We are generally less active now than in the past. This is because newer technologies are making our lives easier and we are getting lazier. We move around less and burn off less energy than people in the past. Research suggests that many among us spend more than seven hours a day sitting and in over 65s, spend more than 10 hours sitting. We have all been told repeatedly that to stay healthy we must exercise regularly. Lack of exercise is associated with numerous health conditions, including obesity, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis. Most of us know how beneficial exercise is for our health. However, it is surprising how little many of us know about the dangers of being unfit. The number of overweight people is growing alarmingly fast all over the world. Department of Health in UK describes inactivity as a “silent killer”. So act now if you are not already at it. How does exercise help? To improve health through exercise it is necessary to make your heart beat faster. When it beats faster it forces more blood thereby oxygen to every organ in the body. This is one of the reasons why the whole body benefits by exercise. There is however a maximum safe rate at which a normal heart can beat. This will depend on your age. We will come to this later. Muscles and Heart: When you exercise regularly, you strengthen the muscles that do the work. To supply the muscles with enough oxygen during the work out, the heart has to work faster. This increased work load (within safe limits) will strengthen the heart muscles. Keeping the heart healthy is the key to the overall benefit you gain through exercise. Unfortunately, when you stop exercising all the benefit gained is slowly lost. Kidney: The increased blood flow through the kidney helps to get rid of unwanted chemicals (urea, ammonia, uric acid , etc) that are by-products of digested foods. Brain: Irrespective of age increased blood flow through the brain improves memory and learning function. It will also delay the onset of Alzheimer's in people who are prone to it. Bone: Regular exercise helps maintain stronger muscles and bones particularly in the elderly. Total inactivity results in weak muscles and loss of minerals from the bone resulting in osteoporosis. Immune System: With regular exercise you generally become more resistant to infections. Endocrine System: Exercise has a beneficial effect on the glands that produce different hormones. One of them relates to diabetes where it becomes easier to control blood sugar level. People with type 2 diabetes have too much glucose in their blood, either because their body doesn’t produce enough insulin to process it, or because their body is resistant to insulin. Exercise helps the muscles to use glucose without insulin. What this means is that through exercise the blood glucose level will go down whether you are insulin resistant or there is not enough insulin being produced. Type of Exercise: As mentioned earlier, the aim of any exercise is to increase the heart rate to its optimum level. You can do this by a variety of activity like jogging, cycling, swimming or brisk walking. Depending on your age and your physical fitness, you decide on the type of exercise to do. If you have never exercised before it is best to start with simple walking, extending it slowly to 20 minutes a day. To stay healthy, adults should aim to achieve at least 3 hours of moderate to vigorous physical activity every week. You'll get the most from your workouts if you're exercising at the proper exercise intensity for your health and fitness goals. Research has shown that interval training, ie higher intensity exercise done for short bouts (1 minute) interspersed throughout your workout, is well tolerated, even by those with certain cardiac conditions. This type of workout is very effective at increasing your cardiovascular fitness.