The even older Caraka Samhita said, “Physical exercise brings about lightness,

ability to work, stability, resistance to discomfort and alleviation of impurities

(dosas). It stimulates the power of digestion.”

Physical activity (PA) is the single most important part of our atmasvasth guide that I
wrote and spoke about last week, to live long, healthy. It encompasses everything
from yoga to dancing to walking, to running to tai-chi, to going to the gym…to just
being more active and sitting less.
Unfortunately, because of the need to commercially “sell” physical activity at a price, it has been
linked in the popular media to both, weight loss and ripped bodies, both of which are fine if they
occur as a side-effect of moving regularly every day, but are not the end-goal of being active. This
focus on toned and svelte bodies with six-packs and four-packs, also tends to put off a lot of people
who intuitively believe and know that however much they run or go to the gym, they are never
going to be able to achieve that ideal body they see on television or YouTube.

For example, one of the reasons people don’t run in India is because of its association with
marathon racing. You don’t have to run races to run for health, but that message
doesn’t really get through. Whatever the reason may be, studies have shown that
almost 50% of adult Indians do not indulge in any form of relevant leisure time
physical activity , which I think is a gross underestimation.

PA is much much more than just looking like a model or wanting people to tell you
how good or thin you look. It is about living long, healthy — a concept that really
has nothing to do with with having big biceps and quads.