How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions Part 13

Of course, this continuity is rhythmic. There is a different action day and night, but this in itself is a form of periodicity. In the same way we have summer and winter. The tree feeds itself in summer and during the winter the life remains hidden at the root while the process of making the texture firm proceeds with rhythmic alternation.

All phases of life and growth are periodic. If, for any reason, there is an unusually severe winter the plants are killed. If there is a long period of drought vegetation dies. A certain normal amount of rain as of air, food, or soil is necessary to the growth of the plant.

One reason for practicing in the early morning is the fact that it will connect exercise with the natural habits of the individual. The time of waking up should be periodic and will be so if we retire regularly. The practice of exercises on first awakening or retiring will also tend to help the normal time and amount of sleep. If we take exercises on first waking, as suggested, we shall awake about the same time and with greater enjoyment.

The system will come to expand naturally; every cell will leap like a dog that prances with joy when it sees its master getting ready to go for a walk.

15. Practice regularly.

Not only should the time be regular, the amount of exercise also should be about the same each day. We should not give a half hour or an hour one day and neglect it entirely the next any more than we should eat one extraordinary meal and then go without anything to eat for two or three days.

The same is true also regarding the kind of exercise. It may be helpful to change some of the exercises, but we should have exercises for all parts of the body. If we subst.i.tute one exercise for another we should take care to exercise all the parts equally. We may change the kind of food, but the degree of sustenance it contains should not greatly vary.

16. Practice patiently.

Do not expect great results to come in a day, though you ought to feel some effect very quickly, yet it may take weeks, especially if there is any unusual weakness or abnormal condition. The slower and more varied the practice the better, other things being equal, because conditions are more important than the exercise and the normal adjustment of the various parts of the body is much more important than strengthening any local part.

17. Practice slowly but decidedly and vigorously.

The more slowly an exercise is practiced the deeper the effect. The lifting of the feet very slowly, for example, will have more effect upon the diaphragm than if done quickly. The holding of the chest high while lifting the feet slowly, causes wonderful action of the diaphragm and of the stomach and vital organs.

Slowness, however, does not mean hesitation, indifference, nor laziness.

Mere lazy, indifferent practice will accomplish nothing. Let the movements be done slowly but decidedly and definitely.

One should be careful if there is any particular part that causes pain.

We should bring in secondary or kneading movements, with the hands. If the action is thoughtfully directed to the right part, if it is truly rhythmic and sympathetic, abnormal conditions will be removed.

18. Exercise as well as sleep in the purest air possible.

Sleep with your windows open. Let the air circulate across your room though not across your bed. Let the air be as pure as that out of doors.

Perform your exercises in bed with your windows open and with but little covering. The vigorous exercises will bring greater warmth and you will feel the desire to throw off the blanket. Some of the exercises, of course, as lifting the legs, cannot be performed so well without removing the covering.

The method of practicing the exercises as well as the amount, number and character of them, depends greatly upon the health and the vitality of the individual, but there must be a continual advance in the vigor and the number of the exercises.

VI

ACTIONS OF EVERY-DAY LIFE

The benefit of exercises must be tested by the help they give to the actions of every-day life. The human body must perform certain movements which are continually necessary. These exercises enable us to do these movements with more grace and ease, with more pleasure to ourselves, with greater saving of strength and vitality, and in a way to give greater pleasure to others.

1. HOW TO STAND

"Man is the only animal," says Sir William Turner, "with a vertical spine." The bird stands upon two feet but the spine is not vertical.

Strictly speaking no animal stands erect except man.

The primary aim of all true exercise for the improvement of health and the prolonging of life must affect the erectness of the human body and the counterpoise curves of the spine. The axis of the spine must be vertical.

Nearly all the exercises from the very first tend to accomplish this result. The expansion of the chest, the pivotal flexing of the torso, the lifting of the feet, the stretching, the co-ordinate action between the summit of the chest and the b.a.l.l.s of the feet, and the exercises in sitting and standing, all tend to establish this most important condition.

There must be activity at the summit of the chest. The head and the chest are the first to give up and sag. We can see that the skeleton has no bones below the breast bone to support it. The lower ribs are floating ribs and the other ribs have an angle downward. Everything is arranged with reference to the expansion of the chest. This is the central activity in standing properly.

We can see, as has been shown, that man is held up seemingly from above.

Man comes into stable equilibrium only when the body is supported from the summit of the chest. Levitation opposes gravitation.

It will be observed that the first exercises concern the expansion of the chest and when the exercises are properly performed, this expansion of the chest is indirectly sustained through them all.

If we observe a person standing properly, we find that a line dropped through the centre of the ear will fall through the centre of the shoulder, the centre of the hip, and the centre of the arch of the foot.

The things that cause bad positions are: the chest inactive, the hips sinking forward, the head hanging downward or lolling to the side, the body sinking to the heel, and weak knees; but all of these seem to be corrected when the chest is properly expanded and elevated.

To stand well, therefore, one should stand upright; the chest well expanded so as to bring all parts into co-ordination and establish a true centrality in the body. In a certain sense, there seems to be an axis of the body by which it rests easily upon one foot while the other leg and hip are perfectly free. The body is also perfectly free to pivot and to pa.s.s the weight to the other foot.

The recommendation to "stand tall" is more or less helpful, but there must be some qualification. Stand tall, but not with rigidity or stiffness. The body must be elastically and sympathetically tall, and also sympathetically expanded, man must stand as if held up from above rather than from below, expanded and elevated by feeling and thought rather than by mere will. The centrality, ease and harmony of the poise are of more importance than the tallness.

When one stands properly on one foot a spiral line from the top of the head to the foot is developed. The head inclines slightly toward the side that bears the weight, the torso slightly inclines in opposition and the active lower limb takes a slightly opposite inclination. This line which has been called the line of beauty is very common in nature.

It is found all over the human body.

When the face is animated with joy and gentleness, such spiral curves appear in all directions. The presence of this line is an element of a beautiful face and of a graceful body.

The beneficial effects of such a poise are seen at once. The breathing is free. When a person stands in bad poise there is constriction of the respiratory muscles so that he is uneasy, he s.h.i.+fts from foot to foot.

But when one stands in stable equilibrium, he stands restfully, easily and gracefully, and can move in any direction freely. His body also becomes expressive and acts under the dominion of feeling.

2. HOW TO WALK

The character of a person's position in standing will determine the character of the walk. If one has learned to stand in stable equilibrium he will walk suggesting repose. If he stand in a discordant poise he will walk in a discordant chaotic way and will be continuously fighting to stand up.

When a person stands in an accordant poise the walk is a progression forward and a levitation upward rhythmically and freely, the spiral lines alternating with every step.

Every line of the body acts rhythmically. There is not only rhythmical alternation of the lower limbs and of the movements of the weight from foot to foot but all the lines of the body alternate rhythmically.

A good walk is the carrying out of a man's purpose. Accordingly there is an attraction forward and upward at the summit of the chest.

There are some abnormal walks where men seem to be drawn by the head, some walk as if drawn by the nose or chin, by the hips or by the knees or even the feet. The gravitation of the body forward toward the carrying out of one's purpose should be from the centre of gravitation and should be upward.

"Onward and upward, true to the line." Man in his very walking seems to be a progressive being. To climb a declivity, he seems to move forward and upward. In a bad walk a man seems drawn downward.

The poise of the body in standing and walking is most affected by this series of exercises. The co-ordination between the summit of the chest and the feet in rhythmic alternation, the simultaneous activity of the chest in all movements or exercises develop good positions in standing and natural actions of the body in walking.

The extensions especially when in alternation bring the body also into the normal spiral lines and tend also to extend the muscles especially at the side so that the shoulder does not seem to be drawn down toward the hip, but acts with the torso freely.

When exercises are practiced properly the whole bearing of the body will begin to improve.