Possibly the most well-researched positive habit of all time; possibly the most impactful. Frequency and intensity of exercise are both directly correlated to things like blood pressure, anxiety and depression, mood regulation, and even all-cause mortality. It is not an exaggeration to say that even 1 minute of exercise per day will have a life-changing effect.
ex·er·cise
/ˈeksərˌsīz/
noun
1. activity requiring physical effort, carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness.
What’s Exercise?
It may be easier to say what Exercise isn’t…as anything that involves movement could be considered exercise if done with intensity. An easy way to determine what you can consider as an exercise is to ask whether or not you could break a sweat, and/or achieve an elevated heart rate by doing a specific activity. The benefits of Exercise on the body have been extremely well documented for decades, while the incredible impact on the mind is just beginning to be understood.
How’s Exercise useful?
The regular practice of Exercise has been shown to improve physical health by lowering the risk of heart disease, increasing immune function, improving sleep, and much more. Ivy league studies are finding that the mental health benefits may be even greater; as improvements in self-esteem, mood, and emotional resilience, and decreases in symptoms of depression and anxiety are now all known effects of regular Exercise.
Says who?
Harvard, Columbia, and Yale all have extensive works on the benefits of Exercise. You can read a few here, here, and here! Check out this PDF we put together of 100 more university studies that pertain to the habits in our Science of Habits event, including 20 Ivy League entries. Here’s the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York University and professor of neural science and psychology; Dr. Wendy Suzuki to help explain the incredible ways the habit of Exercise can be positively life changing.
How can students make it a habit?
A couple of really great things about Exercise are that you can do it any way you’d like, and even a tiny amount can have a massive positive impact. People of any age can integrate Exercise into their day-to-day lives by as simply as going for a walk each evening. Like to dance? Dance in the mirror each day for 10 minutes! If you can break a sweat each day, no matter how you do so, you have benefited from the habit of Exercise.
“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body; it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”
– John F. Kennedy