Personal hygiene and physical training for womenGalbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Science
Personal hygiene and physical training for women
Galbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Physical education and training; Women -- Health and hygiene
There may be as yet no loss of flesh or impairment of the appetite,
but this condition of cerebral anemia furnishes the possessor with
a pair of blue spectacles through which the intelligence must look,
and which throw their own color over everything. Distressing dreams
and unrefreshing sleep allow the brain little opportunity for either
rest or repair. The mind becomes as sensitive as the skin after
a blister, and the calm, vigorous mental labor is superseded by
feverish anxiety, wearing responsibility, and vexing chagrin.
When the brain is well supplied with a powerful circulation, and
a rich blood-supply from a good digestion furnishes it with an
abundance of pabulum, the cares of life are borne with equanimity and
cheerfulness. One of the most unerring signs of failing health is the
inability to withstand the pressure of these same daily cares. When
the cares that formerly sat lightly on the shoulders become well-nigh
an insupportable burden, a state has been reached where the mind
reacts on the body.
_Worry._—It is readily evident that worry is bred of exhaustion,
and is one of the signs of overwork; but, if too often indulged in,
it becomes a fixed habit, and the mind rapidly becomes settled in a
state of gloom.
It is most important for overwrought business and professional women,
but most especially for those women whose vocations in life combine
three distinct occupations or callings—namely, wives who act in the
capacity of housekeepers, ministers of finance to the household,
and the bringing up of children—to realize the importance of not
undertaking more than they can accomplish without fret and worry. The
overconscientious woman may object that it is selfish to consider her
own comfort when she has work to do for others, but to expend too
freely of the nervous energy, even in a good cause, is like giving
so much of our substance to charity that we ourselves are in turn
obliged to lean on others for support. In properly conserving our own
energies, we may ultimately be lightening the burden of others. There
is a proper balance between the duty one owes to one’s self and to
others.
Once bred, worry is an endless chain. Tell such a woman not to worry,
and she worries for fear she may worry. She is afraid that she has
decided wrongly, and regards decisions in regard to the most trivial
affairs of life as though they were matters of vital importance.
The obsession “to arrive” is a fertile source of fret and worry. This
habit of mind leads to frantic and incessant labor and blocks all
pleasure at every point. The person who plays a game only to see who
wins, loses half of the benefit of the recreation.
“The legs of the stork are long, the legs of the duck are short; you
cannot make the legs of the stork short, neither can you make the
legs of the duck long. Why worry?” (Chinese proverb.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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