Let's Talk Sports

Sports can offer physical and mental health benefits as well as a boost in social interaction. According to the Hong Kong Sports Institute, participating in regular bouts of physical activity or playing sports is one of the best forms of preventive medicine, reducing your risk of cancer, heart disease, and strokes. It is not as difficult as you might think to get involved in a sport and experience these health benefits.

The Health Benefits from Sports

There are literally hundreds of health benefits from playing a sport. It is scientifically proven that playing sports can not only help you stay fit and healthy on the outside but help on the inside too.

Physical activity can aid efficient heart and lung function and even improve motor skills and cognitive function; continuing to be active in a sport can enhance functional capacity among older people too.

Governments are also looking at the sport as a way of dealing with the increasing obesity crisis by potentially introducing more physical education classes in primary and secondary schools.

It is proven that making the sport more freely available can be a cost-effective method to improve public health across populations. Not only can being more active help you get in shape physically it can also go a long way toward the prevention of a number of diseases.

The benefits of sport don’t stop at the physical side of things; there are also mental benefits to participating in sports. Anxiety, stress, depression, and loneliness can all be helped or reduced through playing a sport, making friends, and forgetting about the stresses of your life for a period of time.

Sport can also help to boost confidence levels or build self-esteem through, for example, scoring a goal, a basket, or making a good contribution to the team or game.

Sport can also be a powerful enabler for people with disabilities. Getting involved with a sport can help build self-esteem and confidence as well as offer the chance to meet new friends.

While this is great for improving the health and quality of life of the person with the disability, it can also reduce reliance on the carer and the stress that the carer might carry. It can also be that extra support for the disabled person too.

Advantages of Sports in Weight Loss

Sports is a great form of weight loss because there is such a wide range of sports to choose from. There are popular sports like football, rugby, and tennis that can often be seen being played in parks, but there are lesser-known sports such as squash, volleyball, and hockey.

Then there are the simplest forms of sports, including merely walking or running and going for a swim in your local pool. The huge choice of different sports that are available, especially in countries like the USA and UK, means there will be a sport for everyone. You can pick a sport you especially enjoy or are particularly good at, and then you’re able to actually enjoy weight loss and exercise.

Sports are incredibly good calorie-burning options; doing an hour of swimming or running can help you lose up to 1,000 calories, which is enough to cover a couple of small meals. While football or basketball can burn up to 500 per hour, which can easily cancel out whatever you ate for lunch.

If you’re not looking to lose weight but simply to stay fit and at your target weight, then the sports is still a great way of building and developing your fitness. Playing regular sports can help build your muscle strength and endurance levels.

Having better strength and endurance can have knock-on effects of strengthening your tendons and ligaments, controlling your blood pressure, and enhancing your balance and agility.

The Social Benefits of Sports

A big part of the sports is the social element. Being a fan of a football team includes you in a massive club, and attending a football match gives you thousands of people who have the same interest who you could potentially bond with and make new friends.

Getting involved in a sports is similar to that, but on a smaller level, it provides a great platform to make new friends because you have a similar interest in whatever sport you’re playing.

If you have friends that are also keen to lose weight, why not involve them and try out a new sports together and attempt to lose weight together through a sports. It is proven that adding a social element to dieting can help you to lose more weight and to keep it off in the long term.

A study from only last year showed that losing weight in teams could make weight loss contagious through support and competition. Interestingly those are two things that can often be found in sports. You can see the findings of the study in an article by Shape magazine.

Playing in a team also helps you get used to dealing with responsibilities and teamwork, which can have obvious benefits in the world of work. You may even become a leader in the team who can help you learn even more roles that will benefit you in your work life, such as motivation, delegation, and setting out instructions.

Ways of Getting More Sports in Your Life

There are many reasons that people give for not exercising or playing a sport, ranging from feeling too tired, not having enough time, or not being a sporty or athletic person. None of these are actually valid excuses.

If you are struggling to find the energy or willpower to get involved in the sport, you can always turn to a little helping hand in the shape of a diet. Some supplements have ingredients in them which are able to give you an energy boost while helping you to lose weight at the same time.

If you decide to investigate going down this route, then a good place to start is to look into supplements to make sure you check out a reputable and independent review site. There are hundreds of diet pills to choose from, and it is a good idea to get expert reviews and research before buying.

You don’t have to dive right in at the deep end and join a team or become serious about a sport. You can start out simple by doing exercises like walks or runs, which can get you in shape quickly and are very simple to do and easy to fit into your daily routine.

You can even count going out dancing as a type of exercise, if not maybe a sport; there are always workout videos available too, which can build your interest in exercise and sport. If you’re unsure what sport might interest you, there is a quick online test that suggests which sport might suit you best on the NHS website.

If you begin to particularly enjoy or find that you’re talented at a particular sport, there are easy ways online to find teams or organizations to join which can build your passion and involvement.

Taking part in a sports doesn’t have to involve hours and hours each week. Even short periods of exercise have been proven to be extremely beneficial for your health.

In fact, recently, scientists found that short bursts of intense exercise were just as good for you as longer sustained periods of exercise. Apparently, your body can get as much of a benefit from 10 minutes of intense exercise as it does from 10 hours of moderate training.?

No Reason Not To Get Involved

There really is no excuse for not getting involved with a sports. Faced with all the benefits, knowing that it can fit into your daily routine easily and that it doesn’t have to be a major time commitment, there really isn’t any reason not to give the sports a go.

The advantage of sports in weight loss is that it is fun. Facing up to visiting the gym or going on some extreme diet to lose weight can be very draining and certainly takes a lot of willpower and dedication to complete.

Taking up a sport and getting more activity into your daily routine is a simple, fun but effective way of losing weight. It can not only help you lose pounds or stay fit, but it can also have other benefits, including mental health, learning career-boosting traits, and making new friends.

The case for playing a sport is strong so why not pick a sport that interests you, find a place to do it, and go enjoy your way to a slimmer, fitter you.