The right amount of exercise is considered to be among the key prerequisites to good health. Aside from helping individuals to keep their BMI levels within the normal range, exercise is associated with benefits for the person’s cardiovascular health. The topic can be broken down based on the type of health benefits of exercise for the heart and the cardiovascular system, including its effects on blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and endurance capacity.
The positive effects of regular non-strenuous exercise on the heart are numerous. Regular moderate exercise reduces cardiovascular risks in the general population and those with metabolic syndrome by normalizing diastolic/systolic blood pressure and reducing low-density lipoprotein levels (LDL or “bad” cholesterol) (Pinckard et al., 2019). Exercise is beneficial for heart health in diverse patient groups. For example, in post-surgery patients with heart valve abnormalities, exercise leads to reductions in exercise intolerance (Sibilitz et al., 2016). Greater endurance capacity is another benefit of exercise in both healthy subjects and those with cardiovascular conditions. The structure of the human heart (two separate pumping systems) supports the heart in fulfilling its functions, including pumping oxygenated blood to different body parts and pumping deoxygenated blood to the lungs to maintain normal oxygen levels. By improving endurance capacity, exercise increases the heart’s ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles (Sibilitz et al., 2016). Increasing one’s endurance capacity is critically important; for instance, greater endurance capacity enables a person to perform an intensive exercise, which is often required in job-related tasks and daily household chores.
There are no specific mnemonic devices associated with the presented information. However, the benefits of exercise for heart health can be easily memorized and understood by remembering common risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, such as inactivity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. From my perspective, this topic is important since it sheds light on relations between different concepts covered in the course (the heart, the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, etc.) and the role of exercise in improving overall health. It is essential to popularize exercise among patients and enable everyone to maintain a healthy balance between inactivity and strenuous exercise.
References
Pinckard, K., Baskin, K. K., & Stanford, K. I. (2019). Effects of exercise to improve cardiovascular health. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, 6, 1-12. Web.
Sibilitz, K. L., Berg, S. K., Tang, L. H., Risom, S. S., Gluud, C., Lindschou, J., Kober, L., Hassager, C., Taylor, R. S., & Zwisler, A. D. (2016). Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation for adults after heart valve surgery. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (3), CD010876. Web.