Wellbeing. Looking after you

It’s tough to feel good when you’re unfit, overweight and stressed up to the eyeballs but for an increasing number of us that is life’s reality. Then one day we get a wake up call - usually in the form of a health scare - and suddenly taking good care of ourselves assumes a whole new dimension. Here are five reasons why staying in shape is so important in today’s society.

1. Pretty much every study on exercise over the last decade has shown that people who work out regularly are healthier (by any measure you care to choose) than those who don’t. This is great news if you’ve already reached the stage where the old body is starting to slow down a bit, but it’s also pretty exciting for the twenty-somethings who - because they’ve started early - should be significantly stronger and age much less quickly than their parents.

2. We all know the stats around obesity so we won’t labour the point, other than to say that maintaining a good fighting weight (you don’t have to be super-skinny to be healthy) is probably the best gift you can give yourself. Diet and exercise are both important in controlling your weight. In the old days the emphasis used to be on DIET first and then exercise for weight loss, now scientists are starting to stress the importance of EXERCISE first and then diet.

3. Whether forty is the new thirty, or sixty is the new fifty, we’re not quite sure, but one thing we can tell you is there is an increasing mismatch between the functional and chronological ages of people who exercise and people who don’t. What does that mean? Fit forty year olds can out-function unfit twenty-five year-olds any day of the week (and do). And fit sixty year-olds can make mince meat of unfit forty year olds too (and do). In other words, age boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred and while you may not be able to control your chronological age, your activity levels have a massive impact on your functional age.

4. We are increasingly presented with sugary and fatty foods (that are cunningly disguised to taste good)and we are also less mobile than any generation in history. Some would call this the right setting for the perfect (health) storm - and they would be right. Working out may not make you completely storm proof - you’re bound to get the odd ailment every now and again - but it will provide you with a great umbrella to protect you from the likes of heart disease, diabetes and all the rest of it.

5. Unless you’re the Dalai Lama, stress is going to play a part in your life (actually the DL probably gets pretty stressed at times too). The key is not eliminating stress from your daily existence, it’s recognising when stress is getting out of balance and doing something about it. If you’re not sure when your stress levels are too high, here are some clues: When you feel tired and listless, when your thinking becomes fuzzy, when you start getting grumpy for no particular reason, when you wake up feeling anxious, when you can feel your panic levels rising - you’re probably over-stressed. Mainstream exercise in the gym combats stress beautifully and so do some of the softer disciplines like yoga and Pilates.