Exercise Helps Everything!

Do you know the power of exercise? Honestly, the true power of being involved with a daily exercise routine! You’ve heard me talk about this a number of times and I am a total believer that there is no drug, no gadget, no supplement, no medical miracle that can affect the human life more than exercise does. My husband and I will challenge you to find any health condition that exercise won’t have a positive effect on.

This topic started a couple of weeks ago when the power of exercise was discussed with members and then with staff how exercise helps everything. It quickly became a challenge to try to find a health condition that didn’t have a more positive outcome when exercise was part of the individual’s routine. Please remember that it’s not always about curing the medical problem, which exercise can do for some conditions. Exercise can also impact a medical issue or the life of an individual experiencing the medical issue in a way that nothing else can.

These are the well-known conditions that we all know exercise helps; obesity, cardiovascular/heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, diabetes, depression, aging and general aches and pains. I don’t think that I need to detail the ways that exercise helps these conditions, they’re pretty much understood.

What about something like cancer? We know that exercise doesn’t cure cancer and we know that exercise doesn’t help prevent us from getting cancer; does it really have a positive effect on cancer? Absolutely! Individuals going through cancer treatments have shown to be able to tolerate the treatments easier when they participate in a regular exercise program. Individuals who exercise prior to beginning chemotherapy have already established a higher immunity and can usually ride those tough waves of chemo-torture better than those who were not physically fit prior to beginning treatment. Even during treatment, if one can keep exercising as regularly as possible (knowing that there are days impossible to move) during those good days, there is proof of a more positive outcome of the chemotherapy, at least the perception of those dreary days. Exercise helps the body survive and circulate those chemo-poisons through your body easier and more quickly.

Let’s pick another medical mystery! Menopause, ugh to every woman going through it, having been through it and going through it in the future! It is a time when the hormones just decide to switch themselves up and either quit working or change their style. With menopause come sleepless nights, lower metabolism, night sweats, fatigue, weight gain, cravings, irritability, depression, lower libido and “fuzzy” thinking. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Well, think about all of these issues and tell me how exercise won’t help every one of those symptoms. Honestly, women who exercise on a regular basis experience far fewer of these symptoms than women who don’t. That alone keeps me in the gym.

Here’s a tough one. Medical issues like Chronic Fatigue, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Fibromyalgia, arthritis and other auto-immune disorders are a real trick for exercise specialists like me. We understand that often movement and exercise irritate certain conditions, yet they also relieve those same conditions if performed correctly for the state of inflammation they are in. Exercise energizes and lubricates those joints that are so weak and inflamed and in the case of MS, if you strength train while you still have control of the muscles then just maybe those muscle fibers will last longer and respond better during the hard times. There is research that exercise benefits all these conditions. The exercise just needs to be done properly for the medical state that the individual is in.

Honestly, exercise helps everything! Even though I’ve only picked a few of the big medical issues, it’s the little ones that make our daily lives more pleasant. Think about it! Exercise can help your sinus’ during those inflamed “allergy” ridden days, exercise can help in those sleepless nights and energizes after, exercise helps in building that immune system against that common cold, exercise can help in digestion, in thinking, in alertness! The list goes on and on! Exercise makes life better.

There ain’t nothing that exercise can’t help! Let’s talk about it!

 

Deborah Holmes

June 3, 2008