EXERCISE

If someone has just broken an arm or a leg, it needs to be put into a plaster cast for 6 - 8 weeks so that the bones can knit back together and it can heal properly.  When the plaster is removed, it can be easily noticed that the limb that was broken is smaller, paler, weaker and more stiff than the other arm or leg that has been used all the time.  The joints of the broken limb will not move as well through the motions of the good limb and could well be more painful.  If the plaster was placed on the arm or leg in the bent position, to straighten it out would not be as easy as the other limb being used all the time.
ONLY EXERCISE WILL BRING IT BACK TO GOOD USE AGAIN.

This is just a picture of what happens to all the rest of the body when we fail to get proper exercise.  Each part suffers and of course the whole body suffers too.

Some people work indoors all day in schools, offices, stores and in vehicles.  Even though they are tired at the end of the day from standing or sitting all day from using their brain in heavy concentration, they still need to exercise other muscles and breathe deeply in fresh air.  It would be well for these people to enjoy some late afternoon or early evening sunshine and exercise in the garden, cycling or brisk walking.

When oxygen is short in the body, the blood moves sluggishly and the waste, poisonous matter that should be thrown off in the breathing out, is kept in the blood and it becomes impure.  Exercise improves the blood circulation and helps cleanse the blood.

Proper exercise gives life to the whole body.  It gives strength to the digestive organs, the liver, the kidneys, the lungs and the heart.  Exercise is excellent recreation not only for the body but also for the mind.  It brings relief to the weary brain, helping us to think more clearly and to feel more cheerful.  The whole body becomes more resistant to disease.

It is not wise to exercise too vigorously, especially after eating a large meal.  The blood is then needed in the stomach to break down the food and is not as available for the other strenuous exercise.  Exercise, like all other daily activities must be done with care, thoughtfulness and common sense.  Let us begin to take some steps and make a decision to get some exercise today and every day from here on.

Listed below are some benefits of good exercise.

* Prevention of heart disease

* Lowers blood pressure

* Increases circulation and oxygen intake

* Increases self-worth

* Improves sleep

* Lowers cholestrol levels in the blood

* Decrease in anxiety and relief of depression

* Elevation in mood and vigour

* Stronger heart beat and lower resting heart rate

* Increase fitness level

* Aids in stress control



Direct Effects of Exercise

1. It helps the heart:
* immediately, by pumping the blood back up from the legs (2ozs/step in adults)
* on the long term, by making heart work harder.  This makes the body strengthen the heart muscles.  Thus exercise results in a stronger heart that delivers more blood per beat and can therefore take a longer rest between beats.
* exercise improves the elasticity of the arteries, making them easier to pump blood into.  After receiving the blood a wave of contraction must flow down the artery walls to help send the blood through the circulatory system.

2. It increases muscle strength.  Muscle fibres can lift 1,000x their own weight.  Most of our actions only use a fraction of our muscle's strength and this means that any given movement only uses a few of the fibres in the muscles that produce the movement. If we repeat the movement, fibres that were not used the first time will be used the second time. If a movement is repeated frequently (as in playing the piano) only enough fibres are used each time to produce the movement, and each repeat is produced by a fresh group of fibres so that most of the fibres are resting and refreshing at any given time.

If we are sedentary and only make small demands on our muscles, we will have small muscles (your body will not give you a weight-lifter's muscles if you are not a weight-lifter).

If you adopt an exercise programme that uses nearly all your muscles' strength, they will send a message to your brain saying, "We need more muscle fibres to share the work, we aren't getting enough rest." Your brain will order more fibres made so that there are enough to allow the right number to rest while the others work, so that the work is done by fresh, rested fibres.

3.  It increases bone strength.  If the bones are not strong enough to withstand the strains that exercise places upon them, tiny fissures form as the bones begin to bend.  The body fills these fissures with calcium. (You cannot strengthen bones simply by taking calcium.  Your body must have a use for it otherwise it will excrete it).

Note on Osteoporosis: You have cells that make bone and you have cells that chew it up (this is how your body renews your bones).  During the first half of your life, the cells that make bone outdo the ones that chew it up.

During the latter half of life the cells that chew up bone outdo the ones that make it.  We all have bone loss after mid-life.  It is most important that we develop the best bones we can while we can, that we have adequate calcium and plenty of exercise and avoid high protein foods. (Protein produces uric acid which must be combined with calcium until its pH is raised to neutral so that it will not burn the bladder while in storage.  No diet can provide enough calcium to meet the need created by a high protein diet.  For good health and good bones avoid meats of all kinds, cheese and eggs).

4.  It produces endorphin - a hormone produced by a happy brain, especially during enjoyable exercise.  Endorphins relieve depression, bring sweet sleep and are the most powerful single factor in maintaining optimum health.  As a rule, happy people have better than average health.

5. It increases HDL (the "good cholesterol" that cleans the LDL, or "bad cholesterol", out of your arteries).

6. It increases hemoglobin - helps correct anemia.

7. This, along with the deeper breathing that goes with exercise, increases the oxygen supply to the body, making you feel brighter and better.

Flow-on Effects of Exercise

1 . It burns off adrenaline from fear or stress and so soothes the nerves and restores peace and calm, essential for restful sleep.

2. It relieves brain strain.  We need a balance between mental and physical activity.  After a time of intense mental activity nothing will so refresh the mind as a period of physical activity.

3. It aids digestion.

4. It helps regulate blood sugar. If we don't exercise, our blood sugar level will tend to be too high.  To correct this your body will lower it by putting some of it into storage.  This process is so efficient that sedentary workers commonly have a self-made low blood sugar and its corresponding hunger, well before meals.

  Exercise signals the body to leave the blood sugar in the blood because the muscles will need it.  With the blood sugar "up", the appetite is "down".

5. The overweight can use exercise to reduce appetite and to burn calories (but, of course, if you exercise enough you will burn so many calories that you will increase your appetite).

6.      Exercise also helps the diabetic keep his blood sugar under control.

Caution:
Strenuous exercise should be avoided right after a meal.

Your arteries branch and get smaller and smaller until they branch into arterioles.  Each arteriole ends in a spray of about 30 capillaries and each capillary has a tiny sphincter muscle at its inlet end.  When you are resting, about 1/2 of the capillaries in your large muscles will be closed so that extra blood is available where needed - usually the stomach, where all the capillaries will be open so that the stomach has all the blood it needs for digestion.  If you are doing brain work, the capillaries will all be open in your brain so that it has all the oxygen and nutrients it needs.

MILD exercise will aid either digestion or thinking but strenuous exercise will compete with the stomach or the brain for blood supply.  Also intense mental effort will compete with the stomach for blood.  Give your body a chance.  Work with it and enjoy the best results.