"Should You Exercise When You're Sick?"

An even better question is, "Can you exercise when you're sick?" -- because many people's idea of exercise, would make them even sicker, and even more vulnerable, rather than as it should be doing at any time, under all conditions, making them well and better. That should be obvious -- that the whole intent and purpose of exercise (practice) is to make one better -- and if it does not do that, then one is one practicing and preparing for one's own destruction.

And while that seems obviously preposterous, that is what most people are practicing and exercising -- making themselves unwell in their mistaken notion that it will produce the opposite effect (reaction), while totally rejecting the simple notion, that one should directly make themselves better -- as the objective of their practice.

The objective is not to fail but to succeed -- which is the flaw in the thinking that one should exercise to failure or near exhaustion -- instead of what they really hope to be doing, in increasing their reserves, readiness and responsiveness. That is the rationale for aerobic conditioning in the first place -- to build up one's oxygen reserves for the momentary challenge one might have to perform at those peak levels -- and not that they are too sick, exhausted and injured to do so.

Many athletes who never reach their peak, fail because they are never healthy when they need to be -- but always defer that best, until the day they are too old that nobody would ever expect that out of them anymore. So a large part of the proper conditioning, is understanding that point at which one fails -- and doesn't practice that. Because eventually, the off-day, becomes the off-week, off-month, and then they can't anymore, and never even think about it anymore.

That kind of conditioning is a failure -- because the right conditioning, has to be available and accessible when one needs it the most -- at their worst, and not only at their best. If they're already at their best, then they don't need to get any better -- and what is the point, if they are at their worst, that there is nothing they can do about it, without making themselves even worse -- and might even kill them, while there is nothing at their disposal to make themselves better but to simply rest (not do anything) but hope for that spontaneous, miraculous recovery -- until it doesn't come anymore.

Obviously, precisely at those moments of their greatest need, there should be some action that can aid their recovery, and daily, practiced, put them into their peak operating condition for living the actuality of their lives -- as their enhanced normal, until the day they die. Stopping way before then, ensures that they will be in a hopelessly deteriorating condition -- rather than going out at the top, doing what they enjoy doing most -- thoughts most have abandoned because they have conditioned themselves to thinking that that is what they cannot do.

But that is more than just adopting the latest courses in wishful-thinking and denial of their actualities. People can actually get better, and not just wish they would -- when they really believe such an actuality is no longer possible. The most dramatic proof of that, would be the rapid improvement from one's worst -- to one's best, virtually instantaneously -- because the operating conditions of the body have changed in the most meaningful and palpable way. It doesn't just happen.

There are definitive actions that bring that improvement about. That would be specifically increasing the flow of blood to the brain by effecting the pulse of rhythmic and regular muscular contractions alternated with relaxations to produce that enhanced effect -- that does not just come about by increasing the heart rate, burning more calories, and overheating the body to profuse perspiration -- but in directing that flow where there is the pulsing effect of rhythmic alternating contractions (movement) of the facial muscles and neck in simply articulating that range of expression and range.

When the brain is empowered foremost in that manner, all the other functions of the body will be greatly enhanced, and will recognize that the same economy and efficiency of effectiveness, can be achieved similarly throughout the body by simply producing that same muscular pulsing at the furthest extremities (hands, feet) in similar fashion -- because it is those movements, that require the fullest coordination of the neuromuscular and cardiovascular functioning that signifies peak and optimal health -- and not whether one acquires "six-pack abs" -- at the expense of optimizing and prioritizing the flow and health of the brain to the furthest extensions of the nervous system, which is the root of all human action and activities.