You won't find a better reason to start exercising

Just hitting a punching bag non-stop for forty-five minutes, I find it nice. I'm going to tell you something crazy, now that I can't do it because of my back, I even miss it. And anyone who knows me just a little bit knows that I wasn't like this...

I definitely hadn't exercised for a number of years (then you think this by the way). Now I say x, because I don't dare to admit how long it was. And x is the Roman numeral for ten, yes. Long story short, it wasn't ten, but it was long. During my first boxing lesson, I had to take a breather after twenty-five minutes, as in: stop, have a cup of tea, and slowly make sure I didn't see stars anymore and that I didn't have the urge to run outside to throw up. I'm just giving you the truthful version. In my head, I made trainer Sam out for things I would never actually say to him. And I solemnly promised myself that this would never happen to me again. That's why I went a second time that week. A week later, I was there three times, after two months four times, until I was sweating five days a week before office hours. The anti-sport person in me could no longer live without sports. It was even so bad that that particular Sam, whom I initially cursed softly (but kindly, really kindly), became my personal trainer. Me, a personal trainer, that's like the Pope suddenly being in favor of condoms.

After a few months of training, the results also came. I no longer gasped when the escalator was out of order at the station, I voluntarily took the stairs. The jeans had to be a size smaller and I skipped that huge chocolate cake because I had just exercised and that would be a waste. All very beneficial, of course, but the best part was my mind. I was calmer, I had more focus, I was less tired, I could just hammer everything out for an hour, it was a whole hour a day that I just did that. And research now shows that I had less stress.

Exercising is good against stress. Those who exercise live longer. Those who exercise produce substances in the brain that inhibit your stress feelings. Those who exercise sleep well. It goes like this, says the University of British Columbia: your telomeres get longer when you exercise. Those are the little caps at the ends of your chromosomes. Those long telomeres at the ends of your chromosomes work well when your cells divide. Yes, yes, it's quite a scientific story. In short: the longer your telomeres are, the longer you live. And the more you exercise, the longer your telomeres become and remain. Comprendez? I do, because now that I can give that punching bag a little less of a beating, I get stressed a little faster. Not that I want to blame my telomeres for that, but I actually should. So exercise, against stress. I'll see you at our gym, but be careful, before you know it, you're there five times a week.

Source: RTL Nieuws