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10
Reasons to Exercise
Don't
worry, I'm not going to tell you to exercise to save yourself from
a heart attack. You've already know that fit people may have half
as many heart attacks and strokes. Right?
Instead,
I'm going to offer you some less well-known but equally good reasons
to put fitness on your daily to-do list.
-
Physical
activity reduces your risk of colon cancer. According to a
recent study in the journal Cancer, active men have much lower
risk,
even if they're overweight.
- Exercise
protects against, and may even reverse, diabetes. In
a study of 22,000 doctors, those who exercised regularly had 42
percent
fewer cases of diabetes.
- Working
out protects you from job burnout. Researchers at Tel Aviv
University have found that active men are about half as likely
to buckle
under job stress.
- Strength
training my delay aging. When a group of 90-year-old men
were put on a program of weight lifting, they increased strength
by an average of 174 percent.
- Fitness
helps prevent you from getting sick. A study of 8,301 employees
found that unfit people were 2.5 times as likely to call in sick.
- Men
who exercise are less likely to get prostate cancer. Among
20,785 Harvard alumni, only one man who burned up more than 4,000
calories
a week exercising got prostate cancer. Those who burned fewer
than 1,000 had 38 cases.
- Exercise
builds strong bones. Among 101 men 60 and older who took
up exercise, bone density increased 19 percent on average.
- Exercisers
are depression resistant. The American Journal of Epidemiology
reports that people who don't exercise are at "significantly
greater risk of depression."
- Exercise
helps you go to sleep. Duke University scientists report
that men who exercise fall asleep in half the time that it takes
men who don't.
- Fit
people have better sex lives. When 78 inactive men took up
exercising three or four days a week, their frequency of intercourse
increased
significantly.
What's
more, you don't need to become a marathon runner to enjoy most of
these benefits. The American Heart Association—which for the
first time in 20 years has just added a heart disease risk factor
to its list: inactivity—says that walking, gardening, dancing,
croquet, and shuffle board are all activities that can help you live
a longer, happier life.
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