Exercise Lowers Health Bills

If there is one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that healthcare is expensive. Whether it’s diagnosis, treatment, prevention, or assistance, the cost of receiving health care support can be astronomical. One of the most effective methods of lowering the need for care and its associated costs is by improving your general health through exercise. Nothing builds the overall wellness of the body like activity, and a well-rounded, consistent, carefully implemented exercise program can often solve what medicine cannot. Here are ten common areas of health, and some benefits you can expect from adding systematic exercise to your routine.

Heart Health

Heart health and cardiac failure are among the leading healthcare concerns for most of us today. Keeping your heart healthy, or restoring it to good health, can be a serious medical challenge. Medications, surgeries, insertions, procedures – these are all common but expensive methods of treatment, though often with marginal results. The good news is, through a consistent exercise program many can counter the failures and weaknesses of the heart and build it back to long-term strength. Specific cardio workouts are designed to target and stimulate the heart, increasing its functions and helping to build the tissue. Implementing and maintaining a consistent cardio exercise plan can reduce or eliminate future heart health care needs substantially.

Digestive System Health

The digestive system covers a lot of ground. The esophagus, stomach, intestines, and various other internal organs work together to receive and process all our foods, extracting nutrients to be transported into the body and passing on the waste. Exercise can improve the overall functions of the digestive system by increasing blood flow, building abdominal muscles, and creating a need for additional nutrition throughout the body.

Spinal Column Health

The spinal column is an intricate array of disks, cartilage, muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Although injury causes some back issues, many others are a result of allowing the spine to become weak and stiff over time, reducing its strength and ability to maintain the load. Treatment is extremely expensive, risky, and often ineffective. Fortunately, most back problems can be avoided by keeping the spine strong and flexible through exercise. Everything from general calisthenics to weight-lifting programs builds the spinal area, and by consistent application can avoid many future problems.

Muscle Health

Weak and ineffective muscle structure can lead to many health issues such as trips, falls, sprains pulls, and much more. Each incident can be expensive, painful, and cause ongoing residual issues. The best treatment is, of course, avoidance. Exercise directly affects the muscles of the body. It builds weak muscles, creates better flexibility, and even improves balance, coordination, and equilibrium.

Skeletal Health

The skeletal system is a complex system of bones and their interconnecting parts. Although they seem rather passive and unchangeable, they are in fact very much living tissue and can be weakened through neglect, or internally strengthened. Just as with the other elements of the body, the skeletal system benefits greatly from well-placed exercise. The tissues in the bones are replenished, increasing their strength and improving blood flow.

Pulmonary Health

The lungs provide a key function that interacts with most other systems of the body. The heart and circulation system works closely with the lungs to receive oxygen and expel carbon dioxide from the system.  Exercise and activities that cause the lungs to work harder can help build their capacity, making it easier for the other systems to interact and perform their functions more effectively. Many long-term health problems can be avoided by building the lungs through exercise.

Joints and Limbs

The flexibility and durability of the human body rest in many cases on the key joints in the body such as the knees, ankles, hips, elbows, and wrists. Many expensive and complicated treatments and surgeries are common for these health issues, but there are ways to avoid them. Long-term exercise, working these joints and keeping them active, can strengthen and reinforce these critical areas, extending their full-function natural abilities for many years.

Circulatory Health

Although intermixed with the cardiac system, the circulatory system reaches every area of the body and can develop its own special set of health issues. If the flow of blood is not consistent and sufficient, the body doesn’t get proper nutrition and can retain water that would normally disperse. Exercise and activity are essential to blood flow. By increasing the amount of exercise your body gets, the circulatory system can keep the veins and arteries flowing smoothly, freely and reliably.

Weight and Obesity

One of the most critical health issues we face today is weight control. Overweight conditions and ongoing obesity cause undue strain on nearly every system in the body. Many of the major health issues we see today find their basis in the weight of the individual. Fortunately, a good exercise program can turn this problem around and make major strides in restoring health to the body. Every system benefits from weight management and can reduce or eliminate many health issues in the future.

Immune System Health

The inability to ward off colds, diseases and other afflictions can lead to extensive medical care and expense. Keeping the body healthy through exercise is a great way to offset those limitations, and give your systems every resource possible to remain free of issues. Exercise revitalizes the defenses in the bloodstream, building up the white blood cells, and reduces the intake of bacteria and other offenses in the lungs. Regular activity helps maintain these improved levels and can make a big difference in keeping good health in the long run.