National Exercise Day is celebrated on April 18 every year. It is a day to encourage everyone to participate in physical activities. Exercise enhances our general health by giving us more energy, making us feel better, and even extending our lives by years. Regular physical activity and exercise have several health benefits that are impossible to overlook. Everyone, regardless of age, gender, or physical ability, benefits from exercise. Unfortunately, despite how important exercising is, only a few individuals are dedicated to it. National Exercise Day is a day to encourage and motivate people to exercise, with the aim that it will be the start of a new habit for everyone.
HISTORY OF NATIONAL EXERCISE DAY
Ancient Greece is the most well-known figure in fitness history, yet general fitness is thought to have played a part in virtually every significant civilization throughout history. The history of fitness and exercise in all of its incarnations has been prevalent over time and place, from the early birth of yoga in ancient India to the intense mob football sports of medieval Europe. Yoga is the earliest type of exercise that has been documented, dating back to 3300 B.C. in India. This mind-body discipline has taken on many different shapes since its origin. Though spiritual and/or mental health has dominated the history of yoga, other varieties, such as Hatha yoga, have also stressed physical well-being.
Since ancient times, people have understood that exercise has several health benefits. It is exercise alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in strength, observed Marcus Cicero, a Roman politician, and lawyer, in 65 B.C. Later in history, during the Early Middle Ages, Northern European Germanic peoples saw exercise as a means of survival.
Jerry Morris headed a team that discovered the link between exercise and physical health in 1949 and published a report on it in 1953. Dr. Morris discovered that men of similar occupations and social classes had significantly different rates of heart attacks depending on the amount of exercise they received. Bus drivers had a job that required a lot of sitting, so they had a higher rate of heart disease, whereas bus conductors had a lower rate of heart disease.
Comments