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Welcome to another video of our series Vida Veda Answers, on Vida Veda's

YouTube channel, my name is Matheus. Today, we'll try to answer the

question: what does Ayurveda say regarding physical activity? Is physical

activity really necessary?

So, is physical activity really necessary or can I just eat

well to stay healthy? What does Ayurveda say about this? If we

look in our ayurvedic classics, our Samhitas, you'll see that

the recommendation for vyayama, for physical activity, is always there,

when we talk about the daily routine, when we talk about dinacharya,

one of the most common recommendations in dinacharya is the

practice of exercise. And daily exercise. How is this

different from what we nowadays call physical activity?

So, some points become very clear here when the Samhitas, for example,

say that people should exercise to half of their

capacity. So this is the first point. Second, humans should only

exercise until they start sweating. So, once you start producing

sweat, you know, this is a sign that your body has worked

hard enough. Usually, when people teach

Ayurveda, especially Ayurveda according to the Samhitas,

they take these to arguments: that you should only exercise to

half of your capacity, and that you should only exercise until you

start sweating, to defend that Ayurveda doesn't recommend physical

activity; or that physical activity shouldn't be done with high intensity

and so on. In reality, if you stop and think about it, it's not

really true. The texts, the Samhitas, were

written with their focus on people that were, back then, from

the brahmin caste. So, people dedicated to religious

practice, people dedicated to priesthood, for example, swamis,

people that would join the medical profession, for example, were considered

brahmins. Brahmins were not the caste responsible for

sowing the fields, they weren't responsible for intense physical

activity, they weren't responsible for defense, for example, so they weren't

in the army. So the recommended physical activity regimen to these

types of people, to this caste, was just focused on

health maintenance. So, if you want to remain

healthy, but you're not concerned with intense physical demands

or with participating in sports, it's enough if you

move daily and only do this to half of your capacity or

until you start sweating. I want to make a few comments here that

might be interesting. So, first is that if you, for example, belong to the kshatriya caste,

which was the group responsible for defense, the military,

in this case, physical activity could be much more intense,

of course, you're training to defend yourself. And remember that,

back then, it was sword fighting, you would be practicing kalaripayattu, for

example, the traditional Indian martial art. So, to the group responsible for the

military, it's obvious that more exercise was expected, more intense physical

activity. So, the recommendation we find in the Samhitas would not

apply if you are a person that does

exercise, sport, for a living. And often, nowadays, in our society, there are

people looking after their bodies and looking for more than just health

maintenance, but they want to reach physical excellence, to shape their bodies,

for example. Today, people want to have more muscles and to be more lean.

In this sense, in this case, we shouldn't apply the recommendation

for moderate physical activity. We can realize that daily and moderate

physical activity is the basic recommendation from the Samhitas

for maintaining the health of a person from whom athletic performance

is not expected, an above average performance is not expected.

Besides that, it's worth mentioning that

there is a direct correlation, mentioned in the Samhitas, between physical activity,

digestive capacity and health. So, people that exercise more or that

have a more constant physical activity regimen, have, necessarily,

stronger digestive capacity. So they'll feel more hunger, they'll

have a larger energy requirement and they'll have stronger digestion.

So, often, when it's mentioned in the Samhitas about food that is forbidden,

combinations that are not allowed,

there is an exception to these prohibitions when the person

exercises a lot. Then they can even eat stones that they'll probably

be able to digest it. It's also worth mentioning that the

Samhitas also list many contraindications, many side effects that can be

expected from excessive physical practice. So if you exercise

too much, you can expect some

negative consequences and it's not worth it here to go into

too many details, or to just cite Sanskrit texts, because that goes

beyond the goal of this video, of this series, but many negative

effects of excessive physical activity that we

see nowadays, for example, pain in the joints, muscle sourness, and even

the drop in immunity witnessed in endurance athletes, people that

run ultra marathons or that compete in triathlons, for example, we find that

there is a drop in immunity and a higher chance of infection

after the race. So this kind of contraindication

to intense physical activity was already mentioned in our Samhitas.

So I came here to one of the dams in Jamnagar to film this for you

during the sunset, and the Sun has set, and my time is up. I just wanted

to give you a general idea about physical activity and

Ayurveda. If you have more questions, leave

it in the comments below. If they are short, I can answer

directly in the comment section, if they are more in depth questions, I will

make more specific videos in the future so we can go deeper into the topic of

Ayurveda and physical activity. Thank you very much for your presence

and I'll see you in the next video.