Avoiding the Avoidables

By: Mujuthaba

It’s about time I sat my butt down and wrote about exercise in a way how it should be. For most of the population, exercise is all about image by keeping in shape. But come on guys, there’s way more to it than that. Yep…I’m talking about all the health benefits shrouded under the toned up body.

Let’s start with those diseases that are caused by inactivity. Coronary artery disease, hypertension, type-2 diabetes and hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol). How many people do you know who has got these diseases? I can be a straight forward 100% sure that you would know more than one person. These diseases maybe caused by genetic or aging factors, but each one of them can be controlled, fixed and prevented through physical activity.

All of these diseases are caused from increased visceral fat, which are not helpful if individuals seek a sedentary lifestyle. Now, these diseases aren’t acute diseases, they are the most common chronic diseases facing the world. You will see people, well, mostly aged people on cocktails of medication from preventable diseases like this. These diseases could have been prevented by gifting a couple of minutes on physical activity from the days while they were young. I guess we are just too preoccupied with other things in life that we have little time to look after our own body.

There are a number of diseases that benefit from exercise. There has been successful resistance training done on chronic kidney failure patients treated on dialysis. This training prevented muscle wasting in these patients increasing their strength, aerobic capacity and improving their activities of daily living. Other such diseases and disorders are respiratory diseases (COPDs), ischemia, anginas, cancers, chronic fatigue syndrome, AIDS and congenital diseases which are all controlled through exercising.

Obviously, sedentary lifestyle has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality in all the populations. So why are we blowing up the balloon and just waiting for it to pop, when we can just avoid this? Have you forgotten the effect of those endorphins, the feel good hormones released after exercising? Have you forgotten how much stamina you can add to your life from exercising? Have you forgotten how less stressful your life would be from exercising? Have you forgotten the strength that you could experience from exercising? How about the overall psychological and physiological improvements from exercising?

Make a new resolution to avoid the diseases that you can prevent. Give a minimum thirty minutes of your day on a physical activity of your interest. Doesn’t matter how old or young you are. You have just one life and you were born with the resources to enjoy a longer one, let’s make use of it.