George Sheehan

Dr George Sheehan began to feel he wasn’t living a life in full working order. He was a victim of one of exercise deficiency. After remembering something Arnold Bennet had written, it became Dr Sheehan’s motto. The next morning he began eating a nutritious breakfast. The first meal of the day is vital to the 24-hour ebb and flow of bodily energy. When he started putting away a healthful, balanced meal in the morning, he didn’t feel like eating again at noon. Jogging was easy for him, as his body was perfectly capable of making all the necessary movements. His day’s run was becoming a kind of retreat. He worked out a programme for anyone – male or female, of any age – who was interested in getting fit: half an hour of steady effort four times a week at a comfortable pace.

It’s well known that exercising body sleeps better. The time before sleep should be lived as every moment should, to the fullest. Dr Sheehan’s benefits of running seemed to fall between physiological and the psychological. The exercising body usually maintains its correct weight. The exercising body can reduce a diabetic tendency, and tends to lower blood pressure.

Yet the primary effect of exercise is on fitness, not disease; and fitness won’t improve a diseased heart. Fitness has more to do with the quality of life than with quantity; it makes life more enjoyable. Fitness is the ability to do work. It is movement and energy, not only muscular but also cognitive.

Abraham Maslow once wrote that people who are ‘self-actualizers’ listen to their bodies and discover their own biological nature and needs. If people can do this, then they can bring their body to the point where they begin practicing the true art of life, using the full 24 hours in their day. And Dr Sheehan started going from half-hour runs to hour runs because he found he could run longer and keep his thinking going. And then he decided to become an athlete. Being alive has become a spiritual and mystical...