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Just when you thought you are going to go for it – do exercise consistently for at least a month – WHAM – life throws you a curveball.
My daughter was quite ill and was diagnosed with a bad case of Influenza Type A (probably H1N1) and had to be hospitalized nearly a week. My wife and I took turns caring for her and our 3-year-old son at home. I also had a mild infection with the virus too.
In all the chaos, exercise disappeared. The Gods of Exercise really do test your devotion and I am afraid my faith was wobbly as jelly in summer heat.
Actually, I am sure if I really, really wanted to, I could have squeezed in at least one session of exercise. Guess I haven’t crossed what Param calls the exercise threshold yet. He says you need to exercise consistently at least for four weeks, three times a week for a total of 12 sessions. Bummer, that’s why I didn’t feel the painful urge to do 500 jumping jacks in the hospital corridor outside my daughter’s room.
I am convinced that whatever exercise I did for the past few weeks was good enough to boost my immunity. That’s why I escaped with a mild bout. Besides the numerous health benefits of exercise, it is also one of the best ways to boost your immune system. Mark Sibich mentions in his article Fight Off Colds with Exercise that all that pumping and sweating keeps the bugs off. Mark puts forward the following theories on how exercise helps;
- When you exercise, your body increases the speed at which it removes waste products. Because your respiratory rate (breathing rate) increases, more bacteria and foreign particles may be flushed from the lungs. You also increase the amount that you sweat, which may help remove waste products. All this extra waste removal would decrease your risk of infection simply because fewer infectious agents will be present in your body.
- A second explanation is that exercise increases your heart rate. A faster heart means that white blood cells and other components of the immune system circulate through your body faster. This may decrease the amount of time it takes for the immune system to react to a potential infection.
- When you exercise, your body temperature rises. Many infectious agents cannot survive a shift in even a few degrees (which is why your body generates a fever to fight infection).
- Exercise reduces your stress, and stress can prevent the immune system from working well.
An interesting tip, running around like Forrest Gump will make you a bug magnet. So, exercise lose weight correctly and fight off infections. Going for session two tomorrow!
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Tags: benefits of exercise, breathing rate, health benefits, heart rate, immunity, infectious agents, jumping jacks, lose weight correctly, mild infection, respiratory rate, ways to boost your immune systemGet all the Correct Weight Loss Tips and Updates for FREE. Subscribe to The Correct Weight Loss Blog via RSS or via Email
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