by Martin Collis, Ph.D.

In the first issue of WELL, I introduced the acronym M.E.L.L.O.W. as a formula for high level wellness. In subsequent issues we are dealing with each of the letters individually. Last time I dealt with 'M', which represents the Magic of the Mind, and today we will look at 'E' for exercise.

I think it was Spencer that said, "We are part scholar, part saint, part artist and part animal, but first be a good animal." Many of us have lost our way to becoming good animals and we are paying a high price. Exercise is almost as close to a panacea as I can think of to deal with "what ails us." Imagine if there were a pill that delivered some of the benefits of exercise. Here's a stream of consciousness list of some of the outcomes of regular exercise. Weight control; better appearance, live longer, live better, lower blood pressure, decrease low density lipids, stress resiliency, delayed aging, feeling of joie de vivre, better sex life, and just all round better performance. Because we are a body/mind continuum we think better when we are physically active. Emerson said that "great thoughts begin in the muscles." and Nietzsche informed us that we "rarely have a great thought sitting down." There is almost no disease that is not improved by exercise; here are just a few of the major ones. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, arthritis, stroke and fibromyalgia. Yes, if there were a pill that could deliver the benefits of exercise it would be the biggest selling medication in the world.

People often tell me that 'the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak', but it is nearly always the reverse, the flesh would love to move and do what it is designed to do, but it is the weak flabby spirit that keeps us recumbent in the Lazyboy or pinned to the bed. It becomes a battle of mind over mattress.

So find your play and build it into your day. You don't have to be skilled or have expensive equipment. It was G.K. Chesterton who noted 'that if a thing's worth doing it's worth doing badly'. I have taken that advice to heart and have 'run' for years with a group called 'The Escargots' whose motto is 'No pain, no pain'. It is a Zen like experience, in which only we know that we are running. But the pay-off has been tremendous in fellowship, health and all round personal and professional performance.

I was brought up with the concept of original sin but have come to believe in original splendor, like David, 'we are marvelously made'. So to preserve that original splendor we have to find our play. One of the keys to a successful exercise program is to build it into your day, and, if possible, have someone to exercise with. In the first edition of Well, I alluded to David Chilton's best selling book The Wealthy Barber in which he states two important principles: (1) Pay yourself first and (2) Get rich slowly. We could retitle his book The Healthy Barber and those same rules would still apply. Pay yourself first. In other words make exercise a priority in your day. Don't tell yourself that if you get all your chores done, look after the family and watch your favorite TV show you'll ride your exercise bike later in the evening. This is like saying you'll save some money if you have some left over at the end of the month, it just doesn't seem to happen. Instead of 'get rich slowly' the second principle becomes ' get fit slowly'. You don't need to perform heroic amounts of activity to improve your fitness and lose some weight. There is an old country song titled 'Little Things Mean a Lot' and they do, in love, life and health. My book 'The Phacts of Life' broke exercise behaviors into 25-calorie units (e.g. 6 flights of stairs is a phact, half a kilometer or quarter of a mile is a phact etc.). People were encouraged to try to accumulate 10 phacts a day to improve their fitness and lose some weight and that's exactly what happened in some controlled research. Dr. Steven Blair of the Cooper Institute showed similar findings with the benefits of three 10-minute jogs being similar to those coming from one 30-minute jog.

The key to the human potential movement is movement. There is no optimal formula or type of exercise, although if I had to select one exercise it would probably be walking. Walking is a mind clearing, stress reducing, energizing activity. To walk you don't need expensive equipment, you don't have to pay membership dues, there's no need for special clothing, you can do it almost anywhere and any time and, unless you're really clumsy, you tend not to get injured. Walking is almost like having three hearts, one in your chest and one in each leg squeezing venous blood back around the body. For business people walking meetings are often extremely productive and are a way to blend exercise into a busy day. I believe it was Charles Dickens who said, "The length of my walking is he length of my writing". Dickens used to walk up to 20 miles a day, so perhaps it's not surprising that he was such a prolific writer.

The mantra is move, for without regular physical activity the human body cannot function at anything approaching its best. In future issues of WELL we will return again and again to the theme of exercise and its role in enhancing our lives.

"Generally speaking, all parts of the body which have a function, if used in moderation and exercised in labors to which each is accustomed, becomes thereby healthy and well developed, and age slowly: but if left unused and left idle, they become liable to disease, defective in growth, and age quickly."

Hippocrates (ca 460-377 BC)