Sixweekhealth challenge - week five: How I keep fit and active
This is my entry into the sixweekhealth challenge by @healthsquared and @sweetsssj
To keep fit and stay active i do a lot of work outs, especially indoors. But most especially i engage in swimming. I'm a very big fan of swimming and it has a whole lot of benefits...
Benefits of swimming
Not only is swimming fun, but it's also a great aerobic exercise. And now that the weather is warm, it's the perfect time to start swimming laps.
It might not help with wrinkles or laugh lines, but swimming has been shown to cut the risk of dying by nearly 50 percent.
Improves flexibility. Some rheumatologists recommend swimming to not only increase a person's range of motion but also help to increase physical activity without causing stress on the body's joints.
Swimming improves asthma symptoms like many other aerobic exercises. It increases your lung capacity; forces your body to work overtime. Since water is denser than air, your lungs need to work that much harder to supply enough oxygen to your blood, giving your lungs a good workout and thus decreasing asthma symptoms.
Swimming improves mental health and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), water-based exercise improves mental health.
Also, it improves mood in both men and women. It also reduces anxiety.
Swimming can help in losing weight.
Also, I play table tennis...
Why I Engage In The Game
It improves hand-eye coordination and it stimulates mental alertness, concentration and tactical strategy.
It improves reflexes due to the fast-paced, short-distance nature of the sport, both gross and fine muscle movements are improved.
It helps in the development of mental acuity.
It can help in burning calories.
It’s a great way to improve your leg, arm and core strength without overtaxing your joints.
Table tennis offers a great way to bond with other people while you lose weight. Because young and old people can play the game, it can help improve communication and build relationships, irrespective of age.
Table tennis keeps the brain sharp. Alzheimer’s Weekly reports a clear increase in motor skills and cognitive awareness from playing table tennis, after a series of preliminary clinical studies in Japan found that table tennis markedly increases the flow of blood to the brain, and could possibly even prevent dementia.
It also helps in stimulating various parts of the brain. When one anticipates the opponent's shot, he/she uses the prefrontal cortex for strategic planning. The aerobic exercise from the physical activity of the game stimulates the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for allowing us to form and retain long-term facts and events.
These are few of the reasons why I engage in the game...
Hope you love it.
Thank you very much @sweetsssj and @healthsquared for the opportunity to take part in this week's challenge.