Regular exercise is vital to good health. If you have always had a sedentary lifestyle, it is never too late to combat the effects.

Official guidelines recommend thirty minutes of moderate exercise every single day but new research suggests that something as simple as moving around for two minutes every twenty minutes you are bound to a desk or a couch will reduce the risk of heart disease.

This approach is based on the idea that if you sit for a long period of time, this inactivity produces physiological changes in your muscles. Your body stops breaking up the fat in your bloodstream and instead accumulates fat in your liver, heart and brain. Studies have shown that frequent standing breaks also decreases your chances of getting diabetes.

Daily stretching increases mobility and maintains the range of your limbs. Some studies suggest that regular stretching battles signs of aging. A practice like yoga has some simple poses that can aid energy, alertness and calm. Be the only one of your friends who can still touch their toes.

Walking is the most basic form of exercise that human beings do and our bodies are absolutely made for it. Running is too hard on the body later in life. Running is probably a bit hard on the body early in life. Taking up running in the third age is not advisable. Jogging is renowned for a high injury rate with as many as seventy-five per cent of joggers getting injured in any year. Walking is low impact and has low injury rates. Walking for as little as fifteen minutes a day will dramatically decrease your risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Always remember that you can be healthy with a much lower intensity of exercise to the kind of moving about you need to do to lose weight. The aim here is for better health, not necessarily to be a contestant on the Biggest Loser. Doing some exercise is better then doing no exercise for those of us interested in aging disgracefully.