The benefits of exercise are many. It not only improves your health, but it can help to prevent some life-threatening conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. It also makes you look and feel younger, fitter and thinner.

The proven benefits of exercise are:

1. It helps your heart by reducing LDL cholesterol, which hardens arteries, reduces your blood pressure and improves heart muscle function. 1

2. It helps you lose weight.

3. Prevents osteoporosis.

4. Reduces stress.

5. Helps prevent colds and symptoms vanish earlier.

6. Reduces the severity of asthma.

7. Reduces diabetic complications.

8. Promotes a healthy pregnancy.

9. Anti-aging effects.

10. Promotes brain health

11. Improves your sex life.

12. Improves sleep patterns.

13. Helps prevent stroke.

14. Good for mind and soul.

15. Aids in supplying nutrients and oxygen to the body.

16. Improves joint structure and function, and muscle strength.

17. Increases sense of well-being.

18. Helps to manage arthritis.

19. It reduces the severity of asthma.

The timing of exercise may affect an individual’s ability to fall asleep. Increased levels of stress hormones are found in most people with chronic insomnia, suggesting they may be abnormally sensitive to stress. High stress hormones produce bad sleep. Initially, exercise increases stress hormones, but they decrease several hours after exercise. This time may vary with individuals.

If you are having trouble falling asleep, try this experiment:

• Exercise close to bedtime for two weeks. Rate your quality of sleep each morning, on a scale of 1-10.

• Exercise in the early morning or early afternoon for the next two weeks. Again, rate your sleep quality.

• For each of the four weeks, add up your ratings and divide by the total number of days you have rated, to give you an average score for each week.

This method will reveal how the timing of your exercise affects your sleep, and help you determine when it is best for you to exercise.

Moderate-intensity exercise has been found to improve quality of sleep in adults aged 50-70 years of age. Older adults often complain of sleep difficulties; they are often then treated with prescribed sedative-hypnotics instead of being counseled on natural alternatives. US adults make up only 12% of the population, yet they receive 35% to 40% of prescribed hypnotics, often on a long-term basis. Sedative-hypnotics in this age group may cause agitation, confusion, falls, extended drowsiness or dangerous interactions with other medications.

Older adults who report moderate sleep complaints that are not explained by known medical conditions may find moderate-intensity exercise part of an effective alternative to drugs.

In one study, 29 women and 14 men aged 50-76 enrolled in a 16-week randomized, controlled trial. Though they were sedentary, they were free of cardiovascular disease, and reported only moderate sleep problems. Endurance training sessions – low impact aerobics and brisk walks of 30-40 minutes – were performed by half the group four times per week, while the control group maintained their normal daily routine. A sleep diary was kept by all subjects, and scored on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality index before the sessions began, and at the end.

The results appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and revealed improvements in sleep-onset, duration, feeling rested in the morning, and general quality of sleep. A small improvement in physical fitness was also reported. The study leader, Dr. Abby King of the Department of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University School of medicine and her colleagues said it might take more than eight weeks before an improvement in sleep quality through exercise would appear.

This study did not explore the physiological, psychological or behavioral variables of exercise. Further research is needed in these areas.

A study reported in the journal Sleep suggested that moderate aerobic exercise can promote sleep in insomniacs. The study participants – 28 women and eight men of average age 44 – spent 50 minutes on a treadmill and found that their sleep quality improved. The amount of time it took them to fall asleep was decreased by 54%, and awake time in bed decreased by 36%.