Playing sports is something most of us love, isn't it? Undoubtedly, sports are a fun activity but they offer several health benefits too. Playing some sport regularly goes a long way in maintaining your physical and mental well-being. Sports help enhance your personality. They are a good source of both exercise and entertainment. Advantages of Sports in a Nutshell Physical Benefits

• Increased strength and stamina
• Better body shape increased agility
• They help burn calories and shed those extra pounds
• They give the body a good exercise

Psychological Benefits

• They encourage you to give your best every time
• They help build your planning and analytical skills and increase concentration
• Sports boost confidence
• They build leadership and team skills

The Bigger Picture

• Achieve social integration
• Lead to infrastructural developments
• Create employment opportunities
• Boost the tourism industry

How Sports Benefit You Sports serve as an excellent physical exercise. Those who play sports have a more positive body image than those who do not. Sports often involve physical activities like running, jumping, stretching and moving about which turn out to be a good body workout. Playing sports is energy put to good use. Engaging in sports since an early age strengthens your bones and muscles and tones your body. It helps you increase your stamina and endurance. Sports that involve jumping and stretching help increase height; for example basketball. Games that involve running, kicking or throwing a ball help strengthen the arms and legs; for example soccer and cricket. Swimming provides a full body workout. Thus sports provide the body with complete exercise and engaging in sports directly translates into overall fitness. Research shows that sports improve Math skills in children. Sports that involve aiming and hitting skills, for example, tennis, badminton, baseball and cricket help them increase focus. They help develop leadership qualities and foster team spirit in kids. They involve competition; they involve winning and losing. This exposes children to both aspects of life, successes and failures. Sports build a competitive spirit in children and teach them to be participative irrespective of whether the result is victory or defeat. Playing sports teaches them to accept both successes and failures with a positive spirit. Sports teach you to think with a cool head. The most important benefit of sports is the sportsman spirit they inculcate. Sports help you become more sporting, more positive and stronger. Playing sports is very beneficial for the development of social skills. Sports teach you to interact with people, communicate with them and collaborate as a team. Sports foster collective thinking and harness your planning and delegation skills too. Sports build confidence. Winning a game gives you a sense of accomplishment, which boosts your confidence further. Playing sports involves directed thinking. It requires you to strategize. You need to devise ways to score goals, runs or earn points, as the case may be. You need to devise strategies to win, you need to decide whether to take an offensive stand or a defensive one. You need to judge your opponent's strategy and modify yours accordingly. This definitely involves clever thinking, which sports encourage. Studies show that kids who play sports regularly fare well in academics and do well in school. Sports make you happy. I know anyone would agree with this. Jumping about, running around, racing to get ahead, hitting, throwing, bouncing, kicking (the ball, I mean!), shouting, clapping, cheering, falling and standing up again... all a part of playing sports. And there is no match to the happiness this brings. They give you the high by increasing the production of endorphins in the brain. In other words, sports are a form of exercise which generates happiness molecules in your body, thus restoring your mental health. Playing sports, you can't be sad. In fact, they bust the sorrow and the stress. Sports generate a positive energy in you, around you. When sports are played at the state or national level, they increase the players' sense of belonging to their community or country. International sports events foster patriotism and a feeling of oneness among the team members of a country. Playing sports at these levels opens many employment avenues for not only sportsmen and women but also people who join tournaments as volunteers, cheerleaders or in the capacity of sports doctors and physical therapists. As developments are undertaken in cities hosting sports events, sports can lead to urbanization of rural areas. Many cities have started becoming hubs for sports tourism. Sports parks are being developed in many tourist destinations. It is the increasing inclination for playing sports which is responsible for such developments. Playing sports reduces several health risks. As sports serve as an excellent form of exercise, it won't come as a surprise that they offer health benefits like lowering blood pressure, maintaining blood sugar and cholesterol levels and reducing other health risks. Yes, if you are playing a sport regularly, you are at a lesser risk of developing diabetes or heart diseases. Playing sports reduces the risk of hypertension and several other stress-related disorders. Research shows that people who play sports regularly can deal with stresses and strains in a better way. Those who engage in sports activities are less prone to depression, anxiety and other psychological disorders. Regular exercise that is achieved through sports leads to an improvement in the overall health thus improving quality of life. Sports are a good combination of recreation and exercise. They improve your physical and psychological health; physical because sports involve exercise and psychological because playing is something you enjoy, it's something that relaxes your mind. Something so advantageous is worth investing time in. So go hit the ground today. Play!