Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Science
Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)
Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Diet; Hygiene
To enjoy life, health of body and mind is necessary. The mind can not
come to full fruitage without a good body. Those who strive so hard to
reach a certain goal that they neglect the physical become wrecks and
after a few years of discomfort and disease are consigned to premature
graves. Through proper living and thinking the body and mind are built
up, not only enough to meet ordinary demands upon them, but
extraordinary ones. In other words, it is within our power to have a
large margin, balance or reserve of physical and mental force.
To make the meaning clearer let us illustrate financially: Prudent
people lay aside a few dollars from time to time, in a savings bank, for
instance. All goes well and the savings grow. At last there are one
thousand dollars. Now an emergency arises, and if the saver can not
furnish nine hundred dollars he will lose his home. In this case he must
either borrow or use his reserve, so he takes nine hundred dollars from
the savings bank and keeps his home. The improvident man loses his home
under similar circumstances, for his credit is not good and he has no
balance to draw upon.
And it is the same with physical and mental powers, except that we can
not borrow these, no matter how much good will or credit we may have. He
who lives well is accumulating a reserve. He has a wide margin. If
trouble comes he can draw upon his reserve energy or surplus resistance
and bridge it over. He may be tired out, but he escapes with body and
mind intact.
The imprudent liver generally has such a narrow margin that any
extraordinary demand made upon him breaks him down. It is very common
for men to die after a financial failure. Disease, insanity and death
often follow family trouble or the loss of a dear one. The reason is
that such people live up to their limit every day. They have no margin
to work on. They either overdo or underdo and fail to become balanced.
Then a little physical or mental exertion beyond the ordinary often
means a breakage or extinction.
Equanimity and moderation will help to build up the reserve and give the
resistance that is necessary to cope successfully with the unforeseen
difficulties that we sometimes have to surmount.
The physical state depends largely on the mental state and vice versa.
Body and mind react upon each other. Bad blood does not only cause
abnormal functioning of such organs as the heart, liver, kidneys and
lungs, but it interferes with the normal functioning of the brain. It
diminishes the mental output and causes a deterioration of the quality.
An engorged liver makes a man cranky. Indigestion causes pessimism.
Physical pain is so disturbing that the sufferer thinks mostly of
himself and is unable to perform his work well. We never do our best
when self-conscious. If there is severe pain the mind can perform no
useful labor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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