Informative Speech On Exercise

As you know, exercise is very important for your physical health. Exercising regularly helps keep your heart healthy, lowers your risk for type 2 diabetes as well as some cancers, and helps you get stronger muscles and bones. This is common knowledge for most people, but what if I told you that exercise has even more benefits that aren’t just physical? Today I will be informing you about the benefits of exercise on your mental health, resiliency and academic performance.
First, I will describe the relationship between exercise and academic performance. Many studies have been conducted to explore this relation, one being a University of Illinois study in which students age 9 to 10 were tested on their endurance by running on a treadmill. After

Now I will be telling you about the effects of exercise on one’s mental health and resiliency. The University of Texas Medicine performed a study consisting solely of people with depressive disorders and had half of them do 30 minutes of physical exercise a day, while the other half were told to make no changes to their levels of physical activity. The exercising group claimed to be feeling better now compared to before the study, and the other group had no change. Many studies have worked to document a relationship between exercising and mental health, like a different study from the University of Texas Medicine which concluded that people who work out regularly are half as likely to have depression compared to people who do not. The amount of physical activity recommended to get mental health benefits is the same of that of obtaining academic benefits, which is 30-60 minutes per day. Another study at the U.S. National Institute of Health had participants do yoga every day for eight weeks, and take brain scans before and after. These scans showed that a part of the brain called the amygdala, which controls fear, anxiety and stress, had shrunk after the 8 weeks of yoga practice. Physical activity/exercise helps increase the chemical norepinephine which helps relieve stress. Exercise also helps increase endorphins in the brain which makes people feel happier and less