Physical Activity: The Wonder Drug
There are a number of wonderful medications that provide benefits to a targeted physiologic process or area of your body. Some even do more than one helpful thing. But there is no drug that does so much for you as Exercise and other physical activity.
A regular program of exercise obviously helps with muscle tone, weight control, bone health, and overall fitness. It is not widely recognized, however, that exercise can significantly contribute to brain health as it increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain. In fact, recent research demonstrates the role that exercise plays in being protective against dementia. Almost 50% of dementia patients have a history marked by an absence of regular physical activity. When you add to these benefits the fact that exercise offers so many opportunities for social connectedness through team sports, Yoga classes, exercise buddies, etc., the importance of including physical activities into your daily regimen becomes a no-brainer.
Federal guidelines recommend at least 5 days a week of moderate aerobic exercise for 30 minutes (such as brisk walking, swimming, or bicycling) and 2-3 days a week of strength training. Older adults should add at least 3 days of balance exercises weekly, and everybody should take time to do stretching on a daily basis.
While some people may read this and regard exercise as burdensome, it is important to recognize that physical activity can take many forms and doesn’t have to be the kinds of exercise you may have learned in gym class. Activities such as housework, Gardening, going up-and-down stairs, and carrying bags of groceries can count. There is also a cumulative effect – so aerobic exercise doesn’t have to be done continuously, as long as it adds up to 30 minutes during the day.
The benefits of regular physical activity are so phenomenal and so well-documented and can be done so inexpensively that you do your body and your brain and social life a disservice by not including it in your daily regimen. If you need a medication in order to stay healthy, and a physician fails to recognize that need and prescribe it for you, that doctor is likely committing malpractice. Don’t commit malpractice on yourself by failing to recognize and utilize the wonder drug that is accessible to you: regular physical exercise.
