Ancient Greek philosopher-teachers delivered lectures to their students while strolling. The teachers spoke as they walked and the students listened to and put ques­tions to them while walking in a group around them. It was felt that this was a better method of teaching as it involved the simultaneous working of the mind and the body.
Walking is going out of fashion nowadays. Many of us reach our place of work by some means of trans­port and then spend the rest of our working time sitting on a chair.
Women are the lesser defaulters in this respect. They do all their household chores and in the process provide physical exercise to most of their muscles. The result is that they have sounder bodies than men have. More men have pot-shaped tummies as compared to women; this could be seen strikingly when the whole community takes bath at the riverside on the day of a religious festival, but also otherwise.

Physical exercise is necessary in order to keep the body healthy, physically and mentally. It should be taken daily. Those who have not undertaken any physi­cal exercise for a long time, may find the muscles sore after they start it. This is an indication that those muscles which were not being used previously are now coming into use. If exercise is continued, gradually soreness passes away and a feeling of freshness and vitality comes in.
The start should be made with lighter exercises taken for a shorter period. Gradually more strenuous exercises for a longer duration could be resorted to.

Exercise is best done early in the morning in the open, in fresh air. It can also be done in the evening: before dinner. Doing exercise with a full or half-full stomach is harmful.

Types of Physical Exercise

That depends upon the age of the person. For those between 20-40 years, strenuous games such as badmin­ton, tennis, hockey & cricket, football or swimming are the best. For those in their forties and fifties, golf can be added to the above.
Running is the best form of physical exercise. It exercises all the muscles of the body including those of the abdomen. To begin with, one can run, say or a mile- at an even pace if one feels exhausted in between, one can even walk for a short distance and then resume running. Gradually, one can run faster and increase the distance run up to two miles. Running a distance of two mile_ in 12 minutes is an ideal form of physical activity. Those in their twenties can certainly run longer distan­ces. If it is not convenient to run on long straight roads, one can measure a distance in or around the house and can run that measured distance many times over, so as to make a total of two miles in 12 minutes.

Some people prefer, for various reasons, to run only on a spot, say, for example, in a room, or on their small lawn. This is also good enough. Care must be taken to see that the feet are raised up from the ground for at least six inches. To begin with, one may be able to do this only for five minutes, but gradually one can do it for longer periods. Doing it for 12 minutes conti­nuously is ideal.
Some people find brisk walking a very good form of exercise. It is particularly good for people in older age-groups and for those whom their doctors do not recommend strenuous exercises. It is also good for those who have had a heart attack before. Dr. Paul Dudley White, the world-renowned heart specialist, recommended and himself practiced it enthusiastically. A four-mile brisk walk in the morning or evening keeps one fit physically as well as mentally.
Swimming and cycling are the other two physical exercises enjoyed by people of all age-groups and of both the sexes. One may not be able to do them daily; fur­thermore, for cycling a cycle and a clear road is needed, and for swimming a swimming pool. Yet for the sake of variety, one can do these exercises once a week or so.

Gardening is another form of physical exercise for those who have a garden and an aptitude for this type of work. While it keeps the body physically fit, it relax­es the mind very much. It is good from another point of view as well: the more tense one feels mentally, the harder he would dig and the more vegetables would grow or flowers come up!
While physical exercise is best done at a specified hour daily, some very busy people do not find it possi­ble, one usually wonders why. Obviously, physical exer­cise is quite low in their priority 9f doing things. Such people should make it a habit to do physical exercise of their: choice in the minutes they find between two assignments, And there are' exercises for: such people as well, as for example, running on a spot, lifting heels up, bending and touching the toes, etc, The important thing to remember is that one has to find minutes, even at odd moments, to stretch the muscles and to relax the mind.

Some people in India find Yogic asanas (postures) very helpful. These asanas have to be learnt first under the guidance of a teacher (guru). Doing asanas in groups produces more enthusiasm and there is greater likelihood of one's keeping up the habit.

More Work, Less Labor

Physical exercise, after one has been doing it for quite some time, makes the person do more work with less expenditure of energy. Athletes can run for longer dis­tances without proportionately increasing their heart rates. On the other hand, those who have flabby mus­cles, get breathless and tired even after a little bit of physical exertion,
Some people, both men and women, develop swel­ling over- the feet when they walk a little or even when they hang their legs and feet while sitting on a chair, Many of them lose this tendency after- doing physical exercise because the contracting muscles squeeze blood out of the veins, improve circulation of blood and do away with the tendency of stagnation of blood.
For a person whose main job during the day is mental work, physical exercise is very important. This is to strike a balance between the two and to avoid mental stress. A person who does physical exercise regularly sleeps better at night, thereby providing more relaxation to the nerves and the mind.