EXERCISES

As all training is a reaching upward towards an ideal so an exercise is
a single step and the first exercise should be the most primary action.
The primary condition of all growth is a certain joyous awakening, an
expansive enjoyment of life.

Take a joyous thought and express it in active laughter.

No matter how dull or weary you feel when you first awake, joyously
accept the new day. Use the following exercises and actions as you would
a cold wet towel on your face or hands. Look on the sunny side at once
and laugh. We can possess a feeling only by expressing it; we enter into
possession of the day only by using it.

It is easy to look at the light, easy to breathe, easy to stretch, to
expand, easy to remember something joyous, easy to smile and easy to
laugh.

If your body feels weak and sluggish, and you have great indifference to
movement there is all the more reason for promptness. If you will
joyously extend your arms, expand, breathe deeply and laugh, you welcome
life and joy and give them a chance to take possession of your being and
body and you will soon feel courageous instead of gloomy, strong instead
of weak, rested instead of weary.

None of these exercises require a great expenditure of vitality.
Performed, as many of them are, lying down, however energetically you
may do them they will bring little or no weariness. Though the exercises
do not require much vitality they should be practiced vigorously to
accomplish the best results.

1. PRIMARY EXPANSION AND EXTENSION

On waking, take a courageous, joyous attitude of mind. Chuckling
deeply, actively expand the whole body, take a deep breath and
co-ordinate harmoniously as many parts as can be brought into
sympathetic activity. Stretch the arms upward and the feet downward
as far as possible, and repeat at least twenty times.

An old writer gave dilatation as one of the primary characteristics of
life. A certain distention of all parts of the body is the beginning of
the renewal of energy and a primary manifestation of life. We must give
room to the life forces, feel the diffusion of energy into every part.
The sense of constriction, due to lying in a cramped position, can be
easily removed by this primary exercise.

The chief elements in this primary distention of the body are found in
the stretch and expansion of the torso, in deeper, fuller breathing, in
the sense of diffusion of life, in greater sat