The Top 10 Benefits of Regular Exercise

Exercise has been shown to improve your mood and decrease feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress (2Trusted Source).

It produces changes in the parts of the brain that regulate stress and anxiety. It can also increase brain sensitivity for the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine, which relieve feelings of depression (3Trusted Source).

Additionally, exercise can increase the production of endorphins, which are known to help produce positive feelings and reduce the perception of pain (Trusted Source3Trusted Source).

Furthermore, exercise has been shown to reduce stress and improve symptoms of anxiety (3Trusted Source).

Interestingly, it doesn’t matter how intense your workout is. It seems that your mood can benefit from exercise no matter the intensity of the physical activity.

In fact, a study in 24 women who had been diagnosed with depression showed that exercise of any intensity significantly decreased feelings of depression (4Trusted Source).

The effects of exercise on mood are so powerful that choosing to exercise (or not) even makes a difference over short periods.

One review of 19 studies found that active people who stopped exercising regularly experienced significant increases in symptoms of depression and anxiety, even after only a few weeks (5Trusted Source).

Some studies have shown that inactivity is a major factor in weight gain and obesity (6Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source).

To understand the effect of exercise on weight reduction, it is important to understand the relationship between exercise and energy expenditure.

Your body spends energy in three ways:

• digesting food
• exercising
• maintaining body functions like your heartbeat and breathing

While dieting, a reduced calorie intake will lower your metabolic rate, which can delay weight loss. On the contrary, regular exercise has been shown to increase your metabolic rate, which can burn more calories to help you lose weight (Trusted Source6Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source, 8Trusted Source).

Additionally, studies have shown that combining aerobic exercise with resistance training can maximize fat loss and muscle mass maintenance, which is essential for keeping the weight off (9Trusted Source, 10Trusted Source, 11Trusted Source).

Exercise plays a vital role in building and maintaining strong muscles and bones.

Activities like weightlifting can stimulate muscle building when paired with adequate protein intake.

This is because exercise helps release hormones that promote the ability of your muscles to absorb amino acids. This helps them grow and reduces their breakdown (12Trusted Source, 13Trusted Source).

As people age, they tend to lose muscle mass and function, which can lead to an increased risk of injury. Practicing regular physical activity is essential to reducing muscle loss and maintaining strength as you age (14Trusted Source).

Also, exercise helps build bone density when you’re younger, in addition to helping prevent osteoporosis later in life (15Trusted Source).

Interestingly, some research suggests that high impact exercise, such as gymnastics or running, or odd impact sports, such as soccer and basketball, may help promote a higher bone density than non-impact sports like swimming and cycling (16Trusted Source).

Exercise can be a real energy booster for many people, including those with various medical conditions (17Trusted Source, 18Trusted Source).

One older study found that 6 weeks of regular exercise reduced feelings of fatigue for 36 people who had reported persistent fatigue (19).

Furthermore, exercise can significantly increase energy levels for people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and other serious illnesses (20Trusted Source, 21Trusted Source).

In fact, exercise seems to be more effective at combating CFS than other treatments, including passive therapies like relaxation and stretching or no treatment at all (20Trusted Source).

Additionally, exercise has been shown to increase energy levels in people with other conditions like cancer (21Trusted Source).

Lack of regular physical activity is a primary cause of chronic disease (22Trusted Source).

Regular exercise has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, heart health, and body composition. It can also decrease blood pressure and cholesterol levels (23Trusted Source, 24Trusted Source, 25Trusted Source, 26Trusted Source).

In contrast, a lack of regular exercise — even in the short term — can lead to significant increases in belly fat, which may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease (22Trusted Source).

That’s why regular physical activity is recommended to reduce belly fat and decrease the risk of developing these conditions (27Trusted Source).

Your skin can be affected by the amount of oxidative stress in your body.

Oxidative stress occurs when the body’s antioxidant defenses cannot completely repair the cell damage caused by compounds known as free radicals. This can damage the structure of the cells and negatively impact your skin.

Even though intense and exhaustive physical activity can contribute to oxidative damage, regular moderate exercise can actually increase your body’s production of natural antioxidants, which help protect cells (28Trusted Source, 29Trusted Source).

In the same way, exercise can stimulate blood flow and induce skin cell adaptations that can help delay the appearance of skin aging (30Trusted Source).

Exercise can improve brain function and protect memory and thinking skills.

To begin with, it increases your heart rate, which promotes the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain. It can also stimulate the production of hormones that enhance the growth of brain cells.

Plus, the ability of exercise to prevent chronic disease can translate into benefits for your brain, since its function can be affected by these diseases (31Trusted Source).

Regular physical activity is especially important in older adults since aging — combined with oxidative stress and inflammation — promotes changes in brain structure and function (32Trusted Source, 33Trusted Source).

Exercise has been shown to cause the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s vital for memory and learning, to grow in size, which may help improve mental function in older adults (32Trusted Source, 33Trusted Source, 34Trusted Source).

Lastly, exercise has been shown to reduce changes in the brain that can contribute to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia (35Trusted Source).

Regular exercise can help you relax and sleep better (36Trusted Source, 37Trusted Source).

With regard to sleep quality, the energy depletion that occurs during exercise stimulates recuperative processes during sleep (38Trusted Source).

Moreover, the increase in body temperature that occurs during exercise is thought to improve sleep quality by helping it drop during sleep (39Trusted Source).

Many studies on the effects of exercise on sleep have reached similar conclusions.

One review of six studies found that participating in an exercise training program helped improve self-reported sleep quality and reduced sleep latency, which is the amount of time it takes to fall asleep (40Trusted Source).

Another older study showed that 16 weeks of physical activity improved sleep quality and helped 17 people with insomnia sleep longer and more deeply than the control group. It also helped them feel more energized during the day (41Trusted Source).

What’s more, engaging in regular exercise seems to be beneficial for older adults, who are often affected by sleep disorders (42Trusted Source, 43Trusted Source).

You can be flexible with the kind of exercise you choose. It appears that either aerobic exercise alone or aerobic exercise combined with resistance training can both improve sleep quality (44Trusted Source).

Although chronic pain can be debilitating, exercise can actually help reduce it (45Trusted Source).

In fact, for many years, the recommendation for treating chronic pain was rest and inactivity. However, recent studies show that exercise helps relieve chronic pain (46Trusted Source).

In fact, one review of several studies found that exercise can help those with chronic pain reduce their pain and improve their quality of life (46Trusted Source).

Several studies also show that exercise can help control pain associated with various health conditions, including chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia, and chronic soft tissue shoulder disorder, to name a few (46Trusted Source).

Additionally, physical activity can also raise pain tolerance and decrease pain perception (47Trusted Source, 48Trusted Source).

Exercise has been proven to boost sex drive (49Trusted Source, 50Trusted Source, 51Trusted Source).

Engaging in regular exercise can strengthen the heart, improve blood circulation, tone muscles, and enhance flexibility, all of which can improve your sex life (50Trusted Source).

Physical activity can also improve sexual performance and sexual pleasure while increasing the frequency of sexual activity (50Trusted Source, 52Trusted Source).

Interestingly enough, one study showed that regular exercise was associated with increased sexual function and desire in 405 postmenopausal women (53Trusted Source).

A review of 10 studies also found that exercising for at least 160 minutes per week over a 6-month period could help significantly improve erectile function in men (51Trusted Source).

What’s more, one study found that a simple routine of a 6-minute walk around the house helped 41 men reduce their erectile dysfunction symptoms by 71% (54Trusted Source).

Another study demonstrated that women with polycystic ovary syndrome, which can reduce sex drive, increased their sex drive with regular resistance training for 16 weeks (55Trusted Source).

Exercise offers incredible benefits that can improve nearly every aspect of your health from the inside out.

Regular physical activity can increase the production of hormones that make you feel happier and help you sleep better.

It can also improve your skin’s appearance, help you lose weight and keep it off, reduce the risk of chronic disease, and improve your sex life.

Whether you practice a specific sport or follow the guideline of 150 minutes of activity per week, you will inevitably improve your health in many ways (56Trusted Source).

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