Every Friday, we bring you five related things, ideas, facts, or practices that we hope will make your parenting journey a little easier. This week, it’s parent exercise! Let’s get moving!

For some of us, exercise can be a real drag. We’re only running if a bear is chasing us. For others, exercise is a necessity that keeps them sane.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, you’ll want to know what exercise can do for you as a parent. Here are five expert-vetted reasons exercise makes you a better parent.

1. Exercise helps your brain keep up with your kids

There are hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that have not only shown a strong link between exercise and brain health, but also have identified how this link works.

First, exercise increases blood flow to the brain and improves blood flow for days after a workout.

Second, it actually increases the size of your brain!

Third, it releases hormones that help make new brain cell connections.

Finally, it reduces chronic inflammation in the brain. The better we can get our brain to work, the easier it will be to keep up with the never-ending demands of parenting, from helping with homework to talking through friend drama.

2. Exercise is nature’s mood booster

Exercise is now a regular evidence-based recommendation for patients with depression and anxiety.

The reasons exercise reduces depression and anxiety vary from molecular changes to brain structure changes to positive mental distraction.

Regardless of the reason, the research shows that more exercise = more smiles. And more smiles = more connection with the family.

3. Exercise fights fatigue

Did you use to think that after your child started sleeping through the night, you wouldn’t be so exhausted? Ha! This parenting grind just keeps going!

Quite counterintuitively, however, exerting ourselves even more might help with the exhaustion.

Studies have shown that low to moderate physical activity reduces fatigue and improves energy levels in a wide variety of contexts, from healthy adults to pregnant women, from multiple sclerosis patients to cancer survivors.

4. Your exercising influences your kids’ levels of activity

Studies have found that kids are more likely to exercise when parents exercise. This could be because parents visibly exercising creates an environment that normalizes vigorous activity. When it becomes a regular part of life, exercise is “just what we do.”

Because nagging and controlling kids to exercise doesn't work that well (at least in this study), simply exercising in front of them regularly might be the easiest and most effective way to get them moving.

It’s not easy but if it’s possible, finding ways to include kids in parents' workouts can be ideal.

5. Getting fit now keeps you ready for grandparenting

The reason why old people lose muscle and don’t move that well is not because aging necessarily tears you down, says Menno Henselmans, a well-regarded strength and fitness coach. It’s because people stop exercising (or at least moving a lot) as they get older.

If we continue to exercise, we’ll keep and even build muscle and stay relatively fit well into old age.

Genes play a role but a much smaller role than regular exercise! Plan for grandkids today by developing an exercise routine that works for the long haul.