Media Talk: Don’t let a red face stop you from exercising

Stephen Cheung, associate professor of Physical Education and Kinesiology, answered a “Search Engine” question in the St. Catharines Standard on May 29. The question asked why some people’s faces turn beet red when they run, while others do not. Cheung said there is nothing unsafe or risky about exercising with a red face. The redness is a natural part of a body regulating its temperature. The process is called vasodilation — the body’s skin blood vessels opening up to dissipate the heat produced with exercise. Individuals who turn red very quickly with exercise have very sensitive vasodilation response, which means their bodies act quickly to lose heat. “There’s nothing harmful about this,” Cheung wrote, “and it definitely should not scare people off from exercising.”


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