Is Your Goal To Be Successful In Life?

This could apply to your business, to a personal relationship or you may just want to enjoy a better life with your family. No matter what your goal is, there is one main thing which connects all of these things together.
You cannot be successful at anything unless you have your health! You are not given health; it is something that you must learn how to achieve and then learn how to maintain it. While this may sound simple, it is something that many people just let go off.

An excellent example of this is in women caring for a family.

They get so preoccupied with raising a family that they let their health go. Later on, once the children are grown and away in school or have left home, they start to suffer from health problems.

They may have let their appearance go, are possibly overweight and have developed some disease that was preventable. Does this sound familiar to you? It really is a common scenario and one that applies to thousands of people in various ways. It doesn’t have to be this way and won’t if you follow my advice.

Family life is definitely important, but you need to remember that you are as well.
After all, where would your family be without you?

Why Staying Fit Should be a Main Focus in Your Life

Exercise is a great way to boost your energy level, and when you start exercising regularly, you will notice a difference within just a few days. Increased energy leads to more physical stamina, and this helps make your daily chores more manageable. You will find that you are not as tired and that you feel better and
happier for no apparent reason at all.

Being active also benefits your concentration levels and helps you to sleep better at night. If you find that you don’t sleep solidly, try walking for 20 minutes each night after dinner. You should find that you start sleeping more soundly fairly quickly.

Exercise also helps to reduce tension and relieves the stress in your life. If you feel as though you may be suffering from anxiety or depression starting an exercise routine can help.

As we mentioned earlier exercise helps by helping you feel better within days. It also has another huge benefit, and that is impacting your health as you age. By giving time to get fit and healthy now, you are reducing your chances of developing heart disease, Type II diabetes, obesity and some other forms of disease later on in life.

Leading a healthy lifestyle as you enter your senior years helps to minimize bone loss that could lead to osteoporosis and arthritic conditions. Also, you will find that you are enhancing your mobility, and your joints are less stiff and achy.

Here are the top reasons for staying fit and healthy as you age:

1. Helps you maintain a suitable weight
2. Keeps your heart and lungs strong
3. Helps to reduce stress
4. Helps to prevent and fight heart disease
5. Helps you sleep better at night

When we talk about exercise, we don’t mean you have to train for a marathon.

Small amounts of exercise are beneficial, and this includes things like:

• Taking a 20-minute walk after dinner
• Taking the stairs instead of the elevator
• Walking to the corner store
• Parking your car further away from the mall entrance
• Getting off the bus one stop early and walking home

Some great exercises for beginners include:
• Walking
• Golfing
• Biking
• Swimming including taking aquafit classes
• Dancing
• Yoga

How Your Brain is Affected by Exercise

Have you ever thought about how exercise affects your brain? Most people know that by incorporating  exercise, you are building muscle and stamina.

Who doesn’t notice that certain daily activities like walking up stairs and carrying grocery bags become easier when you exercise regularly? But what happens to your brain when you workout?

When you first start to exercise your brain acknowledges this as stressful. Your heart rate increases and your muscles have to work harder. Your brain reacts by trying to fight these changes. It does this by releasing a particular protein called a Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor or BDNF for short.

This protein works to protect your memory neurons and is why you begin to feel more relaxed and happy after exercising.

While the BDNF is working, your endorphins get to work too. Endorphins are a chemical which your body releases to help fight stress. They work by blocking the feeling of pain and contribute to minimizing any discomfort you may be feeling.
Endorphins can also make you feel happy, and many people refer to this as an endorphin high! Researchers have discovered a startling fact about BDNF and endorphins. That is that they are very similar to behaviors which can become addictive. You can compare this to getting hooked on morphine, heroin or nicotine.

There is one major difference, though, and that is they are both good for you!

To reap the benefits of becoming successful and happy researchers found that it is important to pay attention to when you exercise.

A recent study connected by Penn State University showed the following results:

To be more productive and happier on a given work day, it doesn’t matter so much, if you work-out regularly, if you haven’t worked out on that particular day:

“Those who had exercised during the preceding month but not on the day of testing generally did better on the memory test than those who had been sedentary, but did not perform nearly as well as those who had worked out that morning.”

Additional research has demonstrated that it is the first 20 minutes of being active each day that provides you with the best health benefits. So this means that you don’t have to go crazy with exercise, instead, aim to get in at least 20 minutes of activity each and every day.

You will feel happier when you do, and your health will benefit from your actions too.

“On exercise days, people’s mood significantly improved after exercising. Mood stayed about the same on days they didn’t, with the exception of people’s sense of calm which deteriorated.” (University of Bristol )

How to Set Up and Maintain a Good Exercise Routine

It takes approximately 21 days to form a new habit and when you think about it that isn’t long at all. How would you feel if by this time next month you will look forward to exercising each day?

Of course at first, it will take a concentrated effort to make time each day to exercise. You will need to stay focused and motivated to achieve this. Use your goal of wanting to be happier and successful in everything you do to keep you on track.

Quite often it is best to exercise first thing in the morning before you do anything else. If necessary get up forty-five minutes earlier. Set your alarm clock to go off early and put your workout clothes ready where you can see them.

When your clock goes off, and you see your clothes waiting for you, it will be easier to get out of bed and get moving. When you exercise first thing in the morning, you will feel more energetic and will find that it is much easier to get things done at work. You may even find that your productivity increases substantially.

To form your new exercise habit, it can help to use some kind of tracker and log.

There are plenty of Fitness Tracker Apps that you can download. Or you can use a calendar and check off your exercise each day.

When first starting out don’t create large goals. Instead, you are much better off to build small goals that you can achieve. Instead of beginning with walking for 20 minutes a day five times a week decrease it to 3 times a week and reduce the minutes to 10. If you haven’t exercised in a very long time, you may find that 5 minutes of walking each day is all you can manage.

Don’t worry as each week goes by you can slowly add minutes until you reach your goal of 20 minutes or more. By actually attaining a goal your self-confidence and motivation levels are increased.

This helps to spur you on into exercising regularly. Before you know it you will be waking up each morning eager to workout.

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