Exercise

This chapter focuses on the importance of physical activity as a key component of a healthy lifestyle. Exercise training also improves mental health, helps to prevent depression, and promotes or maintains positive self-esteem. There is now convincing evidence that the protective and therapeutic effects of exercise training are related, in a substantive fashion, to effects on the autonomic nervous system. Oxygen uptake is a function of the triple-product of heart rate and stroke volume and arterial-mixed venous oxygen difference. The key determinant of the magnitude of the heart rate response to exercise is the relative intensity as well as the absolute amount of muscle mass engaged, while central command plays an essential role in the increase in heart rate during exercise. Both central command and the exercise pressor reflex are important in determining the cardiovascular response during exercise, while dynamic interactions between these. Feed-forward and feed-back circuits are associated with beneficial adjustments in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.