In an attempt to fashion a government that could govern and at the same time, be fair to the governed, the practice of permitting a prisoner or someone acting on his behalf to have a review of the reasons and circumstances of his detention arose long before there was a United States. Even if the prisoner had died in custody ("accidentally fell down the stairs" or some such) the prisoner or his body needed to be produced in a hearing. The words "habeus corpus" are translated as "you must have the body", in other words, show the judge the prisoner alive or dead.
Since the writ of habeus corpus and its force and practice are fundamental to government, the words and the admonition to pay attention to the body pop up elsewhere. The English playwright Alan Benet used the words as the title of his sex farce. Once in the realm of sex, we revert to attending to our bodies and are very conscious of the body's fundamental place in our lives.
The importance of our bodies to our lives is basic, despite the fact that in this era, many people live in such a way as to emphasize their mental lives, their thinking ability. The body responds to use, indeed, gets trained to the sort of use or non-use it experiences. So, we have the current mantra on the importance of exercise. All sorts of physical activity can assist in keeping a healthy and alert relation between the rest of the body and the head/brain/mind.
Actually, even the least use of the body still relies on many bodily processes. The "corpse pose" or savasana in yoga, where you lie flat out, as in a hospital bed on your back, still requires the muscles of the heart and lungs to do their work. Your ears still hear and your liver and kidney still filter. So, for any part of this earthly and complex and miraculous life, you need the body, even while much of it dangles from an office chair while you press little keys on a keyboard.
I believe our society is fascinated with the idea of effort. Try hard and try harder. When we try hard, we can feel and see that we are doing so and we can feel virtuous. We do find that many goals, both important and frivolous, are reached when we try hard and then try harder. So, it is not surprising that in an area like exercise and athletics, we tend to have a strong feeling that the only good exercise is a long and vigorous one. When you are in your 20's, long and vigorous can certainly pay off. Later in our lives, the idea that anything but long and vigorous is pointless can be a costly one.
Isometric exercise where the muscles are clenched vigorously without moving has long been known to be valuable. For at least 50 years, it has been known that hold the muscle very tense for 6 seconds is enough to cause strength improvement. Clenching muscles from the feet to the top of the head successively, in a form of body scan, can be a form of increasing body awareness and a good preparation for meditation.
The recent article by Alexandra Sifferlin in Time of 1/26/15 explained that one minute workouts have benefits:
"1 MINUTE:
Go as hard as you can. Gibala's team has shown that you can improve fitness in just 60 seconds.
The workout: Get on a stationary bike or treadmill. Give yourself a short warm-up and then pedal or run as fast as you can for one minute.
The benefit: Men and women who tried the one-minute workout for six weeks improved their endurance and lowered their blood pressure."
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