Aerobic exercise is exercise that causes you to sweat and breath harder than normal. While participating in aerobic exercise the blood is able to transport oxygen to the muscles to keep going. Being involved in aerobic exercise regularly basis provides positive benefits.
Benefits include:
Improves circulation
Improves endurance
Reduce risk of Heart disease, diabetes, and obesity
Reduce body fat and maintain healthy body weight
Reduce stress, tension, anxiety, and depression
Improves sleep
Examples of aerobic exercise:
Running
Swimming
Hiking
Dancing
Kickboxing
Cycling
The effects of aerobic exercise on stress: Aerobic exercise can be used to reduce stress levels and decrease the development of serious conditions. Psychological stress is caused when a force disrupts the equilibrium of a living organism and produces a strain. When stress occurs in quantities that the body’s natural response system for stress cannot handle the load, producing pathological changes. When we exercise our body we feel revitalized and more active. In that case, when the body feels better so does the mind. The stress response is our body’s natural defense mechanism that is intended to help us survive. Our response system is made up of our hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and autonomic nervous system. Aerobic exercise stimulates the release of stress regulating hormones.
HPA releases corticotrophin releasing hormones that stimulates endorphin and adrenocorticotropic hormones. When we exercise we release endorphins which act as painkillers to cope with stress. Also the release of endorphins improves the ability to sleep, which is a natural stress reducer. Adrenocorticotropic hormones are also released during exercise and stimulates the release of cortisol. Cortisol regulates stress factor such as blood pressure, blood sugars, inflammation, and metabolism.
Our autonomic nervous system is responsible for releasing norepinephrine and epinephrine. Norepinephrine is responsible for triggering our fight or flight response. Epinephrine is also known as adrenaline which is used to increase blood circulation, breathing, carbohydrate metabolism, and preparation of muscle exertion. These two hormones take over when our body feels stressed. Aerobics has been tested to reduce depression, anger, perceived stress, anxiety and increased perceived health and fitness. Engaging in aerobic exercise frequently significantly decrease emotional distress, perceived stress and psychological symptoms. Aerobic exercise can increase resistance to oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is the imbalance between the production of free radicals and the ability of the body to detoxify the harmful effects by neutralization by antioxidants. Radicals are highly reactive molecules that can steal electrons from your DNA, proteins, and lipids. Resulting in neurodegenerative diseases such as: Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, gene mutations and cancers, chronic fatigue syndrome, fragile X syndrome, heart and blood vessel disorders, atherosclerosis, heart failure, heart attack and inflammatory diseases.
Stress Recommendations:
About five minutes of aerobic exercise can begin to stimulate anti-anxiety effects
Regular vigorous aerobic exercise reduces the likelihood developing depression and anxiety disorders
Aquatic exercises can reduce stress levels during pregnancy