In the first semester of my final year studying sport and exercise science at the undergraduate level, I took a course module that would ultimately inspire me to begin writing about the importance of exercise for health.
It was a life-changing series of lectures – not because I learned anything particularly unexpected, but because it highlighted the importance of physical activity in relation to so many diseases and conditions, and brought a wealth of information together in one neatly packaged module. It was the first time it had been so obviously brought to my attention that exercise is about more than just being in shape. It’s about improving our quality of life and staving off disease, disuse, and disability. It’s about health, and everything that health adds to our lives.
I sat pondering this during one particular lecture, and the term ‘silver bullet’ came to mind. I had finally understood that physical activity and exercise were a silver bullet where our health was concerned. That’s where the name of this blog was born.
A couple of weeks later, I was sitting in class listening to our lecturer speak about the association between physical activity and longevity, specifically, whether exercise could increase our natural lifespan.
It was an interesting concept. What if the secret to a better, longer life was already in our hands?
It had been obvious to me that exercise could help keep diseases, which could shorten life by resulting in premature mortality, at bay. But whether exercise could actually prolong life was a different matter entirely. For exercise to accomplish this feat, it would need to slow down the ageing process.
While exercise is associated with better survival later in life (Stensel, 2021), it’s not as if elite athletes, who exercise for a living, survive until age 120! It is, therefore, reasonable to say that exercise is a good predictor of survival and can prevent premature mortality, but it cannot extend life beyond the natural lifespan.
As I sat listening, the lecturer made an interesting statement: Calculations based on the Harvard Alumni Study (Lee & Paffenberger, 2000) show that each hour of exercise can add approximately two hours to your life. In other words, if you exercise for an hour, your life will be extended by about two hours. It’s almost as if exercise reverses aging for the period of time you spend exercising. He then arrived at a conclusion that I found myself disagreeing with.
He argued, in my opinion quite cynically, that if life is only extended by only double the amount of time you spend exercising, you should exercise if you enjoy it, but not bother if you don’t.
Indulge me for a second, if you will, while I share some crude calculations to illustrate my next point.
Let’s say you spend 9,000 hours of your life exercising.
9,000 hours of exercise would be equivalent to exercising religiously for 1 hour a day for almost 25 years.
9,000 hours is, incidentally, also just over 1 year.
This would mean that a 25-year commitment to exercising for an hour a day would only prolong your life by about 2 years.
If you’re not a fan of exercise, you’re probably thinking: you can keep the extra couple of years. And in some ways, you wouldn’t be wrong. However, for a number of reasons, I cannot say I agree with this conclusion.
‘Why not?’ you ask.
First of all, time does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within the context of our lives and the lives of those around us. That extra 2 years could be the ones in which you become a grandparent or great-grandparent – an experience you might have otherwise missed.
Secondly, and I believe more importantly, while exercise may not prolong your life by much, it can certainly improve your quality of life, both when you’re young and towards the end of your life (Berger & Tobar, 2011; Stensel, 2021). Because, you see, exercise may not have the ability to extend lifespan, but it certainly has the ability to lengthen our healthspan (Garcia-Valles et al., 2013).
What is healthspan?
Healthspan is the period of life spent free from chronic diseases and disabilities. The fact that exercise can increase our healthspan means it can shorten the amount of time towards the end of our lives during which we are no longer independent and must rely on others for our daily needs (Garcia-Valles et al., 2013).
Have you ever thought about how your current health could impact your independence later in life?
Many people feel like a burden on loved ones towards the end of their lives, and exercise has the potential to reduce or even prevent this. The dignity that exercise can give you by extending healthspan goes beyond simply improving your health. By helping you maintain independence, it gives you a better quality of life, and by extension, improved self-confidence and mental health.
While this argument is compelling, I will acknowledge that exercise does not guarantee an extended healthspan. However, personally, I’d certainly like to do as much as I can to improve my chances of remaining healthy well into old age.
If this is not a convincing enough argument for you, consider this: exercise can improve your quality of life right now (Berger & Tobar, 2011).
What exactly is quality of life?
The World Health Organization defines quality of life as ‘an individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards, and concerns.’ It is a broad construct based on the complex way individuals appraise the following components of their lives: physical health, level of independence, psychological well-being, social relationships, personal beliefs/spirituality, and relationships to the environment (World Health Organization Group, 1998).
Exercise has the potential to help with a number of these aspects. In some ways, it can benefit them all, but here I will briefly touch on the first four.
Physical Health
Probably the most obvious benefit of exercise is the improvement of one’s physical health. Exercise has the potential to keep chronic diseases like type II diabetes, heart disease, and even dementia at bay and may delay their onset (Stensel, 2021; Riebe et al., 2015; Valenzuela et al., 2020).
We often hear people say that nothing in life is more important than health. It is also something you may not think about until you lose it. Part of the reason we attribute so much importance to health is that adverse health conditions impact our day-to-day lives.
They can add stress, cause us to go out of our way to seek treatment, and prevent us from carrying out normal daily activities. Kidney diseases could mean we must visit the hospital a few times a week for dialysis. Arthritis might mean we are unable to go up the stairs.
What is certain is that losing our health forces us to think about it more often.
Level of Independence
If we are healthier, we’re more likely to go about our daily lives as normal and be able to look after ourselves, thereby improving our self-efficacy and dignity (Stensel, 2021; Scully et al., 1998). This independence is something we probably don’t think about unless we lose it. We take for granted the fact that we are able to walk out from our doors and go to work, or quickly pop round to the corner shop for a loaf of bread. Not everyone is afforded this luxury.
Psychological Well-being
Countless studies have been conducted looking into the association between physical activity and mental health. Exercise has been linked to a reduction in depression and anxiety (Scully et al., 1998). It has also been linked to improved mood and better ability to deal with stress (Scully et al., 1998).
Aside from this, engaging in exercise has been shown to improve sleep quality (Jurado-Fasoli et al., 2020), and we all know how important sleep is in regulating our moods! Problems appear bigger and more stressful when we’re not well-rested.
Social Relationships
Exercise can be a great way to meet people, make friends, and spend time with those we love (Scully et al., 1998). Joining a gym, fitness class, or sports club can give us a sense of community and help us build lasting friendships based on a shared love for sport or commitment to physical activity and fitness. Similarly, going out for a hike with our families can create opportunities to spend quality time together, have meaningful conversations, and make lasting memories.
Perhaps more indirectly, if physical activity improves our mental and psychological well-being, we may be better equipped and prepared to socialize with others and build strong relationships in everyday life.
Conclusion
I hope I have been able to adequately highlight the merits of exercise and convince you that it is more than just a way to prolong our lives. Longevity for longevity’s sake is not the highest form of life if we are unhealthy and unhappy for much of it. It is so much more rewarding to have a good life than simply a long one, and exercise can help with just that.
Incorporating exercise into my own routine has been so fulfilling that I can’t help but share this with you. It has completely changed my life for the better, and I couldn’t recommend incorporating a little physical activity and exercise into your life enough.
References
Garcia-Valles, R., Gomez-Cabrera, M., Rodriguez-Mañas, L., Garcia-Garcia, F. J., Diaz, A., Noguera, I., Olaso-Gonzalez, G., & Viña, J. (2013). Life-long spontaneous exercise does not prolong lifespan but improves health span in mice. Longevity & Healthspan, 2(1), 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-2395-2-14
Jurado‐Fasoli, L., De‐la‐O, A., Molina‐Hidalgo, C., Migueles, J. H., Castillo, M. J., & Amaro‐Gahete, F. J. (2020). Exercise training improves sleep quality: A randomized controlled trial. European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 50(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.13202
Lee, I-M., & Paffenbarger, R. S. (2000). Associations of Light, Moderate, and Vigorous Intensity Physical Activity with Longevity: The Harvard Alumni Health Study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 151(3), 293–299. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a010205
Lieberman, D. E., Kistner, T. M., Richard, D., Lee, I-Min., & Baggish, A. L. (2021). The active grandparent hypothesis: Physical activity and the evolution of extended human healthspans and lifespans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(50), e2107621118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2107621118
Riebe, D., Franklin, B. A., Thompson, P. D., Garber, C. E., Whitfield, G. P., Magal, M., & Pescatello, L. S. (2015). Updating ACSM’s Recommendations for Exercise Preparticipation Health Screening. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 47(11), 2473–2479. https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0000000000000664
Scully, D., Kremer, J., Meade, M. M., Graham, R., & Dudgeon, K. (1998). Physical exercise and psychological well being: a critical review. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 32(2), 111–120. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.32.2.111
Stensel, D. J., Hardman, A. E., & Gill, J. M. R. (2021). Physical Activity and Health. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203095270
Valenzuela, P. L., Castillo-García, A., Morales, J. S., de la Villa, P., Hampel, H., Emanuele, E., Lista, S., & Lucia, A. (2020). Exercise benefits on Alzheimer’s disease: State-of-the-science. Ageing Research Reviews, 62(8), 101108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2020.101108