Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/115

 whole body will promote in a strong manner its activity, and its ability to resist cold.

Very cold baths shock the system, and only react in those that are robust; hence should only be used in emergencies. For general use the tepid is best.

Symptoms of overwork, loss of weight, appetite, sleep, vim in performing your work, irritability, and restlessness are hard to overcome, and craving for stimulation is a constant feeling.

Constipation is a curse to the life of many men and of still more women. It can be slowly but naturally cured by drinking two or three glasses of pure, cool, uniced water at a half-way between meals; and eating coarse grains, fruits and green vegetables at meals.

It will assist matters if one dresses loosely, breathes deeply, and takes much out-of-door walking. Do the walking regularly; and at regular hours; and practise the deep breathing while walking. Do not walk more than five to seven miles a day. If you are a bicyclist, ride with the seat low for a few miles each day.

Practise the lie-abed exercise: Rise to a sitting position a dozen times or so; then lie down and with the knees bent take half a dozen deep, slow inspirations. Alternate these two exercises several times. "You are out of form; you are too fat or too thin," can never be said of the person who exercises hygienically every day. You are suffering from insomnia, nervous prostration, obesity, fatty degeneration of the heart, rheumatism, kidney or stomach trouble, just because you do not take the home dumb-bell drill or its equivalent; and a graded sponge-bath each day. Every week or so patients who are suffering from one or more of the above-named troubles are sent to us by some of the best physicians of Boston and surrounding towns. The patients receive individual attention, and massage-treatment as a rule; and are all given the light, slow kind of work at first. The "home bell-drill" done properly is a type of the class of in-door physical exercise which should be largely used by this class of patients. Join some Y.M.C.A. gymnasium, and you will learn how to get well; or if you are already well, how to keep so. The ounce of prevention is worth ten tons of cure. Don't put this matter off by saying, "I feel well enough—I don't need exercise." Yes, you do, just as much as you do eating your daily meals. The break in one's health often comes suddenly without a moment's warning.