Everyone wants to capture the fountain of youth and there is a way to do that, it’s called exercise. Study after study has shown that regular workouts have been proven to protect you from heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and stroke. Exercise has been shown to lower bad cholesterol, raise good cholesterol, reduce body fat, lower blood pressure, improve blood flow, keep intestines and colon healthy and regulate key hormones.
There are four cornerstone workouts designed for age prevention: low to moderate intensity cardio, high intensity interval training, strength training and yoga. What does that mean exactly? Here are the cornerstone workouts in more detail:
Low to moderate Intensity Cardiovascular Exercise
People who exercise daily live longer. According to what scientists discovered in the famous Framingham Study, active people live nearly 4 years longer than their inactive peers. The cause for this is the prevention of heart disease, the number one killer. Walking, biking, jogging, and swimming protects your heart by lowering blood pressure and keeps the arteries flexible, improving blood flow. Doing aerobic activity for 30 minutes a day, five days a week will help keep your heart healthy and help prevent heart disease.
High Intensity Interval Training
Exercise causes more blood and oxygen to go to the brain, thereby rejuvenating the brain in the process. In the hippocampus of the brain, memory resides. As we age, we are more susceptible to a decrease in blood flow and oxygen to our brains, but doing bursts of higher intensity activity increase the blood flow and oxygen and can help prevent memory loss. Doing higher intensity bursts of cardio exercise twice a week for 45 minutes will help keep your blood flowing to those vital and important parts of the body.
Weight Training (Strength Training)
It’s really good to have a healthy heart, but if you don’t have strong muscles and bones then you will have trouble getting off the couch, climbing stairs, and walking out the door to enjoy your life will not be very easy. Lifting weights is one of the best ways to keep your bones and muscles strong. These also help prevent osteoporosis and keep you standing tall, even as you age. Lifting for 20 minutes twice a week is all you need to keep the muscles in good shape.
Yoga
To decrease the amount of lines and wrinkles you develop caused by stress, it is good to do yoga. A German study showed that three hours of practice a week lowered anxiety levels by 30 percent. Yoga may also help fight against free radicals that affect the skins elasticity. Yoga focuses on deep breathing techniques which force more oxygen into your lungs to circulate through your blood stream. Do yoga for 15 to 30 minutes, four times a week.