Topic: Exercise

[True Muslima]

The human body was designed for an active life but these days we spend most of our time sitting down at our desks, watching TV, in our cars….. Taking regular exercise helps keep you generally fit and healthy and regular exercise is essential for a healthy heart.


How Exercise Helps Your Heart

Taking regular, adequate exercise helps to protect you from coronary heart disease because:
- Exercise builds up the strength of your heart so it can do its normal job of pumping blood around the body effortlessly. It also gives your heart more 'reserve capacity' so it is better able to cope when you ask it to pump harder!
- Exercise will help ensure that your blood pressure remains lower or help lower it if it is high.
- Exercise keeps the blood healthy by increasing levels of HDL, the 'good' cholesterol which helps clear cholesterol from the blood and it also makes the blood less likely to clot.
- Exercise helps to keep your weight in check.

[True Muslima]

The best sort of exercise is the kind that requires stamina, like walking, swimming, running or cycling, rather than muscle-building exercise such as weight-lifting. Any exercise that makes you slightly breathless and makes your heart beat faster is beneficial to your heart.

Make sure you choose an exercise that you enjoy - that way you'll be far more likely to stick with it.

[True Muslima]

The Government currently recommends that if you take no exercise at all then you should aim for 30 minutes of moderately vigorous exercise once a week. This should then be built up to 30 minutes a day most days of the week, and finally should include 20-30 minutes of vigorous exercise two or three times a week.

Sounds like a lot? If you haven't taken any exercise for a long time, start by finding more energetic ways of carrying out your everyday activities - walk to work, use the stairs or cycle to the shops. Build up your exercise gradually so that you get out of breath but not to the point of sprains or muscle strain!