Can Exercise Prevent Aging

Everyone is always looking for a miracle to cure aging. While there’s no way to stop time, there are ways you can reduce the potential impact of aging. From lotions, creams, medication, to skin-healthy diets, many people view the changes in their skin as the first sign of aging. However, there are other effects of aging, such as body aches and pains, and fatigue. You’ve already heard about all of the benefits of exercise, including heart health and weight loss, but what you might not know is exercise can help prevent aging. 

While you’ll never be able to change the date you were born, exercise can improve your health to help you look and feel younger. Here’s how exercising can prevent aging. 

Gives You Energy

Have you ever noticed how energized you feel after a vigorous workout? Exercise fires up your brain and body so you feel more alert in the hours following a workout. If you’re lucky, that energy lasts you all day. Simply put, exercise helps you feel more awake and alert all day long. As a result, daily tasks feel less strenuous and require less mental and physical exertion. 

Improves Sex Drive

Exercise promotes blood flow throughout your entire body, improving your sex drive, making you feel younger. It also has a psychological effect as working out makes you feel more confident about your appearance. The energy surge you get from exercise can also give you more fuel to avoid being too tired for adult activities. 

Keeps Skin Healthy

Exercise can help keep your skin healthy, no matter what type of skin you have. While you might look younger after a workout session due to sweat and red cheeks, exercise also has a longer-lasting effect. Exercising regularly can keep your skin more supple and elastic to slow the signs of aging skin. 

Improves Posture

As you age, you experience muscle and bone density loss which can affect your posture. You can counteract bad posture due to aging with strength training exercises to help keep your muscles and bones strong to improve posture, and you look younger and more confident. 

Improves Flexibility

Age makes your muscles and joints less flexible, making daily activities and regular movements more difficult. If you’re feeling stiff, you can use exercise to improve flexibility throughout your entire body. Regular workouts, especially stretching, such as yoga, can help your body loosen up. You can also use a foam roller to massage your muscles and get rid of knots. 

Elevates Mood

Age is just a number; it’s all about how young you feel. Unfortunately, you can feel much older if you’re constantly in a bad mood. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins that are responsible for regulating your mood and making you feel happy, which is why you typically feel more confident after a workout. Exercising regularly can improve your mood to help you feel younger. 

Promotes Sleep

Both your body and brain need sleep to properly function. Not getting quality sleep can impact all areas of your body, including your skin and mind, because sleep allows your body to repair itself. If you’re not sleeping well, you might notice changes in your skin, such as dryness and dullness, because your skin hasn’t been able to repair itself. 

Exercise helps you feel tired later in the day so you can fall asleep faster and stay asleep for longer. Getting quality sleep also improves your ability to manage stress, something that can age you quickly by causing health issues and even wrinkles. 

Keeps Health Issues at Bay

While exercise is not a cure for all health issues, being active can help you prevent or manage health conditions for several reasons. For example, exercise improves blood flow and increases oxygen to the cells, but it also helps reduce stress. As you know, stress can make health conditions worse. Also, studies have shown that physical exercise can boost oral health. With the correlation of a person’s BMI and their dental health, previous studies have shown that those who maintain a healthy weight and exercise routine consume a healthier diet, meaning they are less likely to have periodontitis. Another example, individuals suffering from essential tremor may experience a worsened tremor during periods of high stress and anxiety. 

Exercise can help improve your mental and physical health by reducing stress so you can focus on your overall health and improving medical conditions. 

Improves Metabolism

As you age, your metabolism naturally begins to slow, which can make you begin feeling older since you might put on weight. Exercise can help you speed up your metabolism in short bursts to help you lose the weight associated with aging. Not only that, but working out increases the number of calories you burn, so if aging is the cause of your weight gain, you might not need to cut foods out of your diet and drink lots of water; instead, you might just need to burn a few more calories per day. 

Slows Cell Aging

Exercising doesn’t just make you feel younger; it can impact the aging process. Chromosomes have caps at the end called telomeres, which become shorter as you age. Telomeres are associated with longevity and youthfulness. Regular exercise may lengthen telomeres to extend your lifespan by slowing the aging process of cells. While exercise can’t guarantee you a longer life, it can help you live longer than you might if you didn’t exercise. 

Enhances Memory

One clear sign of aging is a decrease in memory. As you grow older, it’s natural to become more forgetful. However, exercise can help enhance your memory by providing your brain with more oxygen and improving blood flow. Regular exercise might increase the size of your brain associated with memory, allowing it to properly function. Exercise is also linked to sharper cognitive skills. 

Improves Heart Health

Exercise makes your heart work better. After all, your heart is a muscle that needs to be worked out to improve its ability to pump blood throughout your body. Exercise can make your heart stronger to pump blood more efficiently to result in less strain. 

Additionally, exercise can protect your heart from disease by reducing your risk of cardiac-related problems associated with age, such as high blood pressure.

Exercise for Aging

Exercise is not a cure for aging, but it can keep all areas of your body, including your brain and skin, healthy so you can feel younger and more confident. Regular workouts can also help you look younger by allowing you to reduce stress and get the sleep you need for your skin to repair itself. 

Marné Amoguis

Marné Amoguis holds a B.A. in International Business from UC San Diego. She is a contributing writer at 365businesstips.com where she loves sharing her passion for digital marketing. Outside of writing, she loves traveling, playing music, and hiking.