Health: How to get it and keep it.: The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation.Woods, Walter V.
Science
Health: How to get it and keep it.: The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation.
Woods, Walter V.
Health; Hygiene
If her work is of a sedentary or confining kind, there is the greater
need of special exercise. Such work demands a strong constitution,
and many break down under it annually. If long hours in shop, or
store, or office are required of her, still it will be possible to
find some time for exercise. Five or ten minutes may be secured upon
rising in the morning. Clad in a loose robe, throw up the window and
engage in vigorous, free hand gymnastics to expand the chest, increase
the respiration, stimulate the circulation, and afford a healthy
exhilaration to the muscles. After breakfast, walk to the place of
business, or, if the distance be too great, walk part of the way. At
noon, from five to ten minutes can again be secured for a breath of
fresh air and a little exercise. A brisk walk with a cheerful companion
will banish the dull routine of labor, and impart new energy for
the duties of the afternoon. Even without the companion, the freer
respiration induced by the walk, together with change of scene and
thought, will prove beneficial.
In the middle of the forenoon, and again in the afternoon, three
minutes can be found in which to stretch the cramped muscles and
relieve the weary back. Stand erect, and with hands on hips and
shoulders thrown back, take four or five full inhalations. Throw the
hands over the head, and stretch them towards the ceiling, at the same
time raise the heels, stand on the toes for a few seconds, and repeat
about five times. This simple exercise, which need not occupy more than
three minutes, will impart new energy, and result in the accomplishment
of more work.
If an evening walk cannot be had every day, at least three or four
might be enjoyed in a week, and would be productive of untold benefit.
Let the motion be energetic and the step elastic. The distance should
be moderate at first, and gradually increased. To this should be added
five to ten minutes’ exercise for the arms and chest before retiring.
This simple programme, involving no expense for apparatus, and
requiring only so much time as even the busiest of men or women can
find, will, in a short time, if persistently pursued, improve the
digestion, stimulate the circulation, banish sleeplessness, transform
dullness into cheerfulness, prevent weakness, impart tone and vigor to
the nervous as well as to the muscular system, and contribute largely
to the prolongation of a life of happiness and success.
=Women of Leisure.=--The daughters of wealthy or well-to-do parents and
the wives of prosperous husbands should be the healthiest and happiest
of women. Between graduation day and the wedding day, the young woman
is frequently a lady of leisure. At least, she can usually control
her time, and secure an hour or more each day for those healthful
recreations which will fortify her against the various forms of
physical weakness that are so common among women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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