Why bother with exercise?

To work properly, your body needs regular exercise - and most of us feel good when we are active.

Until the last 100 years or so, you had to be quite active to just live your everyday life. Now, in modern Western societies, so much of what we used to do is done by machines. We drive cars, so we walk less, vacuum cleaners make cleaning easy, and washing is done by a machine. At work we may not even have to move around in the office - it’s enough to sit at the computer. It doesn’t help that modern high-energy foods make us put on too much weight – or that, (in the West at least) food has never been cheaper or easier to buy.

So how can you start to get more active, day to day? You may be turned off by the word ‘exercise’ because:

• I’ve never done it
• I wasn’t good at sports at school
• I would feel silly
• Other people would make fun of me
• It won’t help unless it hurts - ‘No pain, no gain’ 
• It’s sweaty and uncomfortable
• I’m too tired
• I would rather do something else
• It’s expensive
• I think it will make me feel worse
• I don’t have anyone to do it with
• I don’t know where, when or how to start.

But - it doesn't have to be about running around a track or working out in a gym. It can just be about being more active each day – perhaps just walking more, or taking the stairs rather than the lift. If medical problems stop you from doing one thing, there may be others that you can do.