The 13 exercises to boost libido, help sleep and beat depression

The 13 exercises to boost libido, help sleep and beat depression

We all know that exercise is good for us, but many types have extra benefits that we might not be aware of as we dutifully put our trainers on. Last week one study found that twice-weekly classes of hot yoga had been shown to significantly reduce symptoms of severe depression. Another revealed that just 22 minutes of brisk walking, housework or jogging can offset the negative health effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Here’s what the experts recommend.

1. Hot yoga twice a week can beat depression

Regular classes of Bikram yoga — where you practise in rooms of 40C heat — can reduce the symptoms of depression, according to a clinical trial led by Massachusetts General Hospital. A group of adults suffering with moderate to severe depression were divided into two groups. One did 90-minute hot yoga sessions twice a week, the other had no treatment. After eight weeks, 44 per cent of those who did the yoga had seen such a dramatic improvement they were no longer classed as depressed.

2. Get on your bike to boost libido

Broadly speaking, if you want to boost your libido, it doesn’t matter what exercise you’re doing as long as you’re doing something — a 2018 study in the Journal of Health Promotion found that the more exercise you do, the more sex you’re likely to have.

Cycling could be a good way to get that exercise in. A 2018 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that women who cycle — anything from a casual Sunday ride to 25 miles three times a week — report better sexual function than those who swim or run.

The evidence isn’t so clear-cut for men, but one thing you might want to avoid is endurance training. A 2017 paper in the journal of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that it was associated with decreased libido in men, while a 2022 paper by the same authors found that the longer a man had been marathon training, the lower his libido was likely to be.

Resistance training can help to improve bone mineral density and reduce the frequency of hot flushes

3. Lift weights to improve menopause symptoms

Many different forms of exercise are said to be “the best” for menopausal women. However, experts specialising in fitness in menopausal women suggest that lifting weights and resistance training (ie working with your body weight) are most effective. This appears to be borne out by a review published this year in Menopause, The Journal of the Menopause Society.

The paper compared several trials and discovered that resistance training seems to improve bone mineral density and reduce the frequency of hot flushes more than aerobic — or cardio — exercise does. One study published last year found three sessions a week of weight training over a 15-week period significantly improved symptoms.

4. Dancing boosts brain function

A paper published last year in the journal Frontiers in Ageing Neuroscience looked at a group with mild cognitive impairment. The research found that after three months of going to a dance class three times a week, the group performed better in cognitive tests, especially those relating to memory.

Other studies have also shown a link between dancing and the brain. In his book The Dance Cure, Dr Peter Lovatt, who established the Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire, describes his research that shows that just 20 minutes of improvised dancing made people more creative in certain tasks.

“For example, before dancing, participants could generate about four or five alternative uses for a common object such as a brick or a newspaper, but after dancing they could generate seven or eight.”

Get moving: studies have shown a link between dancing and the brain

5. Running can strengthen bones

Bone is living tissue and the way you get it to grow stronger is by repeatedly putting it under pressure. As long as you haven’t already got osteoporosis (in which case you should avoid high-impact exercises) running is one of the best ways that you can do this.

A 2021 paper in the journal JMBR Plus reported how the researchers tested the bone density of a group of male sprinters aged between 40 and 85, then tested it again 10 years later. The ones who had kept up their sprint training — running twice a week — had maintained or even improved their bone density, unlike those who had reduced their training.

Other research has shown that any type of running can increase bone mass and strength — one Japanese study found that simply jumping on the spot ten times a day helped. It’s not about speed, every daily jog helps — a 2019 study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that male and female university-aged cross-country runners had significantly higher bone density than their non-running counterparts.

6. Practise t’ai chi to slash your risk of falls

The Chinese martial art and health practice, renowned for its slow and deliberate movements, has long been lauded for its ability to improve muscle strength, flexibility and balance. A 2019 Cochrane review of several studies concluded that while various types of exercise could have a role to play in preventing falls, t’ai chi was the only named form of exercise that had enough evidence behind it to conclude that it “may reduce the rate of falls by 19 per cent as well as reducing the number of people who experience falls by 20 per cent”. Essentially, if you take up t’ai chi, you’re about a fifth less likely to suffer a fall.

7. Walking regularly will improve sleep

Moderate aerobic exercise — aka walking — has long been associated with improving symptoms of insomnia. While the received wisdom has it that you should get out in the daylight first thing to help reset your body clock if the aim of your walk is to improve sleep, walking on a treadmill in a gym could also be effective. A 2011 paper in the journal Sleep Medicine followed 19 insomniacs who were split into two groups, half of whom did a 50-minute walking session on a treadmill in the morning three times a week, and the other half who did the same but in the late afternoon. The study found that all of the insomniacs ended up falling asleep more quickly and sleeping better — and there were no significant differences in response between morning and late-afternoon exercise.

Even if you generally sleep well, you could benefit from a stroll. Research published in the journal Sleep Health in 2019 showed that on the days that they walked more, people reported better, and longer, sleep.

8. Play tennis to increase your lifespan

A 2018 study looked at the extent to which different sports were associated with increased life expectancy. The Copenhagen City Heart Study followed 8,577 participants for up to 25 years and looked at how their chosen sports appeared to affect their life expectancy. Those who played tennis (for an average of 103 minutes a week) lived on average 9.7 years longer than those who had a sedentary lifestyle. The researchers theorised that the social aspects of playing tennis could have a role to play here, noting that “social isolation is among the strongest predictors of reduced life expectancy”.

Another study of 80,000 British men and women published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2017 found that those who played racket sports were likely to live longer than those who did any other form of exercise.

9. Kundalini yoga improves memory

In 2015 the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease flagged that a particular Kundalini yoga meditation that involves chanting and repetitive finger movements and takes just 12 minutes a day should be included in prevention programmes for Alzheimer’s, and since then several studies have supported these findings about the meditation called Kirtan Kriya. One published in the same journal this year found that in older women with risk factors for Alzheimer’s and concerns about memory decline this type of yoga can improve the brain’s working and “target hippocampal subregion connectivity impacted by stress”. That, say the authors, “may aid in processing information, including facial information, into memory”.

10. Golf can help to lower cholesterol

The joke goes that golf is a great way to ruin a perfectly nice walk, but when it comes to health benefits golf could actually be better than a nice walk.

A study published this year in the BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine online journal monitored 16 men and nine women, monitoring their blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar before and after three forms of exercise on three days: a round of golf, a 3.7-mile walk and a 3.7-mile session of Nordic walking, which uses upper-body strength and walking poles for more vigorous exercise.

While all the measures were improved by all of the exercises, golf had the biggest effect on lowering blood fats, including cholesterol, and keeping blood sugar stable, reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

11. Squats will lower blood pressure

Aerobic exercise is often thought to be the best form of exercise for heart health, but a review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine this year had surprising results.

The paper found that isometric exercises — holding a position with your muscles under tension for a prolonged period of time, such as a squat or a wall sit, where you prop yourself against a wall with your thighs parallel to the ground — were the most effective exercises when it came to reducing blood pressure.

One trial found that four reps of a two-minute wall sit with a two-minute rest between each rep carried out three times a week resulted in blood pressure reduction equivalent to that produced by drugs.

Jamie O’Driscoll, of Canterbury Christ Church University and senior author of the review, explained that isometric exercises “increase the tension in the muscles when held for two minutes, then cause a sudden rush of blood when you relax. This increases the blood flow.” It’s thought that this might explain the impact on blood pressure.

Swimming in cold water stimulates the immune system into producing more white blood cells

12. Cold water swimming boosts immunity

Cold water swimming has, of late, been hailed for its all-round health benefits. One of the most interesting claims is that it could help to improve your body’s immune response. The theory is that immersing your body in cold water stimulates the immune system into producing more white blood cells and antioxidants to cope with the stress and that this, in turn, supercharges your immune system.

A review published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2020 reported that “there is rising evidence that winter swimmers are more resistant to certain illnesses and infections . . . The incidence of infectious diseases of the upper respiratory tract [a useful proxy for how well the immune system is working] is 40 per cent lower in winter swimmers compared to a control group” — this data was based on bathers swimming at least once a week for about five minutes.

13. If you really want to blast the belly fat, do some HIIT

For a long time HIIT — high-intensity interval training, where you intersperse short bursts of very intensive exercise with rest — has been seen as the holy grail of fitness, allowing you to reap more impressive health benefits in less time. The idea is that 30 seconds of sprinting followed by 30 seconds of jogging, repeated ten times, could improve your health more than a 30-minute 5km run — known as moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT).

Research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health this year looked at a number of trials and discovered that while both forms of training could help to improve health, HIIT was better at reducing waist circumference and fat mass percentage. Three 30-minute sessions a week seemed to be the most common frequency of the sessions.

Reference
Saturday October 28 2023, 12.01am, The Times