HEALTH ADVICE

PHYSICAL EXERCISE AND ITS BENEFITS

From walking to practising sports, physical activity contributes to the prevention of a wide range of pathologies.

These are the benefits of doing exercise that numerous public hospitals advertise on their front doors.

Benefits of physical exercise

• It reduces the probability of suffering from cardiovascular diseases (ictuses, heart attacks, anginas, etc.) by up to 30%.

• It prevents the emergence of diabetes by up to 40%.

• It reduces the probability of suffering from depressive conditions by up to 30%.

• It decreases the emergence of breast cancer by up to 20%.

• It decreases the probability of suffering from colon cancer by 30%.

• It decreases the emergence of dementia in older people by up to 30%.

• It reduces hip fractures by up to 68%.

• It also reduces the probability of dying from any pathology by up to 30%.

Other benefits of physical exercise include making us feel good about ourselves and making us feel strong enough to tackle any type of pain that we may have.

Examples of physical exercises that we could do that would produce the benefits explained above include: running, swimming, cycling, dancing, climbing stairs or just walking at a brisk pace for a minimum of 150 minutes per week. Each exercise that we decide to do will always depend on the state of our physical fitness, the state of our health and our age, whilst also a sedimentary lifestyle as much as possible.