Benefits of Exercise for Health Exercise has long been considered a good thing for the human body, but what actually constitutes exercise? Exercise can be divided into two main categories, aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is usually a lower intensity, longer endurance form of energy use that increases the individual's breathing and heart rate. The main physiological classification of this type of exercise is that it accesses the process of aerobic energy generation, which loosely means that cells need and use more oxygen during this type of exercise (1). Anaerobic exercise is a type of activity that is usually short-duration and high-intensity, such as weight lifting or short sprints. This type of activity does not require your body's cells to absorb greater amounts of oxygen. Anaerobic effort must use a very fast fuel source such as the phosphates creatinine phosphate and adenosine triphosphate, as well as anaerobic glycolysis (2). If the individual continues to work beyond the means of anaerobic exercise, the body will begin to use aerobic pathways for energy production such as the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation, which require much higher amounts of oxygen (1) . There are many reasons why exercise The American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week (3). Exercise has many proven benefits for the human body, including physiological, mental and preventive aspects. Usually, one of the main ideas behind exercise is weight loss or maintaining a healthy weight and this is crucial for preventing or reversing many diseases. Obesity is rapidly becoming a global epidemic, and in the United States alone, over the past twenty years there have been… middle of paper… cise has been shown to cause the release of a handful of other neurotransmitters and hormones with similar effects such as serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine and adrenaline (12). It is well known that obesity is a major cause of many diseases around the world. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can not only prevent obesity, thus avoiding these diseases, but can also cause the disease to reverse if stored fat tissue is lost. Evidence supports that the physical act of exercise has a positive effect on our mental and physical well-being through many different pathways and some are clearer than others. However, decreasing the global population of obese individuals would in turn reduce the number of people suffering from a variety of preventable diseases and disorders. We just need to remember that if we burn what we eat we are on the path to a long and healthy life.