11 Benefits of Jogging for Your Body, Brain, and Well-Being

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsBenefits of JoggingHow Often Should You Jog?The Best Time of Day

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Benefits of Jogging

How Often Should You Jog?

The Best Time of Day

Jogging is a popular exercise that’s more challenging than walking but not as challenging as running. While there’s no exact line between jogging and running, jogging is generally considered to be running at a slower pace. Jogging has many health benefits for your body, brain, and overall well-being.

1. Allows You to Increase Your Workout Intensity Gradually

If walking isn’t challenging enough for you, but you are not quite ready to hit the groundrunning, jogging is an option that allows you to increase your workout intensity gradually.

Start with jogging intervals. Walk for four minutes and jog for one minute. You are ready to increase your distance once you can jog for 30 minutes straight.

Add no more than 10% to your distance each week to help reduce the risk of injury.

2. Improves Cardiovascular Fitness

Jogging strengthens your heart muscle and improves yourcardiovascular (heart and blood vessels) health. Physical activity increases your heart rate, which, over time, strengthens your heart. When jogging, your heart needs to work harder to pump more blood to your legs. Blood vessels open wider, and additional oxygen is delivered from your heart to your muscles.

Jogging’s other cardiovascular benefits include:

3. Builds Muscle Strength

Jogging strengthens muscles throughout your legs.

Muscles targeted with jogging include:

4. Leads to Stronger Bones

Jogging can build stronger bones. High-impact activities put stress on bones that support your body weight as you exercise. These types of activities stimulate bones to deposit more calcium and activate the cells that build new bone tissue.

Weight-bearing exercise is important for reducing your risk ofosteoporosis, a condition that weakens bones as you age.

5. Strengthens the Immune System

6. May Help You Lose Weight

Many factors affect weight loss, and physical activity plays a role. Weight loss occurs when calories burned throughout the day exceed the amount taken in.

When combined with a healthy diet, jogging can help contribute to a calorie deficit. The exact amount of calories burned during your jogging workout depends on your body weight, speed, and distance.

The American Council on Exercise provides the following information for calories burned per minute of jogging at specific body weights:

7. Decreases Insulin Resistance

Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, can improve insulin sensitivity in the short and long term.Insulin sensitivityhas been shown to improve for up to 72 hours after one exercise session.With consistency, baseline blood sugar levels can also decrease over time.

8. Improves Sleep Quality

Jogging has the potential to improve your sleep. Research shows that physical activity increases the time spent indeep sleep, helps people fall asleep faster, and reduces the chances of waking up throughout the night.

However, the timing of your jogging workouts also plays a role. Jogging activates thesympathetic nervous system, increasing your heart rate and making you more alert. Exercising too close to bedtime can make it more difficult to fall asleep.

Physical activity can also improve sleep disorders such asinsomniaandobstructive sleep apnea(a partial blocking of the upper airway during sleep that can interfere with breathing).

9. Protects You From Stress Side Effects

Exercise, such as jogging, decreases stress hormones—such as adrenaline and cortisol—in your bloodstream. It also helps ward off adverse side effects of chronic stress, such as high blood pressure (hypertension), heart disease, forgetfulness, and a weakened immune system.It also gives you a break from stressful daily tasks to clear your mind.

10. May Help You Cope with Depression

Jogging releases feel-good chemicals in the brain (endorphins). This well-known phenomenon is often referred to as a “runner’s high,” an emotional state associated with euphoria (intense happiness) and decreased pain and anxiety.

The more frequently you jog, the more significant the positive effects on mood will be.

11. May Help Extend Your Life

While jogging isn’t directly linked to a longer life, it can help reduce your risk of many diseases or conditions that can shorten your lifespan, such as:

The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends that adults in the United States get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity—such as jogging—each week for health benefits.However, if you’re starting, this might be too much.

With any new exercise, you can expect some soreness. Often, you won’t feel this soreness right away. Doing too much too fast increases your chances of gettingdelayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which causes achiness within 12 to 24 hours of activity and peaks up to 72 hours later.

For this reason, you might try jogging twice weekly with rest days in between until you know how your body will respond.

What’s the Best Time of Day to Jog?

The best time of day to jog is any time that you will be most consistent at keeping. This varies from person to person. However, there are things to consider, such as:

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Summary

Jogging is running at a slower pace. This is a good activity for people looking for something more challenging than walking but not quite as strenuous as running. Jogging has many health benefits, such as stronger muscles, improved heart health, weight loss, lower blood sugar levels, and better sleep. It can also boost your mood. To begin jogging, add short intervals during your walking workouts. As with any new exercise, check with your healthcare provider to ensure it is safe.

14 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Council on Exercise.5 tips for optimizing running form.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.Physical activity and your heart.Amercian College of Sports Medicine.Starting a walking program.Harvard Health Publishing.Slowing bone loss with weight-bearing exercise.da Silveira MP, da Silva Fagundes KK, Bizuti MR, Starck É, Rossi RC, de Resende E Silva DT.Physical exercise as a tool to help the immune system against COVID-19: an integrative review of the current literature.Clin Exp Med. 2021 Feb;21(1):15-28. doi: 10.1007/s10238-020-00650-3American Council on Exercise.Calorie burners: activities that turn up the heat.Bird SR, Hawley JA.Update on the effects of physical activity on insulin sensitivity in humans.BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2017 Mar 1;2(1):e000143. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2016-000143Dolezal BA, Neufeld EV, Boland DM, Martin JL, Cooper CB.Interrelationship between Sleep and Exercise: A Systematic Review.Adv Prev Med. 2017;2017:1364387. doi: 10.1155/2017/1364387American Heart Association.American Heart Association’s recommendations for physical activity in adults and kids.American Heart Association.Working out to relieve stress.Weiermair T, Svehlikova E, Boulgaropoulos B, Magnes C, Eberl A.Investigating runner’s high: Changes in mood and endocannabinoid concentrations after a 60 min outdoor run considering sex, running frequency, and age.Sports (Basel). 2024 Aug 28;12(9):232. doi: 10.3390/sports12090232Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.Physical activity guidelines for Americans.American College of Sports Medicine.Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).American Heart Association.When is the best time of day to work out?

14 Sources

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Council on Exercise.5 tips for optimizing running form.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.Physical activity and your heart.Amercian College of Sports Medicine.Starting a walking program.Harvard Health Publishing.Slowing bone loss with weight-bearing exercise.da Silveira MP, da Silva Fagundes KK, Bizuti MR, Starck É, Rossi RC, de Resende E Silva DT.Physical exercise as a tool to help the immune system against COVID-19: an integrative review of the current literature.Clin Exp Med. 2021 Feb;21(1):15-28. doi: 10.1007/s10238-020-00650-3American Council on Exercise.Calorie burners: activities that turn up the heat.Bird SR, Hawley JA.Update on the effects of physical activity on insulin sensitivity in humans.BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2017 Mar 1;2(1):e000143. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2016-000143Dolezal BA, Neufeld EV, Boland DM, Martin JL, Cooper CB.Interrelationship between Sleep and Exercise: A Systematic Review.Adv Prev Med. 2017;2017:1364387. doi: 10.1155/2017/1364387American Heart Association.American Heart Association’s recommendations for physical activity in adults and kids.American Heart Association.Working out to relieve stress.Weiermair T, Svehlikova E, Boulgaropoulos B, Magnes C, Eberl A.Investigating runner’s high: Changes in mood and endocannabinoid concentrations after a 60 min outdoor run considering sex, running frequency, and age.Sports (Basel). 2024 Aug 28;12(9):232. doi: 10.3390/sports12090232Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.Physical activity guidelines for Americans.American College of Sports Medicine.Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).American Heart Association.When is the best time of day to work out?

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

American Council on Exercise.5 tips for optimizing running form.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.Physical activity and your heart.Amercian College of Sports Medicine.Starting a walking program.Harvard Health Publishing.Slowing bone loss with weight-bearing exercise.da Silveira MP, da Silva Fagundes KK, Bizuti MR, Starck É, Rossi RC, de Resende E Silva DT.Physical exercise as a tool to help the immune system against COVID-19: an integrative review of the current literature.Clin Exp Med. 2021 Feb;21(1):15-28. doi: 10.1007/s10238-020-00650-3American Council on Exercise.Calorie burners: activities that turn up the heat.Bird SR, Hawley JA.Update on the effects of physical activity on insulin sensitivity in humans.BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2017 Mar 1;2(1):e000143. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2016-000143Dolezal BA, Neufeld EV, Boland DM, Martin JL, Cooper CB.Interrelationship between Sleep and Exercise: A Systematic Review.Adv Prev Med. 2017;2017:1364387. doi: 10.1155/2017/1364387American Heart Association.American Heart Association’s recommendations for physical activity in adults and kids.American Heart Association.Working out to relieve stress.Weiermair T, Svehlikova E, Boulgaropoulos B, Magnes C, Eberl A.Investigating runner’s high: Changes in mood and endocannabinoid concentrations after a 60 min outdoor run considering sex, running frequency, and age.Sports (Basel). 2024 Aug 28;12(9):232. doi: 10.3390/sports12090232Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.Physical activity guidelines for Americans.American College of Sports Medicine.Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).American Heart Association.When is the best time of day to work out?

American Council on Exercise.5 tips for optimizing running form.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.Physical activity and your heart.

Amercian College of Sports Medicine.Starting a walking program.

Harvard Health Publishing.Slowing bone loss with weight-bearing exercise.

da Silveira MP, da Silva Fagundes KK, Bizuti MR, Starck É, Rossi RC, de Resende E Silva DT.Physical exercise as a tool to help the immune system against COVID-19: an integrative review of the current literature.Clin Exp Med. 2021 Feb;21(1):15-28. doi: 10.1007/s10238-020-00650-3

American Council on Exercise.Calorie burners: activities that turn up the heat.

Bird SR, Hawley JA.Update on the effects of physical activity on insulin sensitivity in humans.BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2017 Mar 1;2(1):e000143. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2016-000143

Dolezal BA, Neufeld EV, Boland DM, Martin JL, Cooper CB.Interrelationship between Sleep and Exercise: A Systematic Review.Adv Prev Med. 2017;2017:1364387. doi: 10.1155/2017/1364387

American Heart Association.American Heart Association’s recommendations for physical activity in adults and kids.

American Heart Association.Working out to relieve stress.

Weiermair T, Svehlikova E, Boulgaropoulos B, Magnes C, Eberl A.Investigating runner’s high: Changes in mood and endocannabinoid concentrations after a 60 min outdoor run considering sex, running frequency, and age.Sports (Basel). 2024 Aug 28;12(9):232. doi: 10.3390/sports12090232

Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.Physical activity guidelines for Americans.

American College of Sports Medicine.Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).

American Heart Association.When is the best time of day to work out?

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