No matter how old (or young) you are, regular physical activity is important for maintaining a well-functioning body. Not exercising doesn't just affect the way you look, but also reduces bone density, increases your risk of several preventable diseases and weakens your immune system.
We all deal with the demands of long hours at work, too much time spent staring at a computer screen and other realities that lead to pushing working out way down on the totem pole of priorities. Rationally, we know we should exercise and eat better and take better care of ourselves, but those things often seem to get lost in the shuffle of our day-to-day lives.
So, how important is working out and what are the risks if you don’t exercise?
Muscle Loss
If you do less exercise or activity you will become deconditioned. Your muscles weaken and lose bulk including the muscles you need for breathing and the large muscles in your legs and arms. Your bones need stress exerted on them to grow,and so do your muscles. A muscle's fibers need to tear for it to rebuild itself larger and stronger. So as you may already know from experience, if you don't use your muscles, you "lose" them.
Bones and Strength
If you don't stress your bones by exercising,you can suffer from low bone density, which can turn into a case of osteoporosis. Also, if you never exercise and stretch your joints, your arthritic joints will stiffen over time and their adjoining tissues will weaken, causing arthritis. Bones also lose density with age, and lack of weight-bearing exercise plays a role in osteoporosis, or brittle bones. Your body responds to the demands you put on it, and if you do not exercise, your muscles and bones weaken with time.
Increased Risk of Disease
Muscle loss caused by inactivity makes your metabolism slow down. Your metabolism is the rate at which your body converts food and drinks into usable energy, and if you have a slow metabolism,your body ends up storing a lot of the energy you consume. This leads to weight gain and puts you at a higher risk of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, depression and anxiety, according to Harvard School of Public Health.
Flexibility
Exercise involves stretching our muscles repeatedly to build them up, tone them, shape them and so on. All this stretching done right from the warm up to the cool down phase in the course of a workout, makes the muscles and the surrounding tendons flexible and improves your over all flexibility.
Weight Problem
It’s common knowledge that a lack of exercise will result in your gaining weight. Instead, if you choose to follow a regular regime of exercise, it will help you burn more calories, speed up your metabolism and help improve the blood circulation which aids a good digestion process. All the above three put together help to reduce and control weight.
Stress
The best way to deal with stress is to give it physical outlets i.e.exercise or playing sports, which are known to be instant stress busters! When stressed, the body goes in a flight or fight state that makes certain systems of the body such as cardiovascular system speed up and gastro-intestinal systems slow down, which eventually results in the release of cortisol, a stress hormone.
Why should I exercise?
Exercise is important not just to keep you fit and fabulous looking but also to ensure that you stay healthy. And by healthy here, we don’t mean just staying away from cough and cold but overall health that includes a healthy heart, strong immune system, strong bones and so on.