HOLIDAYS.
The greatest mistake than can be made is to wait for an annual holiday
in the expectation that it is going to exonerate us from consequences
of eleven months or more of sinning against the rules of health.
Everyone, men and women alike, should secure a holiday if only for an
hour or so every day of their lives, in the shape of some congenial
change of thought or occupation.
[Sidenote: Value of the annual holiday.]
Yet the annual holiday has a place of its own in our well being. It
takes us away from our ordinary associations, and brings us into
contact with fresh scenery and new faces, which mean new personalities.
It invigorates our bodies and tones up our minds, broadening them and
furnishing them with new ideas, so that both from the physical and
mental standpoints it is a valuable aid to health.
It has a direct bearing on the subject of breakdowns, for change of
scene is a potent means of getting a man’s mind out of the monotonous
groove which is so wearing to his nervous system. It has an additional
advantage in that it often happens that after a holiday he is apt to
keep himself in contact with the fresh air and exercise, and recreation
also, which he found so beneficial when he was away from home. In the
incipient stages of breakdown, too, a complete change is one of the
necessary items in treatment.
Seeing, therefore, how important it is and what it means to so many
people, it is well worth while to consider how the time and money
involved may be expended to the best advantage.
The usual plan is to fix on a spot because we have heard it spoken
of as a “nice place to go to,” engage rooms by letter and set off,
hoping for the best. Little wonder that the holiday often turns out a
disappointment.
A family was returning from a visit to the seaside, to which the
various members, parents and children alike, had looked forward with
the greatest zest. The mother was tired out, the father seemed worried,
and the children were jaded and spiritless. They had been unfortunate
in their choice of a place, the lodgings had been uncomfortable, and
the holiday had proved a failure. Yet with a little foresight it might
have been entirely different.
It is always advisable that one of the older members of the family,
preferably the mother, should see the locality and the apartments
before hand. We cannot expect the proprietress of the apartments or
the hotel to point out for our benefit that the bedrooms are musty
and badly ventilated, the sheets damp, and the sanitary arrangements
defective. We must go and investigate these things for ourselves.
[Sidenote: Where to go.]
The question as to where to go is one that needs careful
consideration. The fact that it suited someone else is no reason why it
should be adapted to our requirements. I once heard two men discussing
this question, and one was advising the other to go to a certain place
in the Highlands. He described it in glowing colours, and made it
perfectly plain to the other man that if he went anywhere else he was
an incompetent idiot. It was a village at the bottom of a deep valley,
surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains.
“What do you do with yourself if the weather is wet?” the second man
asked.
“Well, of course you have to stay indoors.”
“And what do you do when it is fine?”
“Oh, you climb the mountains.”
“Well, seeing that my wife suffers from a weak heart, and cannot climb
an ordinary hill, I think we shall go somewhere else,” which he very
wisely did. It is not much use going to a place if you have either to
forego the pleasures of the holiday or run the risk of injuring your
health.
People who suffer from asthma are often worse at the seaside, and
should always take this into consideration. Those liable to bronchial
attacks should be wary as to visiting the East Coast. They will derive
more benefit from the softer atmosphere of the South or West.
It is a mistaken idea to suppose that people who are run down will get
the most good from going to a bracing climate. Often it has the effect
of making them irritable and restless, and their nerves do better in a
more relaxing place.
A fortnight on a farm always sounds attractive, but in reality it
often turns out the very opposite. The accommodation is apt to be of
a primitive order, and the cooking by no means up to the mark, while
it is not uncommon to find that none of the bedroom windows will open.
So much, too, depends upon the weather, and if it happens to be wet,
the holiday is likely to be devoid of pleasure, and detrimental to
health at the same time. Rheumatic people should avoid farmhouses, as
the atmosphere is often damp, especially in the evenings. Even if the
weather is fine, there is a danger in the dew which rises from the
fields at sunset. If it is wet, the consequences are apt to be serious.
A seaside place with a light, sandy soil is better adapted to such
persons.
[Sidenote: Continental trips.]
In these days of quick and cheap travel no paper on holidays is
complete without a reference to the problem of continental trips.
These are undoubtedly a source of interest, but not necessarily of
health. It may be a delight to see fresh places and experience new
national customs and a totally different diet, but in many cases these
advantages are obtained at the expense of bodily health. People who are
run down rarely get any benefit from them. Even if they have the sense
to make for one place and stay there or use it as a centre, the long
railway journey tires them to such an extent that they cannot enjoy
their holiday properly. Usually a visit to some home resort is of
infinitely greater value.
As a rule, however, a continental trip means one of the advertised
tours, in which a maximum of travelling and sight-seeing is carried out
in a minimum of time. People who are strong enough to undertake such a
task do not come under the category of health-seekers.
When the journey, either home or foreign, includes a sea-trip, it
is well to take only light food for a day or two previously, if you
are subject to _mal de mer_, and also to take a good aperient the
day before starting. These precautions will often serve to avoid the
biliousness which so frequently spoils the first few days of the
holiday.
[Sidenote: Preparations.]
In making preparations for a holiday it is necessary to be ready for
all sorts of weather. The day may be tropical when we start, and like
winter the next day, and it is both uncomfortable and dangerous to have
brought nothing but light summer clothing. There is an old superstition
that people do not catch cold by the sea. This is a huge mistake, as
they are just as liable to do so as at home, often more so in fact, as
home comforts are missing. It is a pitiable sight to see numbers of
people wandering about a seaside resort on a damp, chilly day, looking
cold and miserable, simply because they think it their duty to dress in
flannels while they are on a holiday.
That phrase “on a holiday” covers a multitude of sins. People seem
to think that they can dispense with all the precautions they would
find necessary at home, and that they will escape the consequences of
running needless risks because they happen to be at the seaside or in
the country.
The result is that many people complain that they feel tired and
headachy when they are on a holiday, and that much of their pleasure is
spoiled in consequence. They attribute it to the fact of the air being
too strong for them, or else that it is the reaction from previous
overwork. It is neither one nor the other, but is due to something
quite different.
[Sidenote: Diet on a holiday.]
For one thing, most people eat too much when they are away, a great
deal more than they would dare to take at home. Often, too, they
indulge in things which they know to disagree with them in an ordinary
way. The consequence is that they become dyspeptic, and their livers
get out of order. That is why they have headaches and get tired so
easily. If they could take less rather than more, and eschew all
those things which do not suit them, the value of the holiday would
be considerably enhanced. In the case of men, smoking to an excess
they would never dream of at home has a similar effect in producing a
feeling of lassitude.
[Sidenote: Exercise.]
The amount of exercise has a pronounced influence on the good of a
holiday. People who have been overworked or ill, or have neglected
to take regular exercise at home, should be extremely careful as to
exertion when on a vacation, particularly during the first few days.
A man who had saved up for a long time to have a fortnight among the
mountains did so much climbing on the first day that he was knocked up
for the remainder of his stay. Many others, without going to extremes
such as this, feel languid all the time from the same cause. They try
to make up for lost time at home by doing as much as possible in the
weeks at their disposal, and think it a crime to miss any opportunity
of getting about. They walk more in a day than they do in a week at
home, and are surprised to find that instead of feeling braced up they
are listless and tired out.
Unwonted forms of exercise, too, such as many persons indulge in when
away from home, are responsible for more than the spoiling of their
enjoyment. For example, it is not necessary for them to bathe simply
because they are at the seaside and everybody else is having a dip.
Numbers of people in good health do not feel well for the rest of the
day after a bathe, but in other cases the results may be more serious.
Those who are run down, or broken down, or are recovering from an
illness, had better avoid entering the water. Otherwise they run the
risk of bringing about a recurrence of their malady.
Exercise of all sorts is an admirable thing, but like many other good
things in this world it has to be used with discretion. For alongside
it there is the companion virtue rest, and this aspect of a holiday has
always to be kept well to the fore, especially in the case of those who
are feeling jaded or depressed, restless, nervous or irritable, or
present any sign of incipient neurasthenia or breakdown.
[Sidenote: The restful holiday.]
For people of this type a restful holiday is essential above all
things. But this does not mean that they are to go to some quiet
spot with no company except their own thoughts. It needs a peculiar
temperament, such as few of us possess, to spend a fortnight lying
under a hedge or on the sands in some secluded place, with hardly a
soul to speak to. It is all very well in theory, but in practice it
usually amounts to the very opposite. The body may be rested, but the
mind is apt to be kept on the go. Black care rides behind the horseman,
and a man’s worries too often accompany him and refuse to be driven
away, unless he has some amusement or interest to divert his thoughts.
If people happen to be ardent lovers of Nature, they may find
diversion in some place noted for its scenery. Unfortunately, however,
the neurasthenic is easily bored, and no matter how beautiful his
surroundings may be, he should take care to furnish himself beforehand
with plenty of literature suited to his needs. The local library is
often interesting when regarded from the point of view of the antique,
but it is often hopeless as a means of securing anything worth reading.
In many cases people who run down need something of a lighter, we
might say a more frivolous nature. Their taste for scenery, like many
of their other faculties, is tired out for the time being. Taken all
round, the best place for the neurasthenic is a lively seaside resort,
where he can sit about and amuse himself with watching the doings of
the people around him. Everything in this world has a place, and a
troop of nigger minstrels or a Punch and Judy show may afford rest and
relaxation to a wearied mind when mountain scenery has failed to do so.
In either case one thing is essential. The scenery or the amusements
must be obtained with a minimum amount of fatigue. On this account it
is necessary to select a place mild enough to permit of sitting out of
doors. That is why in the great majority of cases the neurasthenic gets
on much better in a warm, if relaxing, climate.
[Sidenote: Tired eyes.]
One other point we must emphasise particularly. Many visitors, whether
they are run down or in good health, suffer from headaches when on
a holiday simply because of tired eyes. They want to enjoy the full
benefit of the air, and are also ambitious to return home sunburnt,
so walk about without any proper shade to the eyes. They succeed in
getting tanned, but much of the pleasure of their vacation is spoiled
owing to a constant feeling of ache and oppression in the head. A wide
hat-brim or a pair of smoked glasses will avert this, and add to their
enjoyment in proportion as they do so.
For the same reason a good rest in a shady room in the middle of
the day is of the greatest value. It rests not only the eyes but
everything else as well. People regret the waste of a single minute
when they are taking a hard-earned holiday, and often ruin the good
of it by staying out of doors until they are too tired to enjoy
themselves. An hour’s rest in the house after the midday meal will
be found to make their holiday worth twice as much as it would be
otherwise.
[Sidenote: Returning home.]
It is always a pity to spoil the good effect of a holiday by returning
home at the last possible minute, late at night it may be. Better lose
half a day of the vacation than get up next morning to resume work
tired out and utterly unfit for it. For this will rob the holiday of
those pleasant recollections which are one of its greatest boons.