How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its SatisfactionsCurry, S. S. (Samuel Silas)
Science
How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions
Curry, S. S. (Samuel Silas)
Hygiene; Physical education and training
Sometimes one is too weary to go to sleep, or sinks into a deep slumber
which is not normal. The taking of breath is short and the giving up of
the breath more sudden. This sleep will not be refreshing. Nine times
out of ten such a one will wake up in the morning feeling more weary
than when he lay down at night. Of course, if a man could sleep for an
unusual number of hours, nature might in time restore him. The
excitement of our civilization prevents normal conditions and therefore
we must aid nature. Man must understand the laws of life and so use them
as to find rest properly.
We need harmony in our thoughts, to let them dwell on what is sacred and
beautiful that our sleep may be normal and that we may enter into the
world of slumber with sympathetic conditions.
We must, also, laughingly throw off negative thoughts and feelings and
allow expansion and stretching to equalize the circulation. All the
vital functions must be harmonized. As we perform these exercises once
more we find various congestions that have resulted from the
one-sidedness of our day's work,--congestions around the throat, parts
of the body are weary, constricted, and cramped. By stretching ourselves
we can harmoniously adjust the activities of our breathing and
circulation. All parts can be restored to harmony and we can rest
properly.
After all, what is rest? It is not a mere slumping into inactivity. It
is allowing the involuntary rhythm of our being, the sympathetic
co-ordination of all the forces of our body to act normally. The rhythm
of our volitional activities must be given up to the rhythm of the
unconscious and involuntary life.
Before this rhythm can reign we must remove all constrictions from any
part of the body.
After taking these exercises we should feel the sympathetic enjoyment of
all the cells of our bodies, then sleep will be refreshing, the rhythm
of breathing will be normal and the circulation and vital processes will
proceed easily and rhythmically.
What are the differences in the practicing of exercises in the morning
and evening?
In the first place the exercises in the evening should be more steady,
more regular, more harmonious, slower and more rhythmic. Every exercise
must soothe the excited nerves, the agitated brain, and the weary
respiratory muscles, the heart, and all the circulatory system.
Release needs to be especially emphasized. After every stretch, for
example, every part of the body must be relaxed. The reaction will take
more time on account of the greater activity through the day. We
should, therefore, take especial pains to accentuate the recovery or
recoil of the muscles into sympathetic passivity and rest.
The object is now not to stimulate as much as in the morning, but to
allay all excitement, harmonize the co-ordination of all parts, remove
all local activities in the different parts of the body, establish
centrality of the vital functioning and the diffusion of blood and
feeling into every part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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