Regular exercise will help you feel better, live longer, lose weight, sleep well, reduce stress, improve cognitive skills, have more energy and feel more positive. It also helps to prevent disease, because it strengthens your heart, decreases your risk for high blood pressure, controls blood sugar levels and strengthens your bones.
How Much
Recent evidence, published in the British medical journal "The Lancet," indicates that as little as 15 minutes a day of moderately vigorous aerobic exercise can increase your lifespan up to three years. However, the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, recommends that all adults get at least 150 minutes a week of moderately intense aerobic exercise, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous aerobic exercise. This recommendation includes older adults who are fit and have no disease conditions that limit their ability to exercise.
Muscle-strengthening Exercise
The NIH also recommends that you perform muscle-strengthening exercises at least twice a week, exercising all the major muscle groups. This includes your legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms. Perform eight to 12 repetitions of at least one exercise for each area of muscles. Use weights, resistance bands, heavy gardening or yoga and exercise to the point that you would find it hard to do another repetition.
Intensity
Moderately intense exercise 30 minutes a day for five days gives you 150 minutes per week. On a scale of one to 10, moderately intense exercise is a five or a six. It will make you breathe hard, increase your pulse rate, and make it difficult to sing but not difficult to talk. If you would rather do 75 minutes a week of vigorous exercise, work hard enough to reach a seven or eight on the 10-point scale. You'll be breathing too hard to say more than a few words, and your heart rate will increase more than it would during moderately intense exercise.
Types
Your 150 minutes of moderately intense exercise might include brisk walking, swimming, bicycling, light yard work or snow shoveling. Vigorous intensity exercise for 75 minutes per week might include jogging or rollerblading, running, vigorous dancing, swimming laps, cross-country skiing, jumping rope or competitive sports.
References
- State of Virginia; How Much Do You REALLY Need to Exercise?; Jeanne Faulkner; May 2009
- WomensHealth.gov; Healthy Aging -- How Should I Get Physical Activity?; August 2010
- National Institute on Aging; Chapter 1: What Can Exercise Do for Me?; January 2008
- National Cancer Institute: Physical Activity and Cancer
- Kenyon College: How Much Do I Need to Exercise?
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Physical Activity for Everyone; March 2011
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