The issue of how much activity is called for on a fast is
controversial. Natural Hygienists in the Herbert Shelton tradition
insist that all fasters absolutely must have complete bed rest, with
no books, no TV, no visitors, no enemas, no exercise, no music, and
of course no food, not even a cup of herb tea. In my many years of
conducting people through fasts, I have yet to meet an individual
that could mentally tolerate this degree of nothingness. It is too
drastic a withdrawal from all the stimulation people are used to in
the twentieth century. I still don't know how Shelton managed to
make his patients do it, but my guess is that he must have been a
very intimidating guy. Shelton was a body builder of some renown in
his day. I bet Shelton's patients kept a few books and magazines
under their mattress and only took them out when he wasn't looking.
If I had tried to enforced this type of sensory deprivation, I know
my patients would have grabbed their clothes and run, vowing never
to fast again. I think it is most important that people fast, and
that they feel so good about the experience that they want to do it
again, and talk all their sick friends into doing the same thing.
In contrast to enforced inactivity, Russian researchers who
supervised schizophrenics on 30 day water fasts insisted that they
walk for three hours every day, without stopping. I would like to
have been there to see how they managed to enforce that. I suspect
some patients cheated. I lived with schizophrenics enough years to
know that it is very difficult to get them to do anything that they
don't want to do, and very few of them are into exercise, especially
when fasting.
In my experience both of these approaches to activity during the
fast are extremes. The correct activity level should be arrived at
on an individual basis. I have had clients who walked six miles a
day during an extended water fast, but they were not feeling very
sick when they started the fast, and they were also physically fit.
In contrast I have had people on extended fasts who were unable to
walk for exercise, or so weak they were unable to even walk to the
bathroom, but these people were critically ill when they started
fasting, and desperately needed to conserve what little vital force
they had for healing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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