So what can aerobic activity actually do for you to make you a healthier person.
Increased Well-Being & Self-Concept; Tolerate the physiological and psychological effects stress
This is due to the release of endorphins during aerobic activity that tell your brain that you are feeling great.
You will be able to tolerate the physiological and psychological effects stress to a greater degree because aerobic activity releases endorphins which make you feel great and aerobic activity blocks stress hormones that make you feel like crap.
For more information, go here: https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/exandpsychological2.html
Improved Heart Function
Your heart also benefits due to it being a huge, aerobic muscle inside of your chest. That means it needs oxygen in order for it to survive.
When you workout aerobically, your body will actually increase the oxygen supply to your heart by adding more capillaries.
In addition, your heart size will actually become bigger allowing for a greater volume of blood to be pushed out with eat beat. This will increase the function and efficiency of your heart because it doesn’t have to beat as much to push a certain amount of oxygen that your body needs to survive.
The size and strength of your blood vessels will also increase. All of these changes help to prevent heart disease too early in life.
Improved Blood Sugar
You will be able to regulate your blood sugar levels over time, reducing your chance of getting diabetes.
For more information, go here: http://www.endocrineweb.com/conditions/type-2-diabetes/type-2-diabetes-exercise
Body Composition Changes
You can also increase your fat-free mass, also called your lean body mass, which will help to raise your metabolism. It does this by adding more muscle mass onto your body and muscle is a very metabolically active tissue that burns calories while you sit and do nothing. The more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn during the day.
Since you can use fat as energy source during aerobic activity, then you will be able to reduce body fat and obesity levels.
Exercising aerobically can actually stop your body’s use of muscle protein for energy if you were to diet. When you diet alone, your body will use fat for energy and use protein from your muscle tissue too. But when you remove protein from your muscle tissue, you lower your fat-free mass, which in turn lowers your metabolism. This is defeating the purpose of dieting, you really want to maintain your muscle mass. In order to do so, you have to exercise at the same time that you diet. If you do, your body will not want to use protein from your muscle tissue because it knows that it needs that muscle to exercise later on that day. So it will go and use more fat instead.
Bone Density Improvement
Cardiorespiratory exercise will also increase the density of your bones, which by the way, once you hit 25 you will have the most amount of bone in your body that you can ever have. At 30 years old, you starting losing bone. You can prevent some of that loss with exercise.
For more information, go here: https://www.verywellfit.com/bone-density-and-exercise-3120770
Lowers Chances of Heart Disease
Aerobic activity can increase your good cholesterol value, the HDL cholesterol. This type of cholesterol picks up free floating cholesterol that can block arteries and shuttles it back to your liver to get rid of it.
You can stop, slow down, or even reverse plaque build up in the arteries, which if left alone could cause a heart attack or stroke.
You can decrease your total cholesterol value in your blood through a drop in LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by exercising aerobically.
You can also decrease your blood levels of triglycerides, which can also cause heart attacks or strokes if too high.
A build up of plaque in your arteries is caused by several factors, one being platelets that are too sticky. Platelets are immune system molecules that stick to damaged areas in your blood stream to stop you from bleeding to death. But if they are too sticky, they will cause plaque to build up in an artery. Research has shown that aerobic activity can actually reduce the stickiness of platelets and help to reduce plaque formation.
Lowers Blood Pressure
Blood pressure in your arteries can also be lowered. Think of your arteries as resembling a garden hose. If you let the water flow from the hose freely, it does not have a great deal of pressure coming out. But as soon as you take your thumb and place it over the hose, pressure builds up and the water comes out with more force. The same principle occurs in your arteries. If you have some type of a block in one of your arteries, blood will squeeze through there with more force causing an increase in pressure. But if you can open up your arteries, such as with aerobic activity, you can lower your blood pressure.