Exercise can decrease you risk of heart disease, increase your energy levels, improve your mood and self confidence, improve your memory, help you sleep better, and slow down the aging process. And yet most of us still find plenty of excuses to not exercise. This seems to be especially true in the church, where dedication to exercise is often mistaken for vanity. The truth is that Scripture encourages us to engage in physical activity in exercise. Considering the 15min4me benefits of exercise, it is obvious that God created us to be active, that we were Made to Move.
Many people are familiar with 1 Corinthians 6:10-20, in which the Apostle Paul exhorts us to take care of our bodies.
"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NAS95S)
While many have heard this verse used to teach that we should avoid promiscuity, alcohol, tobacco and drugs, it is rare that we are taught that this verse is not just a warning to avoid these activities, but is an exhortation to be proactive in caring for our bodies. We should make sure that we keep our bodies in peak condition at all times. That means that we are to glorify God both with the foods we eat to fuel our bodies, but also that we are to engage in physical exercise. In fact, in his first letter to Timothy, Paul says:
"For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." (1 Timothy 4:8 NKJV)
Some people take Paul's words that bodily exercise profits a little but that godliness is profitable for all things as a dismissal of exercise, which makes for a convenient excuse for them to sit around on their duff. But that is not what Paul is saying. First, we have already seen from 1 Corinithians that God is greatly concerned with the what we do with our bodies. Second, we have to consider the context.
"But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." (1 Timothy 4:7-8 NKJV)
Paul is instructing Timothy to reject false teaching, which is harmful to us spiritually, and to exercise ourselves toward godliness. Paul then reaffirms the benefit of physical exercise to use it as an example of the greater benefit of spiritual exercise. Bodily exercise, while beneficial in this life will not result in eternal life. But it still profits. I am reminded of Jesus' instruction to the Pharisees.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others." (Matthew 23:23 NAS95S)
It is not a case of "either/or" but of "both/and." We need to exercise ourselves bodily and spiritually. To assume that Paul is teaching in 1 Timothy that Christians should not engage in physical exercise is to fall into the Gnostic heresy and ignores Paul's numerous other references to the benefits of physical discipline and exercise.
Another fundamental rule of interpreting Scripture is that you have to take into consideration the original audience as well as the distance of time. Paul wrote these words to Timothy nearly 2000 years ago. Paul and Timothy lived in a time and culture where constant physical activity was the norm. It has only been within the last 100 years that labor-saving devices have resulted in a drastic decline of our daily physical activity. A recent study of Old Order Amish populations, who reject modern conveniences, showed that a very high level of activity is integrated into their daily lives. On average, the Amish participated in six times the physical activity performed by participants in a recent survey of 12 modernized nations.
"The Amish were able to show us just how far we've fallen in the last 150 years or so in terms of the amount of physical activity we typically perform," said David R. Bassett, Ph.D., FACSM, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and lead researcher for the study. "Their lifestyle indicates that physical activity played a critical role in keeping our ancestors fit and healthy."
So Paul was advocating the benefits of physical exercise in a culture that was much more active than we are. How much more important it is for us to engage in physical exercise! Dr. John J. Ratey, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School commented:
In today's technology-driven, plasma-screened-in world, it's easy to forget that we are born movers... because we've engineered movement right out of our lives... The sedentary character of modern life is a disruption of our nature and it poses one of the biggest threats to our continued survival... we're literally killing ourselves.
We could talk about the benefits of regular exercise for hours on end. The purpose of this lesson is to touch on some of the primary scientifically proven benefits. The first benefit of exercise may surprise you. We need to Move For Our Mind.
1. EXERCISE SUPERCHARGES THE BRAIN
In the Introduction of his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, Dr. Ratey commented:
We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it's because we're burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important-and fascinating-than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.
Exercise Produces "Miracle Grow" For Your Brain
The latest research indicates exercise can keep the brain sharp into old age and might help prevent Alzheimer's disease along with other mental disorders that accompany aging. Carl Cotman, Ph.D., of the University of California at Irvine found a link between physical activity and mental ability. In a study published in Nature, Cotman concluded compounds responsible for the brain's health can be controlled by exercise. Cotman conducted his research on rodents because, he says, "the effects of exercise are nearly identical in humans and rats." In his study, Cotman monitored "couch" rats and rats that ran on a treadmill. The rats that exercised had much higher levels of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), the most widely distributed growth factor in the brain and one believed to decline with the onset of Alzheimer's.
Exercise Improves Cognitive and Mental Function
Not only does exercise stimulate the creation of new brain cells (neurons), it also strengthens the connection between those cells. The areas of the brain that are stimulated through exercise are associated with memory and learning. Cotman's stated:
One of the prominent features of exercise, which is sometimes not appreciated in studies, is an improvement in the rate of learning, and I think that's a really cool take-home message because it suggests that if you're in good shape, you may be able to learn and function more efficiently.
A German study conducted in 2007 showed that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster after exercise than before exercise and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF in the brain.
Exercise Improves Mood
Exercise can be a great way to lift your mood and improve your emotions. When you exercise, your body feels more relaxed and calm. Find out some of the reasons and the best exercises to lift your mood and balance your emotions.
When you exercise, your brain releases endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine. These chemicals all work together to make you feel good. In addition, after exercising you may feel a sense of accomplishment and your muscles will relax deeper because of the workout - easing tension and strain.
"Moderate intensity aerobic exercise improves mood immediately and those improvements can last up to 12 hours," concluded study lead researcher Dr. Jeremy Sibold, assistant professor of rehabilitation and movement science at the University of Vermont, Burlington.
Exercise Reduces Stress
Experts agree that one of best ways to reduce stress is through exercise. During the stress response, many chemical reactions occur in the body preparing it to what is known as the "fight or flight" response. Our ancestors were able to burn off our stress through their daily activity, such as defending themselves when an animal attacked, as it was a means of survival. They were able to run away or fight the threat immediately. In today's society, we do not have to fight a bear or tiger, so we do not have much of an outlet readily at hand to burn off the stress or pent up negative emotions. Therefore, we carry it with us creating emotional and physical problems. Exercise can help by providing an outlet for negative emotions such as worry, irritability, depression, hostility, anger, frustration, and anxiety. Regular exercise provides the opportunity to manage the fight or flight response and helps the body to return to a homeostasis or balanced state more quickly.