Mens sana in corpore sano

This last Saturday, like almost every Saturday, I went to my Pilates class. I´m proud because I´ve been keeping this weekly habit for six months now, since back in August when they opened a reformer studio just around the corner from my house, and I, having wanted to try the reformer machines for many years, ran out of excuses not to start going.

I know a single class a week sounds like very little, but to me, considering that I´m allergic to gyms (mainly because I get really bored in them), and that my motivation when it comes to exercising is generally low, keeping it up for this long and still being excited about it is a great achievement.

I actually love the class, among other reasons, because we exercise not only our bodies but also our minds. The movements almost always change from one week to the next, and very often they´re new, or at least, new to me. So I have no other choice but to concentrate, to get the gist of what´s happening and be able to perform unfamiliar movements with a good degree of control and precision.

And it was precisely during the class that I remembered this well-known quote: mens sana in corpore sano, which is Latin for "a healthy mind in a healthy body". This is a good reminder of how our physical health is very closely related to our mental health, and how we need to look after both, as an investment in quality of life in the short, medium and long term.

The ancient Greeks used their gymnasium to combine physical training with philosophy and other intellectual pursuits. But interestingly, this quote doesn´t come from the Greeks as I thought: according to Wikipedia, it appears for the first time in a Satire from the Roman poet Juvenal, in the times of the Roman Empire. It´s part of a longer poem, and by the way, its original meaning has nothing to do with how we interpret it nowadays: it talks about the necessity of praying in order to have a balanced spirit in a balanced body.

Whatever the case may be, nowadays we know that a balanced spirit and a balanced body (or rather, a healthy mind and a healthy body) are not things that happen overnight, or by chance,, or needless to say, by magic; instead, we have to build them up little by little, one habit at a time.

So we come back to something I´ve probably mentioned several times in this blog already: looking for ways to exercise our bodies and minds that truly align with our lifestyle and work well for us, because otherwise, we´re not going to maintain them. Some people get motivated by team sports, martial arts, or running; in my case, it´s more about going for walks and practising yoga and Pilates. I could do more, but I could also do less, and now that the weather is improving (or at least I hope so!) and there´s more of a stretch in the evenings, I know that going out to "perform photosynthesis", as my friend Juanjo would say, is going to be hugely helpful in keeping my motivation and energy levels high.