April 29, 2026
6 Tips for Avoiding High Blood Pressure
Health Profile
Exercising means having more energy and vitality in your daily life, feeling healthy, and boosting your self-confidence. But as we all know, it can be hard to get started. If your potential new hobby is to bring you well-being, positive experiences, and better health for many years to come, start with the amount of exercise that fits into your life and suits your temperament. In the beginning, it’s about how little it takes to get off to a good start, not how much it takes.
The main reason to start an exercise program and stick with it should be the noticeable difference in physical and mental well-being that comes from being active. Exercise can prevent and, not least, treat a wide range of lifestyle-related diseases. This includes cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes (adult-onset diabetes), various forms of cancer, high blood pressure, lower back pain, headaches, stress, depression, and reduced work capacity. And it’s never too late to start. Even older adults who exercise enjoy a longer life with a higher quality of life. In fact, a recently published study showed that older adults (80–90 years old) who did strength training three times a week achieved impressive results. They became more mobile, had fewer sick days, and fell less often—reducing their risk of broken bones. Overall, they enjoyed a higher quality of life.
A single session of moderate-intensity exercise lasting one hour has an effect lasting up to two days, but less than five days. Therefore, to maintain the positive effects of physical activity, it is necessary to exercise at least two to three times a week. And as shown in the figure here, exercising just a few times a week is enough to dramatically reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, while exercising many times a week does not provide much additional benefit. The yellow bar shows the risk of developing cardiovascular disease if you are of normal weight and inactive. The green bar shows the risk of developing cardiovascular disease if you are of normal weight and moderately active. The red bar shows the risk of developing cardiovascular disease if you are of normal weight and well-trained. Thus, you don’t gain much more by being well-trained compared to being physically active three times a week. So it’s not about how much, but how little exercise is needed to improve your health. Or to put it another way: It’s not about how much… but how little you can get away with!
The hard part isn’t really exercising itself, but rather sticking with it and making it a regular part of your daily routine. A general rule of thumb is that it takes about three months before you actually start to enjoy exercising. Of course, this can vary from person to person. But count on the first three months being part of the process that leads to a life with more energy and a greater sense of well-being. Expect many days when you lack motivation, when the weather is gloomy, or when time is tight. If you anticipate these days, it’s much easier to overcome the lack of motivation.
The choice of exercise isn’t entirely irrelevant. The most important thing is that it engages a sufficiently large amount of muscle mass—as in running, cycling, or rowing, for example, which utilize the large leg muscles, among others. If the muscle mass involved is too small, you won’t adequately train your heart’s pumping capacity. And then you won’t gain either health or fitness from all your efforts. Strength training has proven effective against a wide range of lifestyle diseases, but cardiovascular training is better. As for the slightly gentler forms of exercise, such as yoga, Pilates, etc., the benefits will be more of a therapeutic, mental nature. And as we know, health comes in many forms, so even if a type of exercise may not directly improve your physical fitness, it will still provide mental stimulation.
If you’re mindful of this, you can easily sneak a lot more exercise into your daily routine without it having to be a structured, organized workout. After all, exercise is more than just a sweat-drenched workout in workout clothes. Consider, for example, that exercise can also mean biking to work—and it doesn’t have to be every day. Exercise can also mean taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Or cleaning energetically and thoroughly. Or walking to work and then taking the bus home. Or walking the dog an extra time, tending the garden, or inviting your best friend on a long bike ride next weekend.
By incorporating exercise and physical activity into your workday, you’ll automatically lead a healthier and more active lifestyle. For example, you could start a running club with your coworkers to make exercising at work a reality.
Exercise and physical activity during work hours with colleagues also strengthen team spirit in the workplace, which is why physical activity at work can benefit both physical and mental health.
Studies have shown, among other things, that exercising during work hours pays off. Exercising at work not only improves individual employees’ health but also reduces short-term absenteeism and boosts productivity.
That is why exercise and physical activity during work hours are a good investment in both employees and the company.
It can be a great idea to find someone to exercise with. There will be a time in most people’s lives when exercise takes a back seat due to work and children. You can try taking turns giving each other a break once or twice a week—if nothing else, just to go for a half-hour run or bike ride. You can motivate each other on the sluggish days and praise each other on the good days. It’s also nice to share experiences with someone else, especially that first weight loss or completing your first running race. You can also go for a long walk with the kids in the stroller or take a bike ride with the kids in the bike seat.
While you're exercising: ask yourself how hard it feels on a scale of 1 to 10. It should feel like a 7 or 8 to be most effective. In other words, you should feel so out of breath that you can only speak in short sentences. Exercise at a lower intensity (6–7) will provide you with plenty of well-being and health benefits, but not as much in terms of cardiovascular fitness. Generally speaking, the higher the intensity of your workout, the less time you need to exercise to achieve all the positive effects.
For those who use a heart rate monitor, an intensity of 50% of your maximum fitness level (or maximum heart rate?) can offer a number of health benefits, but very little in terms of fitness improvement. Fitness-building workouts should be on the higher end of 75%.
When you’re untrained and want to start improving your physical fitness, it’s especially important at the beginning not to push yourself too hard. If you exercise beyond your pain threshold every time, it usually takes a lot of willpower to get started on the next workout. Exercising shouldn’t become a negative experience. It can destroy your motivation, your mood, and the good habit you had just started. In the worst case, you’ll stop exercising, and since it wasn’t enjoyable last time, it will be even harder to get started again.
If you are overweight, you should choose your form of exercise carefully. For example, when you run, you put three times your body weight on your legs, which means you are also more prone to injury if you are overweight. Therefore, you should be extra careful when gradually increasing your exercise routine. If you are very overweight, you may want to start by going for walks, e.g., 3 times a week for 30 minutes each, at a pace that leaves you slightly out of breath. Swimming, cycling (spinning), or strenuous gardening are other good forms of exercise if you are overweight. When you feel ready, you can start a beginner’s running program. Running is one of the most effective forms of exercise, and it’s also free, easy, and time-saving.
