Running is a healthy outlet to assist in living a low stress life. Understanding the right way to warm up and cool down can add to the health benefits of running.
Physical Strength: Physical strength is one of the most popular reasons for beginning a running routine. Building strength in your lower body, muscles, tendons, and ligaments can greatly reduce the daily effects of fatigue and aging. Building physical strength also helps prevent future injury to muscles and bones due to increased stability.
Weight Loss: Gaining more muscle helps you lose weight from fat. The motion of the extra weight from fat moving up and down, helps to break it down into more manageable portions for the body to get rid of. Running also helps tighten the skin as the weight comes off. Losing weight greatly reduces the risk of heart attack and other illnesses that extra weight can cause.
Heart Health: Running helps build healthy heart muscles and increase the amount of blood the heart can pump. Having a healthy running schedule also helps reduce the risk of heart attack and increases the amount of blood the heart can pump without over exerting itself. A healthy heart can increase length and quality of life.
Helps Prevent High Blood Pressure: Healthy arteries alone cannot prevent high blood pressure. However, getting your arteries to work does. When you run, your arteries expand and contract harder than usual. This allows them to stay just as fit as the rest of your body. Keeping your arteries elasticity up by running, is a great way to maintain a healthy blood pressure. This reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Reduce Effects of Diabetes: A regular running schedule can actually help reduce the effects of diabetes on the body. Studies show that regular exercise can actually help maintain a healthy blood sugar and reduce diabetic resistance to insulin. Having more manageable blood sugar can increase the types of food you can eat, and decrease the amount of medication you need.
Lessen Effects of Asthma: Studies show that slowly adding a running regimen to your schedule can actually reduce the effects that asthma has on your life, and it can also reduce the amount and the severity of your asthma attacks. This is because your lungs and bronchi are strengthened over the time that you run.
Joint Strength and Stability:
Running not only increases strength in your leg muscles, it also increases the strength of your tendons and ligaments. Increasing the strength of your tendons and ligaments increases joint strength and stability. This can greatly reduce the risk of ankle, knee, and hip injuries.
Personal Control: Running on a regular schedule, reducing the effects of many disease processes, reducing the amount of medication needed to control your health, and allowing you to control these things, gives you a sense of self control. Being able to control your own schedule, your own health, and your own future, gives you personal control of your destiny. This helps build self confidence and increases quality of life.
Increase Bone Density: High impact sports and activities, such as running, can actually improve your bone mineral density. As bone is stressed as your foot impacts with the ground, the body recognizes this stress. Because of the stress that has been applied to it, the body sends essential materials to create new bone to the stressed areas. The result is stronger, denser bones.
Overall Mental Health: Chemicals released while running can actually help people over come symptoms of depression, anxiety, and bipolar. This is the case even in severe cases. Exercise and the accomplishment can also give you a better personal image of yourself. Feeling happy with who you are, and being satisfied with yourself is the best way to boost your overall mental health.
Running has always been a big part of my life. I enjoy the outdoors, the fresh air, and the serenity of the only sound in the area being birds, and my shoes hitting the pavement.
