Movement as an integral part of life is the important principle of Primal Tao.
Ask yourself every day: what have I done today for my body?
Ask yourself every day: what have I done today for my mind?
You are wrong if you think that if you live a sedentary lifestyle, an occasional session in the gym will allow you to maintain your functionality and health.
You are wrong if you think that doing some crossword puzzles or sudoku from time to time, will allow you to maintain your cognitive abilities throughout your old age.
It’s like expecting the development of a muscular body because you enjoy long, frequent walks. The amount of effort and the type of training determines the kind of results that you are going to see.
Both our body and our mind need regular stimulation. The degree of adaptation will be proportional to the degree of intensity of the stimulus.
Because we’ve created modern conditions in which we spend most of the day sitting, our ability to perform other physical tasks is slowly diminishing.
The trouble is that our bodies have not evolved in the evolutionary process to be able to easily deal with extended periods of sitting in one place. As a result, we develop all kinds of “mysterious ailments” and have difficulty explaining their origins. We are all too familiar with the lower back, knee, hip, shoulder and neck pain, headaches and general “stiffness”. Many of these symptoms tend to be attributed to the fact that we are getting older when in reality, it has more to do with the fact that we are getting less and less active.
Our beloved “magical” flat tv boxes in every living room do not help much in activating neither our bodies nor our minds. Usually, as if in some hypnotic trance, we sink in the soft embrace of the sofa in front of them and forget about reality at least for a couple of hours.
Being active doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to go to the gym, lift some weights or run on the treadmill (although it is certainly one of the ways).
Every one of us has a different personality, needs, interests.
It is up to us to find a physical and mental type of activity that is best for us. The activity that suits our needs and expectations and gives us a feeling of pleasure, satisfaction, and the ability to sustain it for an indefinite period of time. Nobody is going to do this for us. And if through years of repetition we have already developed habits of inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle, then obviously, our challenges will be proportionally greater.
It is good to start looking for opportunities for movement in the flow of our everyday activities. Where can we walk an extra few hundred yards? Where can we take the stairs instead of an elevator? Can we use a bicycle instead of the car sometimes? Can we replace an hour on facebook with an hour walk in the local park?
It is important to realize that movement is not negotiable if we want to maintain any decent level of health.
We don’t negotiate the need to breathe. Both breathing and moving are indispensable ingredients of life.
Primal Tao is here to remind us of that.
