Text 1. Benefits of Playing Sports

Have you thought of the different benefits of playing sports? Have you realized the importance of making sports a part of your daily routine? Read on for more. 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.

How Sports Benefit You

1. 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.

• The underlined words reveal the general idea of the paragraph. What changes happen while exercising: create positive body image, strengthens bones and muscles, increase stamina and endurance.

• The paragraph also says what definite kinds of sport improve and develop in your body: increase height, strengthen arms and legs.

II. 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.

• The paragraph states what qualities sports develop: increase focus, develop leadership qualities, foster team spirit, build a competitive spirit, teach them to be participative, teaches them to accept both successes and failures, teach you to think with a cool head.

III. 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.

• The paragraph says what social skills are developed: interaction, collaboration with people, foster collective thinking, harness your planning skills. IV. 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 and college.

• The paragraph discloses what strategy implies in sports: to devise ways to score goals, runs or earn points, to decide whether to take an offensive stand or a defensive one, to judge your opponent's strategy and modify yours. V. Playing sports makes 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.

• The paragraph says why doing sports makes people happy from the physical point of view: it increases the production of endorphins in the brain, busts the sorrow and the stress, generates a positive energy. VI. When sports are played at the state of 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.

• The paragraph makes a conclusion of sports as an important implement of fostering people: fosters patriotism and a feeling of oneness, opens many employment avenues.