxiety and pain. They are naturally occurring pain relievers, and they leave a soothing, relieving effect. They prevent the nerve cells from producing more pain signals (Fitday.com).
Endorphin creates a strong exercise addiction, and a feeling of an extreme need for intense physical activities which may decrease our stress and makes us on better mood.
How exercising affects our mood? There are several studies with a determined aim to show that exercising can boost our mood and it is a great source of happiness. For instance, in a study conducted by Amanda J Daley (2012), it is shown that in addition to usual care, exercises and physical activities had good results when curing women who suffer from postnatal depression. This clearly shows that it has a significant impact on our mood. When feeling the pain of exercising it has a kind of pleasure. In other study of Somayeh Bordbar (2012), it is stated that endurance exercise training reduces all kind of tiredness in a long-term. It has a direct impact on releasing brain natriuretic peptide which acts as trigger for the sympathetic system. All in all, after analyzing the different effects that exercising has on our body and behavior, it is clear that these effects are strongly related. The impact of physical efforts on releasing chemical in our body, improves our health in a way that had a direct relation with our brain, the brain that can be considered as the first responsible of our state of mind and mood. Citing those multiple scientific sources, no one can deny the positive effect of exercising on our daily life.

References

Amanda J Daley, et al. (2012). The effectiveness of exercise as a treatment for postnatal depression: study protocol. Web, Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/12/45
James Fell, J. (2012, February 13). In-your-face fitness: Dumbbells can make you brainy. LA Times. Retrieved from https://my.aui.ma/ICS/icsfs/Dumbbells_022312.pdf?
Kilpatrick, J. (20, November 2011). How does exercise play a role in our daily lives?
Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/551437-how-does-exercise-play-a-role-in-our-daily-lives/
Reynolds, G. (2012, February 15). How 1-minute interval can improve your health. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://my.aui.ma/ICS/icsfs/one_minute_exercises_022312.pdf?target=20f28c5c-34e0-4acb-8b68-7bccfa8b2094
Scott, J. (2008, December 08). Why exercise? How exercise benefits your health & how to begin. Retrieved from http://weightloss.about.com/od/exercis1/a/aa020807a.htm
Somayeh Bordbar, et al. (2012). Effect of endurance and strength exercise on release of brain natriuretic peptide. Web, Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=e216490c-359e-451b-9832-da91460b6cdf%40sessionmgr13&vid=1&hid=14

References: Amanda J Daley, et al. (2012). The effectiveness of exercise as a treatment for postnatal depression: study protocol. Web, Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/12/45 James Fell, J. (2012, February 13). In-your-face fitness: Dumbbells can make you brainy. LA Times. Retrieved from https://my.aui.ma/ICS/icsfs/Dumbbells_022312.pdf? Kilpatrick, J. (20, November 2011). How does exercise play a role in our daily lives? Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/551437-how-does-exercise-play-a-role-in-our-daily-lives/ Reynolds, G. (2012, February 15). How 1-minute interval can improve your health. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://my.aui.ma/ICS/icsfs/one_minute_exercises_022312.pdf?target=20f28c5c-34e0-4acb-8b68-7bccfa8b2094 Scott, J. (2008, December 08). Why exercise? How exercise benefits your health & how to begin. Retrieved from http://weightloss.about.com/od/exercis1/a/aa020807a.htm Somayeh Bordbar, et al. (2012). Effect of endurance and strength exercise on release of brain natriuretic peptide. Web, Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=e216490c-359e-451b-9832-da91460b6cdf%40sessionmgr13&vid=1&hid=14