Exercise

It all counts: Steps to and from parking spots, rigorous cleaning, stretches at your desk, gardening. There’s always more structured activities where you are working up a sweat and your smart watch tells you to increase your heart rate. If you have a fitness buddy like mine above, it is double the fun! This is Ryder, our rescued German Shepherd pup.

Listed below are a few of the benefits you can reap by adding a little spring in your step.

• Mood Improvement: Improved mental health, less depression, decreased stress and anxiety levels all pump up those feel-good endorphins. If outdoors is a part of the equation, sunlight is an added benefit. Sunshine helps your body to create Vitamin D. Vitamin D is needed for bone health and calcium absorption. Sunshine on your skin just makes you feel good. 10 minutes a day. Any longer than that, use sunscreen to protect against skin cancer.
• Cardio Vascular Health: The heart is a muscle. A muscle needs exercise to maintain it’s ability to pump blood throughout the body. Increased blood flow means increased oxygen. Lowering blood pressure, keeping body weight low, increasing HDL (the good or “happy” cholesterol), and lowering risk for coronary heart disease are all perks of exercise.
• Cognitive Function: If you’ve ever found yourself walking into a room and wondering what you went in there for, then make it a habit to walk a little more. Brain health is just as important as heart health. Thinking, learning and remembering are life long functions and exercising daily certainly can assist with maintaining the single most important 3 pound organ in your body.
• Regulating Blood Sugar: Highs and lows before or after meals is normal, but significant peaks and valleys, over time, put you at risk for Type 2 diabetes or strokes. Continued high blood sugar levels are damaging to your blood vessels and that can affect blood flow. Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) makes it difficult for thick blood get pumped into tiny capillaries-like those to your toes and eyes.

“I don’t have time to exercise is the grown up version of the dog ate my homework.” Quote credit to Hasfit.com.

A quick hike or walk around the block with this boy is the best exercise. I happen to think this is the best form of therapy. Ryder doesn’t judge, he listens intently when needed, and gives me a dog’s view that sometimes life’s troubles are short term.