Rise and shine, it's time for some morning exercise! This is a great way to start your day and has so many great benefits for your body. In the morning you may not be totally ecstatic about working out, but once you feel the benefits, you will love it. Continue reading for 5 benefits of morning exercises.
Benefit of Morning Exercise #1: Increase Energy & Focus
Working out first thing in the morning can improve your overall energy. It can also inspire you to remain more active all day. Exercise strengthens your muscles and circulates oxygen and nutrients throughout the body. While you workout, your oxygen travels to the heart and lungs much faster than as if you were sitting down. This can improve your cardiovascular system, endurance, and stamina. By boosting your endurance levels, it can give the energy needed to think clearer and come up with new and more creative ideas. Morning exercise is better because you can get that energy you need for the rest of the day. Working out at night actually makes falling asleep and staying asleep harder. Physical activity is known for increasing the ability to stay focused during the day as well. This has actually been a way to help children with attention deficit disorder by assisting them to release some energy and stay focused during school hours. It has also been proven to improve abilities such as visual learning and decision-making. Exercising in the morning can also fight off Alzheimer's and brain aging. This does not mean that you need to get up before the sun and hit the gym for an hour. Simply going for a walk around the block first thing in the morning is the perfect amount of exercise needed.
Benefit of Morning Exercise #2: Less Stress
People who do not exercise actually have greater stress levels in the hippocampus area of the brain than those who exercise actively. The hippocampus area affects long and short term memory. Psychologists have studied that 10 minutes of exercise can be just as beneficial as 45 minutes. This small amount of exercise can help people with various anxiety disorders to maintain stress levels. Exercise can reduce stress hormone levels such as adrenaline and cortisol. In can also stimulate endorphins, which are a body's natural pain killer and mood elevator. The term "runner's high" comes from endorphins. It is a feeling of relaxation and optimism. There are specific types of exercises that contribute specifically to reducing stress. This includes yoga, tai chi, kickboxing, and dancing. Yoga is slow moving poses that combine deep breathing to help you release your stress. Tai chi is an ancient form of Chinese martial arts. It is very similar to yoga but has different positions. Kickboxing incorporates martial arts and boxing. It reduces stress by teaching you proper breathing techniques. Dancing is a stress reliever because it helps to exhibit self expression. It is also great for your mind.
Benefit of Morning Exercise #3: Lowers Blood Pressure
A great benefit of working out in the morning before continuing onto daily activities is that it can help with hypertension. Morning exercise has been proven to lower blood pressure for majority of the day. As little as a half hour of moderate walking can reduce blood pressure for 8 hours by 10%. Exercise is often used as treatment for hypertension and may even be able to reduce prescription medications. Many times elders who are diagnosed with high blood pressure are given the option to attempt to reduce it with exercise before being given medication. To see results, you should do at least 30 minutes of a moderate intensity exercise per day for 5 days a week. While this may not be able to completely take you off your medication, it may help them to work better for your body. You can gradually increase the intensity of your workouts to help lower your blood pressure to a safer and normal level. Be advised that you should not do too much too fast. This can cause you to injure yourself.
Benefit of Morning Exercise #4: Improved Sleep
Morning workouts are the perfect choice if you are looking to get a better night of sleep. Getting them done at the beginning of the day can leave you plenty of room for getting the other necessary tasks of the day completed. If you perform your workouts in the morning you are also less likely to skip them because you are too busy. People who workout at 7am get longer amounts of sleep and experience deeper sleep cycles. Exercising outside can also help you get additional sunlight, which regulates your sleep/wake cycle. Since exercise also reduces stress and anxiety, the mind is much calmer when it comes time to hit the pillow. This allows your body to be in a healthy mental state, which will make you sleep better. Working out at late hours of the evening can hinder your sleeping abilities and patterns. Since exercise gives you more energy, it is not recommended that you workout and then attempt to fall asleep.
Benefit of Morning Exercise #5: Burn More Calories
Most of the time we want to burn the most amount of calories that we can. Did you know that exercising the morning may actually burn a grater amount of calories than at night? This is true! Exercising in the morning leads to the body burning more calories all day long. High intensity exercises keep you continuously burning calories all day long, when done in the morning this has an even better effect. When you work out early in the day, you generally have not eaten anything yet. Your insulin and blood sugar levels are low, meaning that there are an abundance of fatty acids floating in the bloodstream. This allows the body to pull energy from the fats you have eaten the day before. However, you must be careful because doing too much exercise on an empty stomach makes the body begin to burn protein.
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-Franki
