Why is an Exercise Routine Important When Working from Home?

Remote working brings its unique challenges, especially when it comes to your health. Lack of movement causes fatigue, weight gain, sleep problems, social anxiety, loneliness, and long-term health issues.

Why is an Exercise Routine Important When Working from Home? Following a regular exercise regime can benefit everything from energy levels to sleep quality and overall health. There are benefits far beyond the obvious: exercise can boost brain function, improve memory, train the brain to handle stress more effectively, give you glowing skin and enhance your social life, and break up the monotony of working from home.

12 Reasons why exploring the importance of exercise when working from home?

1. Brain Reprogramming

Exercise boost brainpower. Using electroencephalogram researchers discovered that exercising intensifies brain-wave frequency, improving the ability to focus and shift attention.

Exercises increase the amount of blood that flows to the hippocampus, which is essential for forming and consolidating memories. Blood delivers oxygen and nutrients, stimulating the production of new neurons and improving cognitive function. The brain is composed of 100 billion of neurons that confer with each other governing every thought and action. Neurons are very sensitive to decreases in oxygen levels and don’t function very without it.

Physical activity improves brain metabolism increasing gray matter volumes in nearly all regions of the brain resulting in improved neuropsychological function.

2. Weight Control

Regular exercises, especially weight-bearing, keep muscles strong. And strong muscles burn more calories. Muscles are metabolically active, fat-burning tissues. Strength training workouts increase metabolic rate, which is extremely important for weight loss and long-term weight management. The more muscles you have, the more calories you burn even when your body is at rest.

As we age we lose muscles and gain fat. Strength training is much more effective than dieting for burning fat. Following a diet induces calorie deprivation and your body begins to burn its own tissues (both fat and muscle) for fuel. Losing muscle mass sabotages weight-loss.

Strength training helps to preserve muscle tissue while you lose fat. During strength, training resistance is used to induce muscular contraction. There are many options of strength-training workouts to choose from:

• Bodybuilding helps to build muscle mass. It is an art of sculpting your physique like an artist.
• CrossFit is high-intensity training for a full-body workout using functional movements – exercises that mimic everyday movements such as lifting, jumping, twisting, pulling, pushing, kicking.
• Powerlifting involves lifting of heavyweight (barbell loaded with weight plates) maintaining a rigid and stable torso.

Strength training is crucial for losing weight and improving the appearance of our body.

3. Emotional Resilience

 

Regular physical activity enhances mental endurance. The reason is that regular activation of stress systems by physical exercise produces beneficial adaptations and body is able to respond to stress more effectively.

When one encounters stressors (any emotional, physical or psychological threat) heart rate, blood pressure, mental alertness and tension increase, and cortisol, the main stress hormone, is released into the blood from the adrenal gland. Physical exercises have paradoxical effects on the neuroendocrine system: intense physical activity is also considered a stressor since it activates the same systems involved in responding to an external threat and periodic exposure to a low level of stress culminates in increased stress resistance.

4. Getting more Done

 

Exercising can help to increase productivity at work giving you much more energy throughout the day: increased blood flow to the brain can help to keep sharp.

Most of the cells contain components called mitochondria, which are the energy factories of the cells. They produce chemical that body uses as energy, known as ATP. Physical exercise stimulates the development of new mitochondria within cells, and the body produces more ATP. That gives you more energy physically and for your brain, it boosts your mental well-being, productivity, and output.

5. Glowing Skin

 

Increased blood flow helps to nourish and rejuvenate skin cells by bringing them oxygen and removing such toxic substances as free-radicals. Sweating purges the body of compounds that cause blemishes, flushes toxins from the body through the pores, which open up wider during exercise in an effort to cool the body.

6. Pain Remedy

  

Back pain is a common complaint from freelancers. Sitting for hours leads to lower back pain and poor posture. Pain caused by spasms, muscle strains, or disk issues can be really debilitating. Most back pain can be resolved by incorporating a daily stretching routine to strengthen the spine, loosen muscles and increase flexibility. Stretching exercises work as an effective back pain treatment, offering natural pain relief solution: it alleviates back pain by relaxing muscles, promotes circulation and delivers nutrition, nourishing the spine.

Physical activity helps to increase back resilience and encourage the body to produce chemicals that help to control inflammation. Exercise strengthens the muscles and ligaments surrounding the joints. The joint is surrounded by the synovial membrane, which produces a fluid acting like oil in an engine. Exercising encourages circulation of this fluid, helping your bones to move more smoothly.

Due to the heart pumping resulting from working out blood circulation increases throughout your body and the synovial membrane is exposed to a steady supply of nourishing oxygen and nutrients.

7. Improved Sleep Quality

 

A moderate workout can be the equivalent of a sleeping pill: it raises the body’s core temperature a few degrees and when internal thermostat drops back to normal a few hours later, it signals the body clock that it’s time to sleep. This decline facilitates sleepiness. Also, exercise helps to increase the length of time which is spent in deep sleep, the most restorative sleep phase.

8. Heart Health

 

Regular physical activity reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and even can reverse existing heart disease. Exercising facilitates better blood flow in the small blood vessels around your heart. Clogs in arteries can lead to heart attacks. Exercise improves heart health by increasing your levels of HDL cholesterol, the “good” cholesterol, that lowers heart disease risk by flushing the artery-clogging LDL or “bad” cholesterol out of your system.

9. Exercise Euphoria

 

When a body is under stress, endorphins, natural painkillers, are produced. Exercise significantly increases the secretion of β-endorphin which is correlated with improved mood states. It functions as an antidepressant and euphoriant. Endorphins activate opioid receptors in the brain that help to minimize discomfort and reduce the perception of pain. They are structurally similar to the drug morphine. A release of endorphins helps to diminish pain while triggering positive feelings in the body. Exercise creates a huge endorphin rush and can cause “exercise high”.

Also during low-intensity workout brain releases adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine – ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitters, contributors to feelings of well-being and happiness. Exercises activate the brain’s pleasure circuit and have a persistent antidepressant effect. Workouts can make you feel good for the rest of the day.

10. Combat Fatigue and Regain Energy

Physical activity has profound effects on energy levels and can cure exhaustion. Intensive training helps to ensure more efficient management of the body’s energy. Exercise is a natural remedy for reducing fatigue. Fatigue goes beyond just feeling tired, it may manifest in concentration problems, lack of motivation, inability to follow through with activities, unexplained anxiety. Fatigue may be difficult to describe, it is lingering tiredness, feeling worn out, drained. Physical fatigue impacts the ability to maintain physical activity and mental fatigue makes it hard to focus and gives a constant feeling of being tired and overwhelmed. Often they occur together.

Regular, low-intensity workout increases energy levels. Aerobic exercises help lungs function more efficiently and promote circulation of oxygen through the blood. Strength training reduces blood sugar, boosts metabolism, helps to burn calories, to maintain a healthy weight and increase energy reserves. Flexibility exercises such as yoga or tai chi relieve anxiety, give a sense of tranquillity or peace, restoring the body’s energy system, and help to revive tired muscles, bringing them back to an energized state.

11. Expanding Your Social Circles

 

Freelancing comes with great benefits but it can also get lonely sometimes. Feelings of loneliness trigger activity in the same areas of the brain associated with physical pain. Aside from all other wonderful perks of exercise, such as getting into great shape and improving your health, it can also enhance your social life, relieve boredom and cabin fever. Sweatworking in the gym or sports center can be a great tool to find a new group of people to connect with.

12. You’ll Consume Fewer Unnecessary Calories

Researchers from Brigham Young University have found that exercising can make food seem less appealing. Brain activity of women looking at pictures of food was analyzed. Women who exercise were less fired up about the tasty images than those who don’t. Also, they consumed less food over the course of the day.

How to Start Working Out and Stick to It?

 

Is easier written than done. You can be healthier, but it requires some strategic planning. A lot of focus required to get into a consistent exercise habit. Here are a few tips:

• Key is to make it a habit: you can achieve this by creating a so-called “reward”, that will remind you of the good feelings you get from exercising.
• Start small, ditch the all-or-nothing attitude.
• Create a plan and set attainable goals.
• Pick activities that make you feel happy.

Related Questions

How many times a week should adults exercise?

3-4 workouts per week – the optimal amount of sessions. The classic bodybuilding approach: 3-4 exercises for 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions per session.

Why is variety important for workout routines?

The body needs different exercises to develop multiple physical qualities so it doesn’t adapt to the same stress. And from a mental perspective – to prevent boredom.