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Green Exercise: What It Is and Why It’s Important

What is Green Exercise?

Green exercise is a term given to outdoor exercise activities. It’s a new trend of study in the health field and offers a wide range of benefits.

Green exercise involves everything from sports to biking. It’s a great way to spend time with family, friends, coworkers, etc.

Benefits of Green Exercise

Green exercise offers many benefits, especially when compared to other training styles. There is so much versatility available when designing an outdoors workout. It’s not just workouts that fit into the green exercise category, but certain physical activities count as green exercise as well. Activities such as hiking, camping, basketball, football, and many other activities not only offer great health benefits but is a way to get the family involved in being more active.

Quality Air

Being outdoors tends to invigorate our energy and makes us desire to be active. We have all experienced the euphoric feeling of waking up in the early morning hours, going outside, and breathing in the fresh, cool, morning air. It invigorates you and, makes you feel alive. Heck, it’s one of the best substitutes for coffee I’ve ever found!

Satisfaction is one of the highest indicators of an individual’s propensity to stick with their exercise program long term. Any way to increase your satisfaction during your workouts should be taken advantage of so you are more likely to obtain and sustain lasting results.

The combination of fresh air and natural sunlight refreshes us in a way that cannot be easily duplicated. This dynamic duo is one of the main reasons why green exercise is so effective in boosting our mood and reducing our stress.

Sunlight

Exercising outdoors means you are getting more access to light, and better-quality light at that. Sunlight has the benefit of increasing the vitamin D supplies in our bodies.

Exercising outdoors not only has the extra benefit of vitamin D absorption, but it is a primary component of increasing your satisfaction during your exercise routine.

Vitamin D provides many health benefits to the body including;

  • Promotes Calcium Absorption
  • Assists in Bone Remodeling
  • Reduces Inflammation
  • Prevents Muscle Cramps and Spasms
  • Assists in Neuromuscular and Immune Function
  • Assists in Cell Growth
  • Normalizes Bone Mineralization
  • Assists in Bone Growth

Find out more about Vitamin D and Why it’s called the “Sunshine Vitamin”

Boosts Energy

Being outdoors has been shown to boost energy and decrease fatigue. Sunlight and fresh air tend to leave us feeling more refreshed and invigorated. There’s just something about being out in God’s creation that soothes the soul and incites peace.

Improves Mental Health

Green exercise has been shown to have many mental health benefits. It has also been shown to be effective in the treatment of some mental illnesses and disorders. We will go over some of the mental health benefits below.

The mental health benefits of exercising outdoors include

  • Alleviating Stress
  • Reducing tension
  • Alleviates confusion
  • Alleviates depression
  • Reduces negative emotions
  • Reduces anger
  • Improves mood
Take a look at “Mental Health Benefits of Green Exercise” for more details on the effectiveness of green exercise on treating mental illnesses and disorders.

Versatile Training Environment

Exercising outdoors allows for greater diversity in your workouts. While exercising outside you will be exposed to a different environment daily, allowing for different variations in your routine.

Green exercise also allows for the family to join in on the fun. Sports activities can be a great way to get the family involved and be active together.

Quote: “American children spend an average of 6½ hours a day with electronic media (video games, television, and so on), time that is spent mainly indoors and sitting down. British researchers found that children are more than doubly active when they are outside.”

Getting our children up and active is more important than ever before. Green exercise can be a great way to get your children off the video games and outside playing like the good old days.

For ideas on how to get the whole family involved and active, check out this article.

How To Get Started

Getting started with green exercise can be as simple as taking a 15-minute walk every other morning. The most important thing is to start. You also want to be sure you are doing activities suitable to your current fitness level (consulting a fitness professional can be very beneficial in this regard).

Link to article “How To Get Started Exercising Outdoors”
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