"Life lies in movement", this is the French enlightenment thinker Voltaire put forward in the very early wisdom.

Academician Zhong Nanshan also said: "Exercise, like eating, is a part of life, we should establish a concept, is to exercise for a lifetime, so as to enjoy a better quality of life, the biggest success is to live healthy." Given the importance of physical activity to most of us, what are the benefits of physical activity? The following mainly introduces its physical, psychological and quality benefits.

1. Sports can build up physique and improve resistance.

Long-term exercise can enhance cardiopulmonary function, improve blood circulation, make the body Qi and blood smooth, accelerate the excretion of waste in the body, and promote the body metabolism.

Exercise can promote protein synthesis, enhance muscle elasticity, increase the density of human skeletal muscle, increase joint stability and extensibility, and reduce disease. A 2015 study in the American Journal of Cardiology showed that sedentary people have a higher risk of sudden death than those who exercise regularly. Dr. Arakawa rules male in the Journal of Japanese Medicine "The role of exercise in the prevention of lifestyle diseases" article pointed out that exercise can prevent lifestyle diseases.

Non-smokers who exercised the most reduced their risk of dying from cancer by 70 percent, and even those who smoked regularly reduced their risk of dying from cancer by 54 percent. Not only cancer, high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia risk factors can also be reduced by 50%.

De Miguel Z et al. found that exercise also increased plasma levels of tuquesin and improved cognitive function and memory in patients with mild cognitive impairment.

Exercise can also reduce neuroinflammation and reduce symptoms in people with brain injury.

Scientific research shows that exercise, such as walking, running, playing the piano, tapping the keyboard, picking up beans, etc., can effectively stimulate regional brain blood flow, which is helpful to prevent and slow down Alzheimer's disease. Those who sat were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as those who exercised.

2. Sports can improve mood and lift spirits.

As the saying goes, "bad things often happen." In daily work life, it is inevitable that some things make people feel bad and produce negative emotions.

If these negative emotions can not be cleaned up in time, it will have a great impact on our work, life and study, and even cause serious mental illness. (According to relevant surveys, mental illness is related to long-term depression, irritability, depression, etc.)

And exercise is one of the magic weapons to eliminate negative emotions, because when we exercise, our body and mind are focused on the movement, naturally forget those negative emotions.

Dr. Samuel Harvey et al. analyzed anxiety and depression levels in 33,908 Norwegians who were monitored for 11 years and showed that one hour of exercise per week reduced the incidence of depression by 44%[2].

According to neurology experts, more than 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise can stimulate the secretion of endorphins, increase the secretion of endorphins, under the stimulation of epinephelin, people's body and mind are in a relaxed and pleasant state, making people feel happy and satisfied, and even help people to relieve stress and unhappiness.

Neuropsychological experimental studies have also shown that when the human body enters the state of movement, the right hemisphere of the brain is immediately excited, and the participants enter a pleasant atmosphere and experience the pleasure of success to achieve mental stimulation.

3. Physical exercise can strengthen the will and cultivate the quality of never giving up.

Willpower is the ability to exercise conscious self-control.

Willpower is a very good quality, a person's intelligence determines how he judges and thinks about the problem, and a person's willpower determines whether he can solve the problem in the end.

Dr. WalterMischel of Stanford University conducted a series of classic psychological experiments on self-control in kindergarten from 1966 to the early 1970s. The results of the "marshmallow experiment" show that willpower is highly correlated with our academic performance and future career success.

The sports are generally hard, fatigue, intense, tense, confrontational characteristics, people participate in physical exercise, is accompanied by a strong emotional experience and obvious will efforts. Therefore, sports itself can cultivate brave and tenacious, hard work, perseverance, overcome difficulties and other excellent qualities, so that people maintain a healthy and upward mental state.

In the book Willpower by Roy Baumeister, there is an experiment in which people who don't normally exercise are asked to keep running for a period of time, and the results show that in addition to the aspects of their willpower that they practice, they also improve the aspects of their willpower that they don't practice.

Even those who run for fitness also have increased willpower in controlling their spending and studying.

4. How to exercise properly

Hearing this good news, you may be eager to prepare your running shoes, but don't worry, first understand how to exercise scientifically may be more helpful to you.

Effective exercise is not to "torture" yourself at high intensity, nor is it to stroll outdoors, but to maintain a proper heart rate. As far as aerobic exercise for weight loss is concerned, the professional recommendation is that the heart rate is maintained between 60% and 80%, just at the edge of the body's comfort zone, and half an hour of activity every day can produce excellent results.

If you're having trouble, there's an easy way to do it: keep yourself wheezing a little during cardio. For example, when running, maintain a fast enough pace until a little wheezing, continue for 1 to 2 minutes, and then change to fast walking, adjust breathing, repeat, this amount of activity can be achieved by almost everyone.

When it comes to exercise, I suspect that most people will choose running, but for better results, it is best to combine complex exercise.

For example, practicing yoga, dance, gymnastics, tai chi, etc., after a 10-minute aerobic warm-up, these complex activities can engage all the nerve cells of the brain [3].