Sports tips .. Does exercise enhance immunity?
.. Sports tips .. Does exercise enhance immunity? And now to the details:
Can exercise be a key component in preventing bacterial and viral infections and strengthening your immune system?
It turns out that regular physical activity plays a role in staying healthy and preventing disease, because exercise contributes to your overall health, which may help support your immune system function.
So we bring you these theories behind how exercise can support your immune system and provide insight into whether you should exercise when you're sick.
Regular exercise maintains the arteries of the leg
Does regular exercise help the immune system?
In short, yes, exercise benefits your body in many ways, and boosting your immunity is one of them, but there is one important caveat: the frequency, duration, and intensity of your workouts matter.
Research shows that when it comes to boosting your immunity, moderate-intensity exercise is best.
In general, exercising at moderate to vigorous intensity for 60 minutes or less is optimal for the immune-boosting benefits of exercise. If you do this daily or nearly daily, your immune system and metabolism continue to boost, based on previous gains.
On the other hand, prolonged high-intensity training - especially without proper rest between sessions - can suppress your immune system.
This is an important consideration if you are a competitive athlete or are training for endurance events such as a marathon, in these cases, be sure to give your body enough time to recover.
- How much should I do sports?
Before delving into the ways that physical activity may help your immune system, it's important to discuss how much exercise you'll likely need for overall health.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), most adults should do at least 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity each week.
HHS also recommends doing at least two days a week of muscle-strengthening activities that involve all of the major muscle groups in your legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms.
Being active most days of the week is an excellent goal to benefit your overall health and well-being, and it's also a great place to start if you want to work on boosting your immune system.
6 ways exercise benefits the immune system:
A healthy immune system protects your body from bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens that you encounter daily.
Here are 6 ways exercise can help your immune system.
1. Exercise Stimulates Cellular Immunity
According to a 2019 research review, moderate-intensity exercise can stimulate cellular immunity by increasing the turnover of immune cells in your body. This helps your body better prepare for future infections by detecting them early.
Researchers have found that performing aerobic exercise at a moderate to vigorous intensity for less than 60 minutes (an average of 30-45 minutes) increases the recruitment and circulation of the immune system's best defense cells.
These findings suggest that regular exercise can boost immune defense activity by making you more resistant to infection and better prepared to deal with infectious agents that have already gained traction in your body.
2- Exercising raises body temperature:
Unless you're moving at a snail's pace, your body temperature will rise during most forms of exercise and will remain elevated for a short time after you complete the exercise.
Why is this important? It's a common belief that this brief rise in body temperature during and after exercise may prevent bacteria from growing and help your body better handle infection, similar to how a fever works.
3- Exercise helps you sleep better Regular physical activity can contribute to improving the overall quantity and quality of sleep.
This is great news because a lack of sleep can negatively affect certain parts of the immune system.
Some research suggests a higher risk of infections and the development of cardiovascular and metabolic disorders due to reduced antibody production and inflammatory cytokine production in people with mild sleep deprivation.
4- Exercise reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other diseases
Exercise can reduce cardiovascular risk factors, prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes, increase HDL ("good") cholesterol, and lower your resting heart rate.
Having one or more of these conditions can make it difficult for your immune system to ward off infections and viral diseases such as COVID-19.
5-Exercise reduces stress and other conditions
Like depression, there's a reason people like exercise after a long day at work: It helps reduce stress.
More specifically, moderate-intensity exercise can slow the release of stress hormones while positively affecting neurotransmitters in the brain that influence mood and behavior. Moreover, regular exercise
may provide a protective benefit against stress — meaning that exercise helps you Proactively deal with stressors with more flexibility and a better mood.