The question "How much are you worth?" is not answered by discussing your bodily conditions, for your body is not yourself. It is your dwelling, but not you. It, however, expresses you.
A man builds a house, and through it expresses himself. The external appearance causes the observer to form an opinion of him, and each apartment bears the impress of his individuality. To look at the house and then to walk through it will tell you much of the man. The outside will tell you whether he is neat, orderly and artistic, or whether he cares nothing for the elements of beauty and neatness. If you go into his parlor, you can judge whether he cares most for show or for comfort. His library will reveal to you the character of his mind, and the dining-room will indicate by its furnishings and its viands whether he loves the pleasures of sense more than health of body. You do not need to see the man to have a pretty clear idea of him.
So the body is our house, and our individuality permeates every part of it. Those who look at our bodily dwelling can gain a very goodidea of what we are. The external appearance will indicate to a great extent our character. We glance at one man and say, "He is gross, sensual, cruel, domineering;" at another and say, "He is intellectual, spiritual, fine-grained, benevolent." So we judge of entire strangers, and usually find the character largely corresponds to our judgment, if, later, we come to know the person.
The anatomist and microscopist who penetrates into the secrets of his bodily house after the inhabitant has moved out can tell much of his habits, his thoughts, his capacities and powers by the traces of himself which he has left on the insensate walls of his dwelling. The care of the body, then, adds to our value, because it gives us a better instrument, a better medium of expression.
The old saying, "A workman is known by his tools," is equally true of the body. The carpenter who cares for his saws, chisels and planes, who keeps them sharp and free from rust, will be able to do better work than the one who carelessly allows them to become nicked, broken, handleless or rusted. The finer the work which one does, the greater the care he must take of the instruments with which he works. A jack-knife will do to whittle a pine stick, but the carver of intricate designs must have his various sharp tools with which to make the delicate lines and tracings.
When we speak of health and physical conditions in discussing the question of your value, we are discussing the instrument upon whose integrity depends your ability to demonstrate your value.
Many young people think it nonsense to pay attention to the preservation of health. I have heard them say, "O, I don't want to be so fussy! It will do for old folks to be coddling themselves, but I want a good time. I'd rather die ten years sooner and have some fun while I do live."
I wonder what these same young people would think if they should hear a workman say, "Well, I have here a fine kit of tools; I am assured that if they are destroyed they will never be replaced; but now, while I am learning my trade, I don't want to be 'so fussy' about keeping them in order. It will do for 'boss workmen' to take care of everything so constantly, but now I want to break stones with these delicate hammers, to cut nails with these razor-bladed knives, to crack nuts with these slender pincers. By and by, when I am older, I'll use them as they should be used, but I think it's all nonsense to be so careful now." If in later years you should hear him complain that he had nothing to work with, would you feel like pitying him?
No "kit of tools" was ever so complete as is the bodily instrument given to each one of us.Its mechanism has been the inspiration of inventors; it combines all forms of mechanical devices; its delicacy, intricacy, completeness and adaptability challenge the admiration of the philosopher, the engineer, the master mechanic.
I cannot here tell you of all its wonders,[1]but I would like to give you such an exalted idea of its importance that you would look upon it with reverence and take a justifiable pride in keeping it in perfect working order. I would like to make you feel your personal responsibility in regard to its condition.
You know that in the ages past men believed the body to be the individual, and they endeavored through care of the body to build up mental as well as physical power. In those days the acrobat and the sage were found working side by side in the gymnasium, the one to gain physical strength, the other to increase his mental ability, and each profited as he desired.
When men made the discovery that the body is not the individual, but merely his dwelling and instrument of expression, they came to feel less regard for it, and lost their interest in its care and culture. Even the early Christians, forgetting what Paul said about the body as atemple, began to call it vile, and thought it an evidence of great piety to treat it with contempt. I have read of one religious sect who believed that the Creator of the body could not have been the Creator of the soul, and held that the chief object of God's government was to deliver the captive souls of men from their bodily prisons.
When men began to understand that the thinking principle was the real self and the body merely a material encasement, it was no wonder that they valued the body less and held mind as of great value. They failed to see that mind without a material organ of expression is, in this world, of no account. A great pianist with no piano could not make music, and he would be considered a strange being if he did not care for his instrument most scrupulously. Think of a Rubinstein voluntarily breaking the piano strings or smashing the keys, while he made discordant poundings, and excusing himself by saying that it was "fussy" to take care of a piano until it was old. You cannot imagine such a thing. We can all appreciate the value of a man-made instrument or machine; but the God-created body, a combination of machines and instruments of marvelous power and delicacy, we neglect or treat with absolute, positive injury, and excuse ourselves on the ground that when it is old we will treat it more kindly.
Melville says it is a sin to die, ignoring what is to be done with the body. "That body," he says, "has been redeemed, that body has been appointed to a glorious condition."
It seems to me we prize the body far more after its use for us is at an end than while it is ours to use. We do not neglect the dead; we dress them in beautiful garments, we adorn them with flowers, we follow them to the grave with religious ceremonies, we build costly monuments to place over their graves, and then we go to weep over their last resting-place.
After all, is it not life that we should value? Life here and hereafter, not death, is the real thing for which we should prepare, and earthly life without a sound body is not life full and complete. Life is joy, vigor, elasticity, freedom from pain or illness, enjoyment of all innocent pleasures in maturity as well as in youth. We have no right to look forward to decrepitude, to failure in zest of living, to lessening of real enjoyment because of coming years. Life should increase in beauty and usefulness, in ability and joyousness, as the years bring us a wider experience, and this will be the case if we in youth have been wise enough to lay the foundation of health by a wise, thoughtful, prudent care of our bodies and our minds.
[1]This Dr. Mary Wood-Allen has done in a volume entitled "Marvels of Our Bodily Dwelling." This book teaches physiology and hygiene, by metaphor, parable, and allegory in a most charming way. Superbly illustrated. 12mo. Price, cloth, $1.50, post free.
[1]This Dr. Mary Wood-Allen has done in a volume entitled "Marvels of Our Bodily Dwelling." This book teaches physiology and hygiene, by metaphor, parable, and allegory in a most charming way. Superbly illustrated. 12mo. Price, cloth, $1.50, post free.
If I can arouse in your mind a most earnest desire to be strong and vigorous, I shall not find it necessary to give you very minute directions, for if you have the ambition you will find the way. If I could excite in you an intense longing to visit Paris, I should know that you would begin to seek for the way of getting there. If I could create in you an earnest aspiration to be well and physically strong, I should know that you would seek for the books that would give you the necessary instruction. It will not be needful to talk of rules and restrictions if I can make you feel the glory of having a sound body.
If you were starting on a journey, I should not need to warn you of by-paths, of traps, or of dangers if I could be assured that your eye was fixed upon your ultimate destination. So it is in the matter of health; and yet there are some general rules or principles which I might lay down for your consideration.
In regard to the matter of diet. I do not want you to be hampered by "don'ts" and restrictions as to what you shall eat, but I do want you to eat with the thought in view thateating is to be governed by judgment and not by the pleasures of sense. Why do we eat? Not merely because the food tastes good. There is a better reason. We eat to live. We know that the food which we take into our bodies is digested, elaborated and assimilated—that is, made over into ourselves—and unless this digestion, elaboration and assimilation is properly conducted, we shall not be fully and completely nourished. Our body is made up of cells; the food which we eat is transformed into cell structure, and this new cell-material takes the place of the worn-out cells. Our reason would tell us that if too little material is furnished, cells will not be properly repaired and ill-health will follow. Our reason would tell us in the same way that if too much material is furnished, the machine will be clogged and the work will not be properly done. We will also understand at once that an irregular supply of new material would interfere with the elaboration of that which is undergoing the process of digestion and assimilation. We can see, too, that unless the various tissues receive the material which they can transform into themselves, they will not be fully repaired. If material is taken into the system which supplies no tissue with what it needs, this material becomes a source of irritation.
These general rules borne in mind are sufficient to guide us into a wiser life than if we donot understand them; and, understanding these general principles, we will be anxious to study the particular rules which govern digestion and assimilation.
I have known young women in college to be so absolutely ignorant or indifferent to physiological law as to be injuring themselves constantly by disobedience of such laws. I knew one girl, supposed to be a very fine student, and to have brought on "fits" by overstudy, while away at school. I had an opportunity to investigate the case, and I discovered that she had been eating from morning till night. She carried nuts, and candy, and apples in her pocket, had pickles and cake in her room, and studied and munched until it was no doubt a disturbed digestion, rather than an overused brain, that caused the "fits."
If you will eat regularly of plain meat, vegetables, fruits, cereals, milk and eggs, plainly prepared, and avoid rich pastries, cakes, puddings, pickles and sweetmeats, you will have compassed the round of healthful diet, and need give yourself very little anxiety in regard to anything more. I should like to emphasize the fact, however, that tea and coffee are not foods. They are irritants, stimulants, nerve-poisons. They bring nothing to the system to build it up. They satisfy the sense of hunger without having contributed to the nourishment of the body. If you are wise you will avoid them. You willnot create for yourself any false necessities. You will avoid the use of alcohol in all forms, whether wine, ales, beer or cider, as well as in the stronger forms, because you will know that these products interfere with digestion. Dr. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, has made an experiment which proved that sherry to the amount of 1 per cent. of the contents of the stomach retarded digestion nearly 4 per cent.
He calculates that 1 per cent. of sherry would be equal to two tenths of 1 per cent. of alcohol, and it would be necessary to take less than an ordinary tablespoonful of the wine to obtain this percentage.
When 3 per cent. of claret was used (equivalent to three-tenths of 1 per cent. of alcohol), there was marked diminution in digestive activity. This certainly proves that even the so-called light wines are injurious, and certainly the drinks that contain a large per cent. of alcohol must be that much more hurtful.
If you use good judgment both as to the quality and quantity of foods, you need then give the matter very little thought. People sometimes make themselves dyspeptics by worrying about what they eat. Eat what is set before you, making a judicious choice both as to variety and quantity, and then determine that your food shall digest.
When you live upon the higher plane of thought, you will not be so much interested inthe question of food as regards gustatory pleasure. You will understand that eating is a necessity, but you will not be thinking about it; you will not be desiring to please the sense of taste; you will see that there are higher forms of sociability than mere eating with friends, and you will not be so interested in late suppers, and in various forms of sense gratification because you enjoy more thoroughly the higher pleasures. You will serve your friends with delicate food, simply and daintily prepared, and seasoned with that wit and wisdom which remain as a permanent mental pabulum. You will make them feel that when you come to visit them you come not to get something to eat, but to enjoy them, to receive from them the inspiration which they can give. We often treat our friends as if we thought they came as beggars for physical food. It is a much higher compliment to treat them as though we thought they came to exchange thoughts with us, to walk with us in the higher paths of living, and that the physical food we give them is only incidental. I was once entertained where a company of intelligent, cultured people were assembled, and we did not see the hostess from the time we entered the house until supper was served. She sat at the table, worried and anxious, and after the supper was over she did not make her appearance until just as we were about to leave. She did not pay us the highcompliment of giving us herself, but she bestowed upon us that which a hired cook might have given.
You remember what Emerson says: "I pray you, O excellent wife, cumber not yourself and me to get a curiously rich dinner for this man and woman who have just alighted at our gate. These things, if they desire them, they can get for a few shillings at any village inn; but rather let that stranger see, if he will, in your looks, accents and behavior, your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, that which he cannot buy at any price in any city, and which he may travel miles and dine sparely and sleep hardly to behold."
It would indeed be worth your while to study food scientifically, to know how to prepare dainty and tempting dishes wholesomely, and then to serve your guests with such beauty of manner, such graciousness of courtesy, that they will remember the meal they have taken with you as idyllic in its simplicity, beauty and helpfulness.
Shakespeare writes of "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care." The metaphor is striking, but not accurate. To knit up that which is ravelled implies using the old material in repairing the damage, but that is not the way in which the body is rebuilt. The old material is thrown out and new material put in its place, and that largely takes place during sleep. We have read of brownies who came at night and swept and churned and baked while the housewife slept. So, in our bodily dwelling, the vital forces are our brownies, and they can work more uninterruptedly while we are asleep than when we are calling on them to move us from place to place, or to aid us in various activities.
Much of life's processes must remain a mystery to us, but certain things we have learned, and one is that perfect health cannot be maintained, strong nerves cannot be constructed, nor a clear brain be built without plenty of sleep. The baby sleeps almost continually because he is building so much new structure. The growing child needs more sleep than the adult; but even after reaching maturity sleepcannot be materially lessened without injury to the whole organization.
We appreciate the need of food. We are often very needlessly alarmed for fear that we shall starve from one meal to the next, but few of us realize that food cannot be assimilated, built into tissue, without some hours in which the vital forces can devote themselves wholly to the work of assimilation. During the working hours of the day we are expending force. The brain is using it in thought, the muscles are calling for force in various activities, the emotions are expending energy, and each of these activities is creating changes in the cells of the body. We know that life in the body is only possible through constant death of the atoms of which it is composed. We can only live because we are constantly dying. Huxley says, "For every vital act, life is used up. All work implies waste, and the work of life results directly or indirectly in the waste of protoplasm (which is the cell substance). Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physical loss, and in the strictest sense he burns that others may have light."
Each word, thought, activity, emotion causes expenditure, and unless expenditure is in some way made good, there will be bankruptcy. How shall we get back the energy we have expended and so restore our vital forces to their equilibrium? The protoplasm of whichour cells are made we can obtain from the protoplasm of animal and vegetable substances which we eat, but we cannot use the material unless we are sometimes at rest, and by quiescence of brain and muscle give a chance for worn-out cells to be removed and new material put in their place. It is when we lay our bodies down in the beautiful repose of slumber that this process can go on with most perfect results. Then, when all the forces can be concentrated on the process of nutrition, will nutrition be most perfect. When we awake refreshed after a night of sound sleep we are really fed. It is quite doubtful if, in a normal condition, we would want food until we had been at work some time and by destroying tissue have created a demand for more new material.
If we were only half as anxious that food should be assimilated—that is, made over into ourselves—as we are that it should be put into the stomach, we would be very careful to secure for ourselves a due amount of good sleep. And what is a due amount? That depends. I once heard of a servant girl whose mistress complained of her because she did not get up early in the morning, and the girl's excuse was, "But, ma'am, I can't get up early because I sleep so slow."
It seems a ridiculous statement, and yet there is a germ of truth in it. In some people thevital processes go on with such rapidity that the old, worn-out material will be eliminated and the new material built into the body in a comparatively short time. Seven hours of good sleep, perhaps, make them feel strong and rested and able to start on a new day's work with courage and ease. In others the vital processes are hindered or work feebly and slowly, and eight or nine hours of sleep scarcely suffice to complete the work of restoration. What is the obvious inference? Simply that each one shall judge for himself; but each should be wise enough not to confuse sleeplessness with having had sufficient sleep.
Very frequently the loss of sleep makes it difficult or impossible to sleep, and not until the excited condition of nerves can be calmed, can refreshing slumber be obtained. Young women who attempt to be in school and in society at the same time often bring themselves into the condition of insomnia or sleeplessness, and foolishly fancy that because they do not sleep they do not need it.
It is not at all difficult to understand that if you are constantly taking money out of the bank, you must also be constantly putting money in, or some day you will be told that your account is already overdrawn and your draft will not be honored. One can overdraw for a time, and right here is the danger with young people. They fancy, because they arenot at once told that they are overdrawing, that their bank account is unlimited, and then, when it is too late, they find themselves on the verge, if not clear over the verge, of bankruptcy.
How shall you know whether you sleep enough? If you will make it a rule to go to bed by ten o'clock every night, and go to sleep at once, and sleep soundly and waken with a clear head and a rested feeling, you may infer that you have slept enough. If you are still tired or dull, something is wrong. You may have been in bed long enough, but your room may not have been ventilated, and so you may be poisoned by breathing over and over again the emanations from your own body. Or for some reason the process of digestion and assimilation may not have been carried on, and poisons have been created instead of being eliminated.
If you waken unrefreshed, I should want to inquire into your habits of life. Was there opportunity for fresh air to enter your room? Was there in it no uncovered vessel, no old shoes in the closet, no soiled underclothing, nothing that could contaminate the atmosphere? Did you eat a hearty supper late in the evening? Is your system oppressed with a superabundance of sweets? Are you living on simple, wholesome food, or eating irregularly of all sorts of trash? There may be many causes, you see, for your "tired feeling" in the morning,and instead of taking some "Sarsaparilla," or other drug, I should try to find out the cause and remove it.
Many people are afraid of night air, and scrupulously shut it out of their sleeping-rooms, and yet, what kind of air can you get at night but night air? And is it not better to have pure night air from out of doors than the impure night air of a close room? I once went with two ladies to ascend the Rigi in Switzerland, in order to see the sun rise. One of these was a Polish countess, who took with her a little black-and-tan terrier. The hotel at the Rigi Staeffel was crowded, and we thought ourselves very fortunate to secure a room with three beds. The Countess disposed herself in one bed with her little dog, and I took one bed, saying to my friend, "You'll please open the window before you go to bed?" "O certainly," she replied.
The little Countess sprang up in evident alarm. "Open the window!" she cried; "why, we'd all take our death of cold! I beg of you don't do it. I could not sleep a wink if the window were open."
My friend spoke reassuringly to her, and she at length grew quiet, when my friend surreptitiously raised a window and we went to sleep. The next morning the Countess asked, with a strange air of incredulity, "Were you in earnest when you spoke about opening the window?Why, I never heard of such a thing in my life. I know I should have been ill if you had persisted in having the window open."
My friend and I exchanged glances silently. We knew she was not ill and she had slept with the window open, but doubtless she would have been ill had she known it was open, for she had a wonderful imagination. When we were called at three o'clock to get up and go to the top of the mountain to see the sun rise, she turned herself luxuriously in her bed and said she could imagine it. She had taken this journey and "climbed the mountain" (that is, was carried up in a chair, with her dog in her lap), to see the famous sunrise on the Rigi, and then remained in bed and imagined it! Her imagination seemed entirely satisfactory, and so we did not quarrel with her.
Sleep is the most positive beautifier, the best cosmetic. The term "beauty sleep" is no misnomer. Sleep freshens the complexion, smoothes out wrinkles, clears out the brain, strengthens the muscles, puts light into the eyes and color into the cheek.
The first thing you did when you came into this world was to inspire, that is, to breathe in. The last thing you will do will be to expire, that is, to breathe out. And between your first inspiration and your last expiration there will have been the process of respiration, that is, breathing in and out at an average rate of twenty times a minute. Twenty times a minute means twelve hundred times an hour, or nearly thirty thousand times a day, or over ten million times a year. If you should live to be fifty years old, you will have breathed in and out over five hundred million times. We eat three times a day, twenty-one times a week, over a thousand times a year, fifty thousand times in fifty years, but we breathe over five hundred million times in fifty years.
We realize the importance of eating, but we can live days without food. On the other hand, we cannot live many seconds entirely without air. We must infer from all this that breathing is more important than eating. How can it be? From our food our body is rebuilt. What life-process is accomplished by breathing?
To understand this, we must learn whatprocesses are going on in the body, by means of which food is converted into tissue, into heat and energy. These processes we find are chemical, and may be likened to the combustion of wood or coal in the furnace. We know that fire must have air in order to burn. Burning is the process of oxidation or combustion of oxygen with the atoms of fuel and the formation of a new substance thereby. Coal, we are told, consists of carbon and nitrogen, both of which readily combine with oxygen, and in the process of uniting heat is liberated, and waste compounds thus formed pass off through the smokestack or chimney. We may not understand this scientifically, but we know that if we want the fire to burn well we must give it draft or air.
Our bodies are living engines, and use food and air instead of coal and air. Food in the body without air is like the coal in an engine without air; and air is useful only because it brings oxygen to unite chemically with the food. This process is going on all over the body. Each little microscopical cell is a furnace in which oxidation is taking place; and not only is energy liberated, but reconstructive processes are going on, new tissues are being formed, and old tissues removed.
But how can the oxygen get to the cells in all parts of the body? We can readily see how it gets to the air-cells of the lungs, but it woulddo little good if it stopped there. It must be carried in some way to all the minutest cells of all the tissues. This is done through the breathing. The blood goes to the lungs, and there it gives out the waste material it has collected in its journey through the body and takes up oxygen. The blood goes to the lungs dark in color from its load of waste. It is changed to a bright red by taking up oxygen. Each red blood-corpuscle takes a load of oxygen, carries it to its destination, and gives it to some tissue to be used up in the chemical process of oxidation, upon which depends our life and energy. During the hours of rest the tissues are busy in this process, and during exercise the energy stored up in the tissue-cells is liberated and waste created. So we see that the process is a continual round of taking food and air, using them in rebuilding tissue, then using up the tissue by exercise and casting out the waste products. And now we can begin to understand that we live in proportion as we breathe. Dr. Holbrook says: "The activity of the child is in close relation to the strength of its lungs; so, too, is the calmness, dignity and power of a man in proportion to the depth and tranquility of his respiration. If the lungs are strong and active, there is courage and boldness; if feeble, there is cowardice and debility. To be out of spirits is to be out of breath. To be animated and joyous is to be full of breath.""Breathing," writes Dr. von der Deeken, "is an actual vivifying act, and the need of breath as felt is a real life-hunger and a proof that without the continual charging of the blood-column with the proper force, all the other vital organs would soon stagnate and cease action altogether."
Now I wonder how many young women really know how to breathe. "Why," you say, "we have always breathed!" And I reply, "So you have, to some extent; but do you really breathe, or do you just let a little current of air flow gently through a part of your lungs, not reaching the minute air-cells at all, or have you crippled a large part of your lung-power by the restrictions of tight clothing?" Now you shrug your shoulders and say, with a little irritation, perhaps, "O, now she is going to scold about corsets and tight-lacing, and I do not wear my clothes tight." But I am not now going to talk of lacing; I am going to talk about singing, and speaking, and real living. The highest class of living creatures are those that have most power to breathe. The cold-blooded animals breathe little, and are slow-moving creatures with deficient sensation and small powers of action. Man has large lung-capacity and should be full of life and power, and will be, if he understands himself. One benefit of exercise is the added impulse given to the heart and lungs, calling for more breath, andbringing more blood to the lungs to receive the added supply of oxygen.
If we were wise we would practise the art of deep, voluntary breathing, as a daily form of gymnastics. What would it do for us? Wonderful things, if we may believe the doctors. Even in the old Greek and Roman times the doctors recommended deep breathing, the voluntary holding of air in the lungs, believing that this exercise cleansed the system of impurities and gave strength. And all our scientific discoverers have proven that they were right, and modern doctors have only learned more of the process and added to the wisdom of the ancients. Professor Lehwess says that he uses deep breathing not only as a health remedy but as a cure for muscular convulsions, especially chronic spasms; and he says that he bases his method for the cure of stuttering mainly upon respiratory and vocal exercises, "whereby," he says, "we work on enervated muscles, and make their function bring them into permanent activity and make them obedient to our will." Thus not only will the respiratory system be enlarged and quickened, and the lungs strengthened, but the blood circulation is promoted and those injurious influences overcome which often take away the stutterer's courage for speaking.
Dr. Niemeyer, of Leipzig, urges breathing in these words: "Prize air; use good, pure air; breathe fresh air in your room by night andday." Dr. Bicking says that respiratory gymnastics are the only effectual remedy for pulmonary affection, especially for consumption. The Marquise Ciccolina claims that by the teaching of breathing gymnastics she has cured people of a tendency to take cold easily; she has benefited cases of lung and heart trouble, and she has cured nervous asthma even in cases that have lasted from childhood to maturity. Dr. Kitchen asserts that if the various structures of the body, including the lungs, are in a sufficiently healthy state, consumption cannot find a soil in which to commence its ravages, or, if already commenced, can be cured by attention to the general health, by pure air and deep breathing.
All this proves that the breathing is of great importance—of just as much importance to women as to men. It used to be thought that women breathe naturally with the upper part of the chest and men with the abdominal muscles, but we have now learned that in the breathing of both men and women the diaphragm should be used and the lower part of the chest expanded. The breathing should neither be thoracic—that is, with the upper part of the chest—nor abdominal. It should be diaphragmatic; that is, with the expansion of the sides of the lower part of the chest, thus filling every air-cell and bringing the life-giving oxygen to the blood. The importance of the diaphragm asthe breathing muscle cannot be overestimated. A diaphragm, you know, is a partition across a cylinder; the diaphragm is a muscular partition across the cylinder of the body, dividing the lungs from the abdomen. In breathing, the diaphragm becomes tense, and in becoming tense becomes also flattened, just as an umbrella does by being opened. In fact the opening and shutting of an umbrella gives a very good idea of the motion of the diaphragm in breathing. We can realize, then, how much larger around the body will be when the lungs are fully inflated than it is when we breathe the air out and the lungs are empty. A few minutes spent each day in exercising in diaphragmatic breathing would be of great advantage in increasing beauty of form, in giving strength and power to the voice, in improving the complexion and adding to the health, and therefore to the happiness. In taking these exercises, one should either stand erect or lie flat upon the back and draw the air in through the nose, keeping the mouth closed. Draw in gently, allowing the chest to expand at the sides, hold the air for a little time, and then breathe out slowly.
These exercises performed in a room that is well ventilated, or, better still, in the pure air of outdoors, will do much toward driving away headaches, clearing the brain, giving better judgment, stronger will, and a clearer, happier, brighter disposition.
This little conversation will be on the hindrances to deep breathing, for if we make up our minds that it is so important to breathe deeply we shall be very anxious to know how to avoid the hindrances to deep breathing. First, let me speak of attitude. If you study physiology and note the arrangement of the internal organs, you will very easily see that when the body is compressed in a sitting attitude there must be a hindrance to full and deep breathing. The girl who is running the typewriter or the sewing-machine, or the girl who is working as bookkeeper or stenographer, or the girl at her studies, is sitting so that it will not be possible to breathe deeply, for the lungs are encroached upon by the crowding together of the otherviscera(which means the vital organs) and the action of the breathing muscles is impeded by compression. As you will readily observe, there can be no lifting of the chest in this compressed attitude, no complete flattening of the diaphragm, no full inflation of the minute air-cells; therefore, as we have learned, the blood is not thoroughly purified, and actual poisons created by the vital processesaccumulate in the brain and tissues until you feel overpoweringly weary and stupid. You cannot think, because you cannot fully breathe.
You have often found, when sewing, that the machine would get, as you say, bewitched. It wouldn't feed, the thread would break or the needle would snap, and the whole work go wrong. Put the machine away, take a rest, and the next day, without doing anything at all to the machine, you find that it runs perfectly. The trouble was with yourself. It is so with the girl who is running the typewriter. She finds that it makes mistakes in spelling, things go wrong altogether. It "acts up," as she would say. So with the girl who is bookkeeper. The figures will not add themselves up right. Now if, under these circumstances, the girl would get up, go to the door, take a few deep breaths and expand the lungs fully, she would relieve the internal congestion consequent upon the cramped position, the brain would be freed from the accumulated poison, and as a consequence the troublesome problems would soon be solved, the typewriter would spell correctly, the figures would add themselves up accurately, and life would become brighter at once. Five minutes spent each hour in deep breathing of pure air would add both to the quality and quantity of work done, and so be a saving of time. This certainly is of great value to you in your work in the world.
After working-hours are over, the girl should make a special effort to sit erect for other reasons than that of breathing, though that is reason enough.
But wrong sitting-postures are not the only attitudes that interfere with deep breathing. Very often the position in standing is also objectionable. When one stands with the weight resting on the heels the body is thrown out of balance, and as a consequence the shoulders are not on a vertical line with the hips. In this attitude it is impossible to manifest fullness of life, because the lungs are not fully inflated with air at each breath. We live, enjoy, accomplish only in proportion to our breathing ability. As one writer says, "The deep thinker, the orator, the fine singer, must of necessity be a good breather."
The most serious hindrance to deep breathing is found in the restrictions of the clothing. I do not say of the corsets, because tight bands or waists can also compress the body and make full breathing impossible. Of course you say your dresses are loose, and you run your hand up under your waist to prove it to me. I will not argue the question with you, but I will ask you to argue it with yourself.
If breathing is the measure of your living and doing, then if, in the least degree, you limit by your dress your breathing, the dress is too tight. "Well," you ask "how shall I know ifI am hindering my breathing? My dress feels comfortable. It seems to me that I breathe. Is there any way that I can prove whether my dress is tight or not?"
It is true that one becomes accustomed to uncomfortable things and scarcely realizes that they ever were uncomfortable. The dress may seem a little tight when you first put it on, then it begins to grow comfortable, and after a while it feels loose, and you say it certainly is loose. I will give a simple rule by which you may know whether your clothing is loose enough or not. Unfasten every article of clothing; dress, corset, skirt-bands, everything. Now breathe in slowly until every air-cell is full. It may take some practice to do this, but persevere until you find the chest elevated and filled to its utmost extent. It should swell out at the sides along the line of the insertion of the diaphragm. There should be no heaving of the chest. Now, with the lungs so completely filled with air, bring your dress waist together without pulling a particle. Will it fasten without pressing out a bit of air from the lungs? If so, it is loose enough. If, however, you have to pull it together, even to the tiniest extent, you have pressed out some of the air. The minute air-cells that have thus been emptied cannot be again filled while the dress is fastened. Therefore you are defrauded of your rightful amount of air, and because part of the air is pressedout, the lungs take less space and the dress seems looser. You can understand how that would be.
The trouble is that our dresses are usually fitted over empty lungs. The dressmaker pulls the dress together, squeezes the air out of the lungs, and fastens the dress. Now you can readily understand that it will be impossible to fill those air-cells so long as the dress is worn, and yet it may not seem uncomfortable, because we become accustomed to it. Nature has made us so that we can accustom ourselves to many things that are not absolutely healthful, but this should not make us willing to live unhealthfully when it is possible to avoid it.