One of the most important details is the rest afterwards. This should never be less than half an hour, and an hour or more is preferable when it can be managed. The whole system needs this period of rest in order to get back to its ordinary routine, and without it much of the benefit of the bath is lost. Once a week is quite enough, and in many cases once every two or three weeks is sufficient to keep the system active and healthy. One other point should be kept in mind. Seeing that so much liquid is lost in the form of perspiration during the process, it is advisable to sip water freely, both during the process and after it. If these precautions are observed these baths will prove beneficial to mind and body alike, eliminating the impurities, improving appetite and digestion, and restoring the sense of vigour and well-being. In these ways both Turkish and plain hot water baths are of the greatest service in preventing the onset of neurasthenia and its successor, breakdowns. The time spent in taking them will be repaid a hundred times in an increased enjoyment of life and powers of work. CHAPTER XIV. REST. There are more tired people in the world to-day than ever before. Nervous exhaustion is taking the place of the old-fashioned stomach-aches and coughs and colds as the prevailing complaint of the times. [Sidenote: Unrest.] There is a spirit of unrest which is having a bad effect on many nervous systems. The air is dark with threatened strikes, wars and rumours of wars, and the clash of conflicting parties. The sense of impending calamity fills the minds of many nervous people with anxious forebodings. Probably things are not much worse, if any, than they have often been in previous times, but news is transmitted to and from all parts of the world with a swiftness that would have seemed incredible even a few decades ago. We hear of things that are happening, not of things that have happened, and there is a vast difference between the two so far as comfort of mind is concerned. [Sidenote: Conditions of modern life.] Town life has become much more wearing since petrol has displaced the horse and made the speed of traffic so vastly greater than before. And the noise of motor drays and buses is exercising a bad effect on many people’s nerves. They may become so used to the row that they do not appear to notice it, but its irritating influence on the nervous system is there all the same. The ever-increasing stress of competition is making work a strenuous affair. But what is worse is the fact that this stress is, with many persons, invading their hours of leisure. We grudge no man his pleasures, but when the rush for amusement is carried on to the detriment of a body that is already fagged out, it is time to stop and think where it is all going to lead to. [Sidenote: Periodic rest.]