After dinner sit a while, and after supper walk a mile.

This is a traditional English health proverb reflecting early modern and later folk-medical advice about digestion and daily regimen. In household wisdom and popular dietetics, the timing and amount of movement after meals was thought to affect “settling” the stomach: resting after the main midday meal (“dinner,” historically often eaten earlier in the day) but taking gentle exercise after the lighter evening meal (“supper”). Such sayings circulated orally for generations and were commonly collected in proverb anthologies, where they appear as part of broader guidance on moderation, routine, and preventive health rather than as a statement by an identifiable individual author.

The proverb recommends tailoring activity to the size and timing of meals: pause and let a substantial meal settle, but take a modest walk after the evening meal to aid digestion and promote restful sleep. More broadly, it endorses balance—neither immediate exertion nor complete inactivity—and frames health as the product of small, habitual choices. Its memorable parallel structure (“sit a while… walk a mile”) turns practical advice into a rule of thumb, suggesting that well-being is maintained through everyday discipline rather than dramatic remedies.