“Movement is important to maintain or increase muscle,” Jason P. Womack, MD, chief of the division of sports medicine and associate professor in the department of family medicine and community health at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, tells SELF. Muscles help to regulate glucose (a.k.a. blood sugar) in your body and can even improve insulin sensitivity, which is how well your body’s cells respond to insulin, a hormone that regulates your blood sugar, he explains. Together, that can lower your risk of developing metabolic conditions like type 2 diabetes.
But moving also increases the efficiency of your cardiovascular system. “It allows the heart to work more efficiently,” Dr. Womack says. That can lower your risk of cardiovascular disease and a bunch of other serious health conditions, he says.
Regular movement can also help to lower levels of inflammation in your body, Nathan Parker, PhD, MPH, exercise oncology researcher and assistant member in the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior at Moffitt Cancer Center, tells SELF. That’s huge, since chronic inflammation is linked to a range of diseases, like cancer, cardiovascular issues, and autoimmune conditions.
It’s not all physical, either. On the mental health front, regular movement helps to work against some common symptoms linked with depression, like staying in more and feeling tired, Thea Gallagher, PsyD, clinical associate professor at NYU Langone Health and cohost of the Mind in View podcast, tells SELF. Movement is linked with the release of feel-good neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, too, which can help combat symptoms of depression, Dr. Gallagher says.
Working movement into your day doesn’t need to be complicated.
You don’t need to do intense exercise to get health benefits from movement, Nissi Suppogu, MD, cardiologist and medical director of the Women’s Heart Center at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center in Long Beach, California, tells SELF. “A lot of what we need to do for both physical and mental health is to keep moving,” she says.
Dr. Parker agrees. “Trying to move more and sit less day-to-day is key,” he says. Dr. Parker recommends trying to see where you can add little bursts of movement through the day, like looking at your schedule the night before and seeing where you might have time to go for a 10-minute walk, take a quick easy spin on your bike, or fit in a more traditional (even if truncated!) workout.
“There’s also something about having a goal and completing it that can make you feel a sense of mastery,” Dr. Gallagher says, which can give your mental health a boost too.
But it doesn’t always have to be formal exercise either. It can be helpful to train your brain to look for moments when you can just move, like if you get to a restaurant before your reservation time and have a few minutes to kill, Dr. Womack says. You can even do walking “dates” with friends while you catch up to be more motivated, Dr. Gallagher points out. “It doesn’t have to be a 45-minute sweat session,” she says.
Ultimately, it’s crucial to find movements you’ll stick with, Bert Mandelbaum, MD, sports medicine specialist and codirector of the Regenerative Orthobiologic Center at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles, tells SELF. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” he says. “The key is to find activities you enjoy and can incorporate into your routine.”
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