As we’ve discussed before, there are many benefits of owning a treadmill and we often have customers who purchase our NordicTrack treadmills who soak in those benefits and quickly become addicted to running. It’s no wonder though with the “runner’s high” many often experience during their treadmill workouts. It’s the escape people often love, the endorphins being released during their workout that leave them with that general sense of happiness many often cannot get enough of.
According to this article on 11 Steps to Become Addicted to Running “running has been used for years to treat clinical depression and addictions of all kinds. Less tension, less depression, less fatigue, and less confusion are just a few of the changes that patients have seen after beginning a regular running program.”
Yet there are still the few on the other side of the spectrum that just can’t seem to get into it. They just can’t find the motivation to hop on every day and get in their runs. If you are one who falls into this category you may just want to rethink that and change your perspective when it comes to running. Here are a few Reasons Why Running Is Good for You from Active.com. You can check out all 10 reasons from the article here, below are just a few of our favorites:
- See Things Clearly. According to the article “people who run more than 35 miles a week are 54% less likely to suffer age-related vision loss than those who cover 10 miles a week.”
- Healthy Ticker. Want to cut back on those high blood pressure and cholesterol meds? Well start running. According to the Active.com article, “runners who log a weekly run of 10 miles (or more) are 39 percent less likely to use high blood pressure med and 34 percent less likely to need cholesterol meds compared with those who don’t go farther than 3 miles.”
- Strengthens Your Bones. University of Missouri researches compared bone density to runners and cyclists, the results showed that 63% of cyclists had low bone density while only 19% of runners did.
Boost Your Brain Power. British workers participated in a survey that showed they had “made fewer mistakes, concentrated better, and were more productive on the day they were active” compared to days they did not workout. Women were also shown to be less likely to develop dementia later in life if they were active as teenagers according to a study done by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.- Stop Counting Sheep. “Insomniacs fell asleep in 17 minutes on days they ran, compared to 38 minutes on days they didn’t. They also slept an extra hour on days they exercised.” So if you’re having a hard time sleeping, running can help you stop counting those sheep and ease into a peaceful rest come night time.
- Breathe Better. According to a study from Sweden, exercise for at least an hour a day and you cut your chances of suffering from upper-respiratory-tract infections by 18%. While asthmatics who did cardio at least twice a week were shown to have less wheezing and shortness of breath after just three months.
- Live Longer. This should be a little motivation to get you going, according to the Active article, “a review of 22 studies found that people who work out 2.5 hours a week are 19 percent less likely to die prematurely than those who don’t exercise. A separate study found that active people have a 50 percent lower risk of premature death.”
Now that you’re convinced of the many reasons running is good for you and why you should take up running for your emotional and physical well-being here are a some tips on How to Get Starting Becoming a Runner.
If you’re not quite on board yet and are still wanting to ease into this running gig, you can always start out with walking. In fact according to this article from the ProForm.com blog, briskly walking for an hour a day has been shown to inhibit the activity of genes that actually promote weight gain.