In either of the above cases, both with an overworked stomach and an
overworked heart and lungs, the complaint is very apt to be, "Why am
I so tired when I have done nothing to get tired?" The answer is,
"No, you have done nothing outside with your muscles, but the heart
and lungs and the stomach are delicate and exquisite instruments.
You have overworked them all, and such overwork is the more
fatiguing in proportion to what is done than any other form, except
overwork of the brain." And the overtired stomach and heart and
lungs tire the brain, of course.
Of the work that is given to the brain itself to overtire it we must
speak later. So much now for that which prevents the body from
keeping rested inside, in the finer working of its machinery.
It is easy to find out what and how to eat. A very little careful
thought will show us that. It is only the plain common sense of
eating we need. It is easy to see that we must not eat on a tired
stomach, and if we have to do so, we must eat much less than we
ordinarily would, and eat it more slowly. So much good advice is
already given about what and how to eat, I need say nothing here,
and even without that advice, which in itself is so truly valuable,
most of us could have plain common sense about our own food if we
would use our minds intelligently about it, and eat only what we
know to be nourishing to us. That can be done without fussing.
Fussing about food contracts the stomach, and prevents free
digestion almost as much as eating indigestible food.
Then again, if we deny ourselves that which we want and know is bad
for us, and eat only that which we know to be nourishing, it
increases the delicacy of our relish. We do not lose relish by
refusing to eat too much candy. We gain it. Human pigs lose their
most delicate relish entirely, and they lose much--very much
more--than that.
Unfortunately with most people, there is not the relish for fresh
air that there is for food. Very few people want fresh air
selfishly; the selfish tendency of most people is to cut it off for
fear of taking cold. And yet the difference felt in health, in
keeping rested, in ease of mind, is as great between no fresh air
and plenty of fresh air as it is between the wrong kind of food and
enough (and not too much) of the right kind of food.
Why does not the comfort of the body appeal to us as strongly
through the supply of air given to the lungs as through that of food
given to the stomach? The right supply of fresh air has such
wonderful power to keep us rested!
Practical teaching to the children here would, among other things,
give them training which would open their lungs and enable them to
take in with every breath the full amount of oxygen needed toward
keeping them rested. There are so many cells in the lungs of most
people, made to receive oxygen, which never receive one bit of the
food they are hungry for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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