ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Mastering Longevity - Exercise Benefits

Updated on January 12, 2011

Exercise for Life

Imagine that somebody discovered a magic fountain. This magic fountain required a difficult journey along a circuitous trail up and down many mountains to reach it. Once you arrived at the fountain, anyone could drink once of its waters and be granted another ten years of healthy life. Would you be interested in making this long arduous trek?

What if you found a magic lamp and a genie appeared offering to grant you a small wish in return for a small favor. So you wish for a long and healthy life. The genie then tells you that he will grant your wish if you will go on a five mile walk every day. Would you begin making those daily walks?

There are no fountains of youth and there aren't any magic genies. However, you can get those ten extra years of healthy life. Just start regular exercise and do it every day. Exercise is actually the good kind of stress for our bodies.


Keep your heart healthy with exercise
Keep your heart healthy with exercise

Health Benefits of Cardiovascular Exercise

The best type of exercise for a longer and healthier life is cardiovascular exercise, also known as cardio exercise or a cardio workout. Cardio exercise is exercise that gets your heart going at its optimum level, which is 70 to 80% of your maximum heart rate. Your maximum heart rate is considered to be 220 minus your age in years. For a 50 year old person, his maximum heart rate would be 220-50=170. His cardio exercise level would be between 119 and 136 heart beats per second. If you want to ignore all the math, exercise fast enough to make you breath hard, but not so hard that you can't talk.

Here are some of the health benefits to cardiovascular exercise:

  • Reduced risk of premature death
  • Reduced risk of premature heart disease
  • Increase levels of healthy cholesterol, while reducing levels of bad cholesterol
  • Reduced risk of diabetes
  • Reduced risk of high blood pressure
  • Reduce high blood pressure if you already suffer from hypertension
  • Reduce depression and anxiety
  • Reduce risk of colon cancer (due to faster digestion of food)
  • Help control your weight
  • Keep bones, muscles, and joints strong
  • Maintain balance and coordination in older people
  • Increases general well being
  • Improves ability to handle stress

Although 30 minutes of exercise every day will give you most of these health benefits, you should exercise at least an hour if you are trying to maintain a trim figure.

Exercise for Life - Every Day - Through the Day

You shouldn't think of exercise as just a chore to get done once every day. You need to start thinking of ways to exercise into different aspects of your daily routine. Movement and motion are good for your body.

Exercise doesn't have to be done all at once either. You can do it in increments. A few ten minute walks through out the day. Do you tend to drive to the store for every little need. Make it an excuse for a walk instead.

Besides my regular exercise, I try to get in small chunks of exercise throughout the day. If I am cooking, then I may do a few jumping jacks or some running in place while waiting for the next cooking step.

Do you watch a lot of television and ignore exercising? Stop feeling guilty about it and start doing some calisthenics during the commercials. The average channel has about 20 minutes of commercials every hour. Three hours of television could give you your hour of exercise every day. Keep a set of dumbbells near your TV to also give you a bit of variety and some strength training too.

Live long and prosper

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)