To be fit and healthy you need to keep your body physically active. It only takes three to six hours a week to achieve a general improvement of your health. Regular physical activities can help you avoid serious health conditions such as obesity, heart diseases, cancer, mental illness, arthritis. Riding your bicycle is one of the best ways to keep yourself fit and avoid health problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle.
Cycling is a healthy, efficient, low-impact exercise that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. It helps lighten your mood, cost-efficient and good for the environment.
Riding to work or the shops is one of the most time-efficient ways to combine regular exercise with your everyday routine. An estimated one billion people ride bicycles every day – for transport, recreation, and sport.
Here’s a list of health benefits associated with cycling.
Cycling improves mental Health
- A study showed that people who had a physically active lifestyle had a wellbeing score 32 percent higher than inactive individuals.
- There are so many ways that exercise can boost your mood: there’s the basic release of adrenaline and endorphins, and the improved confidence that comes from achieving new things (such as completing a sportive or getting closer to that goal).
- Cycling combines physical exercise with being outdoors and exploring new views. You can ride solo – giving you time to process worries or concerns, or you can ride with a group which broadens your social circle.
Cycling helps in Weight control
Cycling is a good way to control or reduce weight, as it raises your metabolic rate, builds muscle and burns body fat. If you’re trying to lose weight, cycling must be combined with a healthy eating plan. Cycling is a comfortable form of exercise and you can change the time and intensity – it can be built up slowly and varied to suit you.
Research suggests you should be burning at least 8,400 kilojoules (about 2,000 calories) a week through exercise. Steady cycling burns about 1,200 kilojoules (about 300 calories) per hour.
If you cycle twice a day, the kilojoules burnt soon add up. British research shows that a half-hour bike ride every day will burn nearly five kilograms of fat over a year.
Strengthen your immune system
Dr. David Nieman and his colleagues at Appalachian State University studied 1000 adults up to the age of 85. They found that exercise had huge benefits on the health of the upper respiratory system – thus reducing instances of the common cold.
Nieman said: “People can knock down sick days by about 40 percent by exercising aerobically on most days of the week while at the same time receiving many other exercise-related health benefits.”
Professor Tim Noakes, of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, also tells us that mild exercise can improve our immune system by increasing production of essential proteins and waking up lazy white blood cells.
Why choose the bike? Cycling to work can reduce the time of your commute, and free you from the confines of germ infused buses and trains.
There is a but. Evidence suggests that immediately after intense exercise, such as an interval training session, your immune system is lowered – but adequate recovery such as eating and sleeping well can help to reverse this.
Boosts a longer life span
According to one study of Tour de France riders, cycling actually increased the racer’s longevity. On average, the former pros lived to 81.5 years compared to the general population’s 73.5 years: a 17 percent increase! Another study suggested that even casual bike commuters benefit: For individuals who shift from car to bicycle, it was estimated that three to 14 months of life could be gained compared to the potential downsides of bike commuting.
Boosts your brain power
Exercise has been repeatedly linked to brain health – and the reduction of cognitive changes that can leave us vulnerable to dementia later in life.
A 2012 study found that during exercise, cyclists’ blood flow in the brain rose by 30 %, and up to 70% in specific areas. Not only that but after exercise, in some areas, blood flow remained up by 40% even after exercise.
Improved blood flow is good because the red stuff delivers all sorts of goodies that keep us healthy – and the study concluded that we should cycle for 45-60 minutes, at 75-85 % of max ‘heart rate reserve’ (max heart rate minus resting heart rate) four times a week. Nothing stopping you riding more, of course.
Better Lungs
A recent study shows that people who use cycling for commutation get exposed to less dangerous fumes than those who travel by car. The Healthy Air Campaign, Kings College London, and Camden Council issued the study and fitted air pollution detectors on a driver, a bus user, a pedestrian and a cyclist and asked them to ply through a busy route through central London. The results showed that the driver experienced five times higher pollution levels than the cyclist, three and a half times more than the walker and two and a half times more than the bus user.
Provides better sleep
Insomnia is not a rare thing in this day and age. For those people who find it difficult to sleep, cycling can be their remedy. Tiring yourself out on the bike will help you sleep better. The steepest decline in cardiorespiratory fitness happens between ages 40 and 60. This is also when problems of sleep duration and quality are elevated.
Looking for causes behind the link the scientists suggested it could be a reduction in anxiety, brought about by exercise, that elevates the ability to sleep. Exercise also protects against weight gain with age, which is another cause of sleep dysfunction
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