Edgar Cayce on Exercise
“Keep close to outdoor activities – it is the best way to keep yourself young – to stay close to nature, through every form of exercise that breathes in the beauty of nature. Breathe it into your soul as you would a sunset or morning sun rising…” -Edgar Cayce
In the evolution of the human race, we humans had to exercise to survive. We had to be able to run from an enemy, catch our food, climb trees and mountains, and ford rivers; every moment of life was purchased with physical effort. Our ancestors had no need of an exercise program; the physical struggle to stay alive was exercise enough. The body that we have today is the end product of survival – of thousands of years of genetic selection, and during all that long and exciting history survival was associated with physical labor and movement.
As civilization advanced and we moved into an age of mechanization and push-button ease, we found less and less need to use our bodies in our daily lives. Yet our need to move has in no way diminished. Our muscles, glands, organs, mind, and spirit still require daily movement to function properly.
Our 600-odd muscles must have tone and the ability to expand and contract. Each of them requires daily movement – exercise – to maintain elasticity, power youthfulness, and vigor. The muscles must hold the organs in position so they can function properly. Exercise is essential to keep the glands performing their complicated tasks, to maintain sexual vigor, to keep the blood circulating, and to fight the pull of gravity that produces protruding, sagging middles, dropped stomachs, sluggish livers, blood-starved hearts, clogged arteries, and unsightly fat – to mention just a few of the consequences of inactivity.
Humankind has always had to develop and maintain the physical capacity necessary for the body to be adequate to support the rest of life’s activities – thinking, creating, carrying the responsibilities of business, profession, social and community life, and procreating and child-bearing. And to those who would attain spiritual as well as intellectual and material heights,
I quote the good advice that Edgar Cayce often gave:
“Then, be a well-rounded body. Take specific, definite exercises morning and evening. Make the body physically, as well as mentally, tired, and those things which have been producing those conditions where sleep, inertia, poisons in the system from non-eliminations, will disappear.” (341-31)
Exercise is one of the most powerful preventive medicines in staving off the disabilities of middle and old age, as well as an important therapeutic tool in repairing the ravages of disease. It is an absolute essential to the maintenance of health, beauty, reproductive ability, weight control, longevity, mental equilibrium, and spiritual harmony.
From time to time, in my sixty years of experience, I have seen exercise fads come and go: isometric, isotonic, aerobic, jogging, rope-skipping, yoga. They are all good if done regularly and correctly, with the proper preparation after a good medical examination has described the parameters of your personal limitations. The next important thing is to exercise regularly every day.
There are no Sabbaths in exercise.
Cayce recommended walking as the best form of exercise, and suggested that it be done at a regular time daily – rain or shine. The benefits of brisk walking and striding are increased exercise for the heart, increased oxygen intake, and improved blood circulation.
In regard to more formal exercises, Cayce advocated that breathing and vertical exercises should be done in the morning in order to force as much oxygen as possible into the body, for we breathe shallowly while sleeping. Examples of these exercises are shoulder shrugs and shoulder circles, arm circles, and the windmill.
Cayce considered horizontal exercises to be the most beneficial in the evening. Since most people work sitting or standing during the day, the horizontal exercises have a tendency to normalize circulation and take the strain off arterial capillaries and veins of the lower extremities. Suggested evening exercises included several types of abdominal crunches, heel-toe leg circles, leg raises, ankle stretches and ankle circles.
But which are the best exercises? The ones you do!
