The effects of exercise benefits - Essay Example

This is so because exercise does not just improve physical stamina but also influences social and psychological aspects of one’s life. Engaging in physical activities can prove to be more beneficial than what people already expected and this is what will be discussed in detail below. Obviously, exercise benefits participants physically, building healthy habits in maintaining fit bodies and staying away from certain diseases. In fact, physical activities are being given a lot of importance that training children to become physically active is one of the objectives of many fitness scholars.

Kenneth H. Cooper, for instance, encourages parents to become involved in engaging their children in physical activities for them to get used to it and for the parents to become good models for the children because as they grow older, there is the great tendency of becoming inactive. Girls are found to become inactive around age fourteen while boys at fifteen. This is so because of the changes which happen in the children’s body (Cooper, 15-16). However, the importance of physical exercise should be well-pointed out to them.

First and foremost, exercise increases muscle size and builds muscle strength. Jogging, walking or aerobic exercises increase the supply of oxygen-rich blood available to skeletal muscles for aerobic cellular respiration. This helps the regulation of blood in the body maintain normal processes and prevent diseases. Engaging in such activities on a daily basis builds endurance for prolonged activities. Anaerobic activities on the other hand like weight lifting, increase muscle size and builds strength.

One might say that strength and endurance are not actually needed in relation to work nevertheless, it should be noted that the more sedentary the lifestyle of a person is because of the nature of his job, the more one needs to do physical activities to stay healthy. Aerobic exercises for instance, increase the oxygen demand of the muscles, increasing cardiac output and the rate of oxygen delivery to the tissues. Moreover, oxygen delivery also increases because more capillary networks are developed by skeletal muscles because of long term training (Tortora & Grabowski, 687).

In contrast to an active lifestyle, being sedentary exposes a person to obesity, heart problems, depression and other related diseases. In addition to the physical benefits, people who exercise also enhance themselves psychologically. Studies show that exercise can help alleviate long term depression. James Blumenthal, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Duke University experimented on patients and he found out that those who did exercise had higher rates of remission comparable to those who did not exercise but were taking antidepressant.

His conclusion about this observation is that, exercise is as effective as antidepressant for patients with major depressive disorder. He further adds that exercise “seems not only important in treating depression but also in preventing relapse” (Weir). More studies show and explain why exercise benefits people positively on the psychological aspect such as the fight or flight mechanism. Patients with heightened sensitivity to anxiety have been observed to be able to adjust to circumstances that may cause anxiety better than those who have no or less physical activitie