If there was ever a fountain of youth for health and vitality, exercise would be it. There are so many health benefits to exercise, it would be impossible to list them all.

However, research has shown that exercise performed on a regular basis decreases the risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, breast cancer and high cholesterol.

Furthermore, exercise helps to keep our bones strong well into our senior years and helps to strengthen our hearts and lungs. Additionally, regular exercise eases stress and depression and facilitates sleep and relaxation.

For these reasons, no matter how old you are you should include some form of exercise in your daily life. Physical activity doesn't have to come in the form of a subscription to a fitness club or buying expensive exercise equipment. Instead, you should try to incorporate some sort of physical activities that are a natural part of your daily routine.

The following are some suggestions of ways that you can naturally incorporate physical activates into your daily life:

1) Do some sort of exercise while you watch television. Yoga, strength training or aerobics are all good. Also using small hand weights or walking on a treadmill is something you can do while watching television.

2) Implement a walk with your family after dinner.

3) Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator.

4) Take up gardening or another type of outdoor hobby.

5) Play with children! If you don't have any of your own, find a niece or a nephew - you can set aside a regular day for taking them out for some fun activities.

6) Park your car away from where you need to go and then walk to your destination.

7) Get off the bus or a taxi early and walk the rest of the way to your destination.

6) Keep a pair of athletic shoes in your office and your car. This way you'll always be ready for some activity.

7) If you need to take care of errands such as going to the bank or post office, walk instead of driving or taking the bus or taxi.

8) Find a sport that you like and play it with friends, family or neighbors.

9) Play with your pets. Playing with your pets such as dogs or cats is great fun for them and a fun way for you to get some physical activity.

10) Wash your own car. Instead of taking your car to the car wash or paying someone to do it for you, get up early one day out of the weekend and wash it yourself. It will definitely give you a workout!

11) Mow your own lawn. And if you don't have a yard, volunteer to do it for someone in your neighborhood, such as mowing the lawn of an elderly or disabled person.

12) Take up a team sport such as basketball, soccer or football. Research shows that team sports have additional health benefits that playing a sport by yourself does not have.

13) If you work on the computer a lot, instead of sitting on a chair, sit on a stability ball.

Over time, it can help to strengthen your body core and improve your balance and posture - all of which tend to decline as we age.

14) Learn a new activity such as swimming or riding a bicycle.

While it is important to include natural forms of physical activities in your daily routine such as the ones mentioned here, be sure to also schedule in planned exercise workouts as well. Planned workouts may include visits to your local gym or community center twice or three times per week, or it may be exercises that you can do at home or outside such as strength training, jogging or aerobic exercise.