Is Healthy Living Too Risky?

Exercise aerobically, and you could bring on a heart attack. 

But don't do it at all, and you risk heart disease. Doing advanced exercises to improve your balance can put you at risk of falling, yet without them, you risk falling because your muscles are weak and respond too slowly. Then there are all the environmental dangers: exercising outside is good for getting fresh air into lungs and absorbing Vitamin D from the sun. But sometimes that air is polluted, rather than fresh, and excessive exposure to sunlight can lead to skin cancer. And that's before we get started on the dangers of automobile traffic for cyclists and runners.And what about the sport specific injuries? Shin Splints for runners, Golfer's Elbow, Tennis Elbow, Swimmer's Ear, Plantar Faciitus. 

Wouldn't it be safer to just stay at home and not stress the system? 

Most of us can point to relatives who drank or smoked and didn't have gym memberships, and yet they worked out okay, some of them living into their nineties. But modern life is not kind to the human body. By the time we retire, most of us have spent the better part of forty years seated: at desks, in cars or public transport, on sofas. We're sitting ducks for age-related diseases. It doesn't have to stay that way. In order benefit from exercise, your body needs to leave its comfort zone. To improve your balance, you need to challenge the muscles that make you stable. But how can you do that if you're worried about falling? One option might be to have a friend stand close, not touching you, but ready to help you before you fall. Or practise a one-legged stand initially holding onto the back of a sturdy chair. As your muscles get stronger, you can lift your hand off for a few seconds, then build to where you can do the exercise for a full minute without holding on at all. Take anyone who has succeeded at anything, and ask yourself if it happened overnight. If you aspire to running the New York Marathon, there is some basic preparation and quite a bit of training that takes place if you hope to cross the finish line uninjured. And so it is with any level of activity. If you decide to start on something, make a plan. Think of the risks and come up with a safety net to minimise them.  Don't give up, there is help available. Exercise is possible at any age, and you can stack the odds in your favor. To get started, the National Institute for Health has some useful exercises that can help.