There is much debate about what amount of exercise is optimal for women. Many people think more is always better. I'm not of that mindset. Anyone who knows my philosophy knows that I'm not pro long duration exercise like marathon training or triathalons especially for women who are already burnt out, under slept or just plain chronically stressed.
What we do very well at Urbanfitt is maximize the time spent exercising to make it efficient. We only have a certain number of energy points to spend on fitness without starting to tip the scales out of balance. Optimal health is really about balance after all.
Eating well but not being obsessive compulsive about food. Finding a way to mindfully eat without becoming anxious.
Getting fit without depleting our energy or making it impossible to sleep at night.
Working out with focus without pushing past what is safe and always ensuring to give our bodies lots of love after a challenging workout.
SO MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER!
And a study just released out of U of T confirms this.
Apparently, women who spend too much time exercising might be putting their future mental function at risk. Let's be honest. Most people don't exercise enough so this isn't a major concern for 95% of the population.
But women trying to clock more and more time exercising or training at high intensities ought to listen up.
"Many studies have found that exercise protects the brain, but until now no study has compared different intensities of exercise. Mary Tierney, a professor of family and community medicine at U of T, became especially interested in that link after reading about a study where intense physical activity reduced women’s risk of breast cancer – by depleting their estrogen levels.
Estrogen, Tierney knew, protects the brain against cognitive decline. Could highly active women be depressing their estrogen levels enough to have a detectable impact on their cognitive well-being?
Tierney, who is also a senior scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute, recruited 90 healthy post-menopausal women and asked about the amount and intensity of their physical activity throughout their adult life, in 10-year periods up to menopause. Strenuous activities included swimming laps, aerobic exercise, playing racquetball and running. Moderate activities included brisk walking, golfing, cycling on street level and playing softball. Tierney and her colleagues calculated the number of hours a week that each woman engaged in both strenuous and moderate activity, in exactly the way the breast cancer study had done.
Then the researchers tested the women on six neuropsychological tests. One, the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, requires a subject to listen to a list of 15 simple words five times. Then, after reading a list of 15 other words just once, the subject is asked to recall the words from the first list. The test is highly predictive of Alzheimer’s disease up to 10 years in advance. “Women with the highest levels of strenuous exercise did the most poorly,” says Tierney.
Many active women refuse to believe the results. They feel at their peak when running marathons and tearing up the squash court. “But these results raise the concern that a lot of strenuous exercise may not be good for women,” says Tierney.
Read full article from U of T Magazine
All I can say is this is yet another reason to exercise efficiently. More isn't always better. Clearly, any activities that involve us over doing it aren't good for us. So pick your activity based on what will give you the biggest bang for your time and energy butt. And for those obsessive exercisers who don't know how to take a day off, maybe being healthy for you means learning how to chill.
I feel a little concerned posting this. I can see lazy ladies using this as an excuse not to sweat. But again, the results of this study probably don't apply to you. It's a depressing fact, but the majority of the population isn't active at all. Zilch. So by spreading this study, I hope I'm not giving anyone another excuse not to exercise.
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