GOOD HEALTH AS A FOUNDATION FOR BEAUTY
Show me a woman who has indigestion and I will show you a person with
muddy complexion, dull or feverishly bright eyes, a coated tongue and a
languid manner.
None of these makes for beauty. All are signs of ill-health. Besides
these outward and visible signs of ill health, it is a heavy weight
upon the spirits. The girl thinks she is unhappy, and manufactures
causes for misery, or exaggerates the trifles that are not to her
liking, and makes them causes for unhappiness.
Besides these, indigestion causes yet graver troubles. I recall
several persons I knew who have since passed from the earthly plane,
whose decline in health began with various symptoms of indigestion.
It was never clear to me whether the indigestion was the cause or the
effect of these maladies. But I trust I have said enough to prove that
indigestion is a most undesirable state. Vanity alone should forbid it.
How to prevent indigestion? I shall have a great deal to say farther
on about food wrong in kind or quality as a cause of indigestion.
But first let me tell you of an excellent exercise to discourage
indigestion.
Knead the abdomen on retiring and several times a day when there is
opportunity. Double your hands as though for kneading bread. Place the
clenched hands beneath the ribs. Press firmly and regularly upon the
intestines, moving the fists forward until they meet. Having done this
five to ten times, allow the left hand to rest at your side and with
the right hand press gently but steadily downward at the left of the
abdomen until your hand is opposite the thigh. Repeat this operation
several times each time you take the exercise. This is still more
effective if taken while you are lying in your bathtub. The relaxation
of the muscles is aided by the fact that they are under water. The
hydropathic school believes this one of the greatest aids to restoring
proper digestion.
Much walking is an aid to digestion. So is this exercise, which can be
taken in bed:
Lying upon your back, draw the knees slowly up beneath the chin, then
let the legs fall to their former position. This is the most valuable
of early morning exercises for those who have a torpid liver or some
other form of indigestion.
Coarse cereals are an enemy to indigestion. Seldom does one see a case
of indigestion in Scotland, and if we do, it is when we meet a queer
Scot who dislikes his national dish, oatmeal. Oatmeal, whole wheat,
rice, all being large fibered foods, stir the stomach and intestines to
activity, which is good for digestion.
Again, every girl should know some of the principles of the values of
foods. Apply to your daily food these facts. Your food should consist
of these proportions:
Mixture of starches and sugars, about 16 parts. Proteids, 4 parts.
Fats, 2 parts.
In other words, one-half of our daily amount of food may be made up of
potatoes, rice, bread, etc. One-eighth should consist of the proteids,
as milk, or eggs, or cheese. One-sixteenth should be fat, as butter or
the fat to be found in meat or oil in dressing of salads. Keep this
table in mind and you will find a new interest in choosing your food,
and in a short time you will welcome a marked improvement in your
health.
Do not decline sweets unless you are overweight, but eat them at the
right time, which is as dessert for luncheon or dinner. Never eat cake
or candy between meals.
Turn resolutely away from all fried foods. You have heard that fried
foods are injurious, but you do not know why. It is my pleasure to tell
you. They are indigestible because they form in the stomach a substance
as thick and unwieldy as leather, and as difficult of digestion.
Neither meats nor eggs nor milk should ever reach the boiling point.
For this reason never eat boiled beef, nor a boiled egg, nor milk that
has been boiled. The beef cut up in a stew that has simmered below the
boiling point, an egg that has been dropped into water just below the
boiling point and allowed to heat there for eight minutes instead of
boiling four, and milk that has been heated but never permitted to show
one of the bubbles that attend the boiling state, are substitutes for
the old forms, and admirable ones.
Keep this also in mind in selecting your food: For the bones’ formation
we need lime, and the cereals, as oats and wheat and rice, contain
elements that make it. Sugar is converted into energy, as the Russian
dancers well know, for they eat inordinate quantities of candy and
sweet paste, yet, because they exercise it off, remain thin. The fats,
as butter and meat fat, cause warmth in the body, so should be used
more freely in winter than in summer. Bread is a good food if made of
coarse grain. Contrary to the general opinion, macaroni and spaghetti
are good foods. Examine them in their raw state and you will see
that they are yellowish. That shows the presence of gluten, which is
valuable as an aid to digestion, in bread form.
Are you anæmic? Then besides mild exercise in the open air, always
stopping before you are tired, and massaging the body and face with
feeding oils as lanolin and olive oil, feed yourself generously with
thickened broths and thick soups. Ham and bacon and mutton, chicken and
game are rebuilders of the weakened system, and butter may be freely
eaten. For the anæmic all kinds of fresh fish are nourishing. So are
oysters. Eggs are rebuilding agents. So are bread and cakes, tapioca
and hominy.
Much cream is desirable for the anæmic, and chocolate, custards, baked
fruits and jellies are friendly foods in the circumstances.
Avoid what especially taxes the digestion, as veal or pork, salt meats
and heavy hashes. Bananas being among the most indigestible of the
foods, should be avoided.
If you are dyspeptic don’t eat many things at one meal. Two or three
dishes are enough. If you have difficulty in digestion lie down before
or after a meal. For you vegetable soups as tomato, asparagus, pea and
bean soups are aids. Oysters and fresh fish, plainly broiled, are among
your dietetic friends. Squabs and sweetbreads and chicken that has been
broiled are best. Your meats should be short-fibered and broiled until
they are tender. Eat eggs with stale bread or dry toast. Eggs may be
cooked in any way you wish except broiled or fried. Do not eat meats
freely, and if you eat any butter let it be very thinly spread. If you
eat bacon be sure that it is crisp and thoroughly done.
Well baked potatoes, tomatoes and spinach and boiled onions, peas, lima
beans, asparagus and stewed celery and lettuce are edibles you should
choose. Do not eat fruits that are either very sour or very sweet. The
stomach of the dyspeptic is sensitive to extremes. Tea, if made very
weak and drunk clear and hot, is beneficial. So are milk and cocoa or
chocolate, if not too rich. Shun raw celery and cabbage and radishes.
If you are gouty or rheumatic be careful not to eat stimulating foods
and avoid all stimulating liquors. The gouty or rheumatic condition is
caused by the deposit of acids in the joints, and you should study how
to eliminate these from the body. Alcohol, sweets and strawberries add
to them.
Eat very slowly of the following: Thin vegetable soups, fresh fish and
raw oysters, whitemeats, as the breast of chicken, sweetbreads and
pigs’ feet. Take the whites of eggs, preferably raw.
Toasted graham or whole wheat bread is the best for your condition.
Zweiback and graham gems are also helpful. For you celery, lettuce,
cucumber, cabbages, young peas and string beans, spinach, those
vegetables containing much water, are excellent. Juicy fruits as
oranges, lemons, apricots, cranberries, pears, peaches, better stewed
or baked than raw, are medicinal for you.
But eat no beef, no fried dishes, no ragouts nor hashes, neither turkey
nor duck nor goose, no omelettes and no salt fish and no desserts
except fruits. If you drink tea or coffee let it be weak. Buttermilk
is better for you, and you more than any other class of person, should
drink water in large quantities.
If you are liverish or are troubled by bilious attacks eat less heavily
than you have been doing. Choose white meats and fish, and eat no fat
part of the meat. Of vegetables eat much watercress and lettuce and
spinach. Drink skimmed milk and that very slowly, and eat only raw or
poached eggs. Cornbread or bread made from whole wheat flour and hot
water in which you have squeezed the juice of a lemon or orange will
help you back to a state of health. Eat neither cheese nor potatoes,
oatmeal nor dried vegetables.
If you are neurasthenic never attempt the no-breakfast plan. It is
better for you if you can have your breakfast in bed. The diet should
be light. Meats, fish, eggs, green vegetables and fruits are a helpful
diet. Milk can be taken if the stomach does not reject it. Tea, coffee,
tobacco and alcoholic drinks are forbidden to you.
Train yourself to note your symptoms and treat them by diet. When your
face has a mottled appearance you may be sure that you are eating too
much food of all sorts, or that you are eating too much that is greasy
or rich or sweet. A chic Parisian friend of mine when she notices such
symptoms limits herself to one moderate meal a day--her dinner--and
the earlier part of the day contents herself with fruits and salads,
drinking water moderately at these meals and copiously between them.
There are many times when we “feel our bodies” and are growing too
heavy or too lazy that it is well to subsist for a few days on a liquid
diet. This nourishing drink strengthens the body even while the work of
removing the remaining ashes from the body goes on:
Whole barley, 1 tablespoonful; a slice of lemon; boiling water, 2
cupfuls. Place the barley and slice of lemon in an earthen dish. Over
them pour the boiling water. Cover the dish and let the mixture stand
for ten minutes. Then strain into another earthen dish. The drink may
be flavored with a small quantity of sugar if preferred. The quantity
given is ample for one nourishing meal for one person.
This is a drink often taken by athletes to refresh them during their
training period in England, but is useful to women taking a semi-fast
for beauty’s sake:
Bran, 2 tablespoonfuls; seeded raisins, 1 tablespoonful; lemon, 1 thick
slice. Chop the raisins fine and place them with the bran and lemon
in an earthen bowl. Over these pour a half pint of boiling water. Let
stand to cool and blend for ten minutes. Strain and drink while warm.
Raisins are of special value in cleansing and toning the kidneys.
The water in which peeled apples have been stewed and to which a few
currants have been added is a strengthening, cooling and cleansing
drink. It is made more appetizing by the addition of a few cloves or a
broken stick of cinnamon.
This is another tonic and refreshing drink during the time when you are
eating little, or nothing:
Squeeze into a large coffee cup the juice of one orange. Fill the space
remaining in the cup with boiling water. Add a teaspoonful of liquid
honey and the same amount of lemon juice.
This, too, appeases hunger:
Milk, 1 pint; hot water, 1 pint. Slowly sip in lieu of a meal. The use
of water in a way prevents the clogging of the system that sometimes
follows an exclusively milk diet.
A drink much in use in England, that is half food, half medicinal, is
this:
Two tablespoonfuls of whole wheat; a little caraway or celery seed to
flavor. Into a pint bowl of boiling water stir the whole wheat after it
has been ground. Add the caraway or celery seed. Sweeten, if you wish,
with a half teaspoonful of powdered licorice.
Nut drinks are among the strengthening beverages substituted for food
during a beauty fast. For example, this:
Ground peanuts, 1 tablespoonful; boiling water, 1 cupful. Flavor with
equal quantities of honey or lemon juice as desired.
Perhaps you prefer meat juices in the thinning or rebuilding time. In
that case:
Pour over finely chopped beef or chicken twice its bulk in boiling
water if you wish the tea to be strong, three times if weak.
Some things there are that no one who wishes to be beautiful should
ever take into the stomach. Those things should be contraband, as
poisons and leads. They are: Sweets, pastries, anything very sweet or
very sour, anything very cold or very hot, pork, puddings other than
those consisting chiefly of fruits, and the doughnut, or cruller,
which is fried dough.
I hear American women beseech me, “Tell us what to eat and what not to
eat, so that we may be thin.” I answer, “Eat foods containing cooling
properties, as limes, soda and acids. Do not eat what contains sugar,
fat and starch.” Shall I be more explicit? Very well, then. Choose for
your regular diet:
Green vegetables, boiled without grease and with a little salt; string
beans, peas, asparagus and spinach may be cooked in this way or dressed
with oil and vinegar in which vinegar largely predominates; stewed
fruits, as apricots, prunelles, apples, kumquats, cherries and plums,
with little sugar, better with none; lean meats, rare beef and mutton,
roasted; zweiback or gluten bread, or, if these be not available, then
the crust, never the inner portion of wheaten bread; green salads, as
lettuce, romaine, chicory or cucumbers, with French dressing, reducing
the usual amount of oil and increasing that of the vinegar.
Eat as little as you can subsist on and maintain your strength, of any
of these. Remember, that while the stomach of each adult equals in size
that of a quart measure, it is wise to only half fill it; that is, to
take into it at no time more than a pint of food or fluid, or of both
combined. The distended stomach causes many intestinal troubles. One of
the results is that always unsightly spectacle, a high abdomen.
Foods it is wise for the stout beauty to avoid are: Fat meats, gravies,
pastries, cauliflower, potatoes, rice, lima beans, chocolate, sweetened
tea or coffee, candy, puddings and milk.
The beauty with the persistently blotched skin requires different food,
less food, a more judicious dietary. For her skin indicates some form
of indigestion, and the first step to cure indigestion is to give the
digestive apparatus less work to do. For that reason I should advise
the beauty with spots upon her countenance to try for a few hours, or,
if possible, a few days, the water cure. Let her, so far as food is
concerned, fast, if her physician permit, and live as long as seems
judicious on air and water. The furnace of an engine must be cleansed
occasionally of its clinkers. So the intestinal tract must be cleansed
of its obstructions. I have said before in these pages that everyone
should drink three quarts of water a day. I repeat it. If the stomach
be very delicate the water may be taken hot, but, as I have also said
before, I have found that, while hot water taken copiously into the
stomach relieves a condition temporarily, if the stomach continues
habitually to be flooded with it, it checks the flow of the gastric
juices. The gastric juices refuse to work, pettishly leaving their
functions to the intruder. Cold or cool water--never, let me repeat,
ice water--should be taken so that when it reaches the stomach it is of
nearly the same temperature. It should be sipped and slowly swallowed;
never, no matter how thirsty one may be, gulped.
As well introduce a lump of ice suddenly into the stomach as a
tumblerful of cold water. If you have ever by accident swallowed a
lump of ice you know how painful and violent is the stomach’s protest.
Never drink more than two glasses of water at a time. A pint, as I
have pointed out, is all that the stomach should be asked to retain at
one time. If the beauty, the charm of whose face has been eclipsed by
blotches, desires, she can increase the amount of water by a quart or
more, but this only when she is taking no food. If she finds it more
palatable, three or four drops of lemon juice squeezed into a glass
will help the cleansing process. While she is taking the water cure she
should take as much exercise out of doors as her strength will permit.
She must not continue the exercise after she becomes tired.
This water cure can be assisted by flushing the colon with warm water,
a subject with which I may deal more fully later. Sufficient at this
time that the internal bath, given as often as her physician directs,
is of great aid to her who would have a clear complexion.
The water and air cure has been continued, under medical direction, for
one day, three, even five or six days, with beneficial results. The
length will depend upon the strength of the person taking the cure.
When she resumes food she would do well to begin with warm milk.
Beginning with one quart of milk a day, the quantity can be increased
to two and even three. It should be remembered that milk is food,
rather than a beverage, and should be consumed as such. Not less than
five minutes should be given to drinking a glass of milk.
When food has been resumed bear in mind that if the spots upon your
face are caused by acne (blackheads) tea and coffee should be avoided.
So should pastry, cheese, sauces and highly-seasoned foods. On the
other hand the beauty who would remove the small, black blemishes may
eat freely of well-cooked green vegetables and stewed fruits. While
following this cooling, cleansing régime, I would suggest that pimples,
roughnesses and spots will the more quickly disappear if for three or
more mornings the blood be cooled by a dose of one teaspoonful of Epsom
salts in a glass of warm water.
For the beauties who are too thin a diet that will enrich the blood
is recommended. For this condition fat meats, gravies, lima beans,
potatoes, rice, sweets--all those things above which I have written the
flaming sign “Don’t” for stout beauties--should be eaten.
When the cheeks and lips are pale, the eyes dim, the gait lagging and
the body abnormally thin, these conditions all indicate that there is
a lack of iron in the system. I use iron hypodermic injections myself,
preferring them because they save the stomach the disturbance that
follows introducing medicines. But if there is an objection to this
iron may be taken in food form by eating the yolks of eggs, spinach,
beets and string beans.
The same dietary will help the woman whose hair is falling or is
prematurely gray. The results, though slow, are beneficent.
I believe in fasting in moderation as an aid to the good health upon
which beauty depends. As fully as I indorse the beauty device of
staying in bed now and then for a day or longer, if circumstances
permit, one day of every ten, I am convinced that an occasional fast is
conducive to well being.
Fasting confers benefits in general and in specific cases. When persons
are in that condition for which you have a naïve word of description,
“logy,” which means heavy and listless, fasting serves an excellent
purpose. Usually the “logy” person has been overfed. Let her go back to
nature for a lesson on how to cure herself of this disorder. When an
animal has eaten too much it usually crawls away to some dark and quiet
place and fasts. That is what the woman who has overtaxed her digestion
should do. At such times the animal drinks plentifully of water. So
should the human being.
When the digestion goes on strike humor it. Grant the overworked
stomach and intestines a holiday. Let them suspend work for a time, but
only for a short time. Better, in my opinion, a forty-eight hour fast
taken four times a month than a fast taken for eight consecutive days.
In general, the body is better off for an occasional relief to the
digestive organs. But there are specific instances of the fast being of
great benefit.
For instance, I know a woman whose beautiful figure was seriously
marred by an enlarged abdomen. When she came to me for advice I asked
her to stand and to walk. I saw that she stood and walked well. Then
I asked her to sit, and I saw that her habit of sitting was correct.
She sat with her weight equally distributed and resting evenly on the
balls of her feet. She sat somewhat, though not awkwardly, forward in
her chair, so that her spine was straight. In none of these postures
was there any cause for the thrusting forward of the abdomen. Her
corsets were good and new, neither too tight nor too loose. Believing
that this puffy, vulgar appearance was due to some form of indigestion,
I suggested a short fast. I recommended forty-eight hours without food
and with plentiful drinking of hot water, into each glassful of which
was squeezed the juice of a lemon.
She repeated this every week for five weeks, with no unpleasant results
and with the flattening of the abdomen which she desired and which has
greatly added to the loveliness of her figure.
There is much in favor of the semi-fast, which is not so great a shock
to the system. When persons have passed their thirty-fifth year it is
wise to give no such shock to the system. Better be as considerate
of our own bodies as we are of the feelings of our beloved friends.
Begin gently any radical departure in the habits of the body. For this
reason it is well to begin fasting by semi-fasting, or by gradually
diminishing the amount of food taken.
A plan that seems to me worthy is to forego solid foods, and the first
day subsist on milks, gruel or soup. Of these the milk is better
because more nourishing. Some persons don’t like milk, but, it being
the natural food, everyone can train himself to like, or, at least, to
swallow it. Some to whom milk is repellent prevent its unpleasant after
effects by placing in each glass a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.
I allow my appetite to govern the amount and the frequency of these
meals of milk. I always remember that milk is food and so consider
that I eat, rather than drink, it. Five minutes at least for a glass I
always permit myself. Sometimes I take ten.
The stomach having been gently prepared for the change, it is ready by
the second day for the water and lemon. The lemon juice not only makes
the water more palatable, but it stimulates the liver, so clearing the
complexion.
When ready to break the fast I have found it well to accustom the
stomach to the change back to food by sipping orange juice that has
been pressed into a cup or glass, then to begin eating again by
consuming a small, sweet orange. I returned to regular diet by the
easy way of soups and gruels. My longest fast was for four days, and I
consider that one or two days too long.
In fact, the safest method of fasting I consider the semi-fast, with
milk, gruels and soups that I have described.
Thus of the manner of fasts. Now as to their value. Catarrh I have
known to be greatly relieved, if not wholly cured, by recurrent fasts.
Rheumatism in its early stages has yielded to repeated short fasts and
care to avoid sweets and beef in the intervals between these fasts.
Even nervousness, that form of it which is aggravated by rich and heavy
foods, I have known to disappear during one of these silent and dark
room fasts, the silence and rest being, probably, the chief agents.
A fairly good rule to follow is that whenever the tongue is coated the
amount of food may be reduced, or we would do well to have no food for
a short time. The coated tongue indicates that there is much dead,
refuse matter, like the choking ashes in a furnace, obstructing the
body. If you can fast until the tongue is once more clean and red you
will be the gainer.
Also when you feel your body, that is, when you are unpleasantly
conscious of its weight and its handicap, a fast will usually relieve
you. But a warning. Do not undertake a fast while you are doing your
heaviest work. Fast when the demands upon you are lightest, and fast,
if possible, alone, so that no one will be afflicted by the irritable
temper that is liable to follow.
No one looks her best when she has not had enough sleep. Little
lines come about the eyes, deep creases form in the flesh about the
mouth, the eyes lose their light, the facial muscles their firmness,
the complexion its freshness, and, what is most important, the mind
loses its alertness, when we have not slept well. Irritability and
supersensitiveness show in face and manner.
Lack of sound sleep is due to two causes, a brain under-nourished or
over-stimulated. Sleeplessness, or fitful, restless sleep, follows
nervous derangement. There may be indigestion, cause or result of
nervousness. There may be worry. There may be mental fag or nervous
exhaustion. But whatever form it takes the root of the matter is nearly
always in the nerves. This granted, we must look to relieving the
brain, the main station along the line, or we must supply it what it
needs.
Banish worry. Take plenty of exercise. Breathe much fresh air. These
are three excellent recipes for sleep.
If you find that you have been over-working, lighten your work a
little. Try to spend a day or two in the country, if possible. But
this, to a busy person, is sometimes out of the question. If that is
the case with you try to retire an hour earlier. Some dread retiring
earlier because they say they know they will not sleep. Try it at any
rate. Lying in a dark room will bring a sense of rest that should
soothe the nerves and tend toward sleep.
Make sure that the room is at the right temperature for your comfort.
If it is too warm you will surely not sleep. If it is cold to the point
of discomfort, you will lie awake. Sixty degrees Fahr., or less, is
a good temperature for a sleeping room. Be sure that the air of your
bedroom is fresh. If it seems stale or stuffy open the windows wide
and either move actively about the room or go into any other one while
this freshening is taking place. It would be much better if the airing
had continued all day and the air were as near the freshness of the
out-of-doors as you could make it.
If your head aches from the strain of the day, a bandage of cracked ice
should drive the excess of blood from the head and permit sleep. If, on
the other hand, you are anæmic, and your feet are cold at night thrust
them into a tub of hot mustard water. Place the elbow in the water
first to test its temperature. If it is too hot for the elbow it will
certainly be too hot for the feet.
If you are annoyed, while lying awake, by a gnawing of the stomach,
proving that it is quite or nearly empty, forestall this by sipping a
cup of gruel before going to bed. This will warm the stomach and quiet
the nerve disturbance, soothing the body for its rest.
A case of protracted insomnia I knew to be cured in this simple and,
it would seem, did I not know the results, trivial manner. Lie flat
upon the bed with a low pillow--or, better, no pillow at all--and
loosen your grip upon your muscles. Uncurl them, so to speak. Relax
as completely as does your house dog when he sleeps with his body
stretched out, nose upon his paws, before the fire. Then breathe very
deeply but gently counting six at each respiration. To aid in this
deep breathing, press one nostril shut by laying the forefinger firmly
against it and drawing the air through the other nostril. Repeat this
a half dozen times, counting six at each drawing in and letting out of
the air.
Call into use the hot-water bottle or the warming pan. Put on your
bedroom slippers if you awake with cold feet. Pretend that you are
sleepy, even though you are not, and let the eyelids slowly close as
though drooping from their own weight or from weariness, over your
eyes. This little device alone has been helpful in cases of insomnia.
The Orientals give us good advice concerning sleep: “Compose yourself.
Be calm. Think on pleasant events before falling asleep,” say they,
“for upon whatever plane of thought you enter sleep you will remain
during your slumber. And those thoughts will stamp themselves upon the
face.”
One of the greatest menaces to feminine beauty to-day is
nervousness--nervousness in all its forms, neuritis, neurasthenia,
nervous prostration, hysteria. All these prove that the little silver
wires have been drawn too taut and that they are at the snapping point.
Old age is the specter that stalks in the path of beauty. It is the
only thing of which beauty is afraid. But nervousness presages age and
the appearance of age. Observe one of your friends after a nervous
attack. She looks ten years older. The tumult of her emotions has
etched ugly new lines in her face, from nose to lips, along the temples
and between the eyes. If she catches sight of her face in the mirror at
such a time she is appalled, for she has a vision of the sort of old
woman she will become.
To keep young, discourage very nervous outbreak. Every woman needs a
calm mental center. She must have some place of spiritual and mental
retreat from her tumult of soul if it is only the reflection: “In a
year it won’t matter.” She should fly to this whenever a tumult of the
nerves threatens. I know a woman who cured her habit of flying into
tempers, which is only another expression of jangled nerves, by saying
over and over to herself:
“It is vulgar to show temper. Whatever else I am I will not be vulgar.”
Her face, which had begun to show the etching of deep, stormy emotions
has become a smooth, beautiful mask, whose expression lies where
expression should, in the flash of a sudden smile and the quick
lighting of brilliant eyes.
Need I recount the symptoms of disordered nerves? Not to mature women.
They know them too well. But for the benefit of my younger readers to
whom nerves are yet happily only names, I will describe a few.
Irritability of temper is one, the most common, and the one which
occasions the least sympathy.
Exceeding sensitiveness, which makes the person prone to take offense
when no offense is intended, is another.
Depression of spirits as often results from tired nerves as from an
overburdened liver.
The habit of “making monkey faces” which I have so often noticed in
American women.
The habit of making many and needless movements. The girl who flings
her head aloft in aimless little gestures may think she is vivacious,
but vivacity is rather of the mind than of the body. She is merely
revealing the unpleasant secret that her nervous system is impaired.
Capricious appetite is one of the symptoms. The nervous patient eats
either too little or too much, and she may eat too little breakfast and
too much dinner on the same day.
Insomnia is a sure and serious sign of derangement of the nerves.
The inability to sit still for a considerable time is still another and
very bad sign that the nerves are as you say here “ragged” or “jumpy.”
I have seen one of your most distinguished and beautiful women suffer
from this inability while at the theater, and to preclude jokes by the
paragraphers, I will explain that it was at a very good play, where no
person in the normal state could possibly be bored. I have seen her
lovely hands twitch in her lap. I have seen her knees create a silken
tempest among the folds of her gown. Into her face I have seen “that
worried look” come, the look that so disfigures the average American
face.
This overwrought state of nerves has many causes. Sometimes it is a bad
heredity. The daughters of men with the alcoholic habit, of overworked
and over-worried financiers, often suffer from this predisposition of
nerves. The daughters of fashionable mothers who laced too tightly or
who followed the will-o’-the-wisp of society too persistently for their
health’s sake, often so suffer.
Stimulants taken by the victim herself often produce it. Beware of
these stimulants in many guises. Some of the headache powders open
the gate to acute nervousness. Don’t use any without your physician’s
endorsement.
But I believe that the chief cause of nervousness is intemperance, not
of alcoholic or other stimulants, but of mental habits. Worry causes a
thousand breakdowns. I never knew work to cause one.
For those symptoms of nervous affection which I have mentioned I have
tried home treatment with success. One of the best methods has been
stretching. Standing on my tiptoes, raising my heels far from the
floor, standing as nearly in that straight line from toe to knee which
Genee does so admirably, as I can, I stretch and stretch my body,
fancying I am an India rubber woman and getting great fun out of trying
just how tall I can make myself. Sometimes I raise my arms above my
head with finger tips extended, and play again that I am trying to
reach the ceiling.
The value in stretching is largely in the pleasure one gets from it.
For this reason I never continue one posture after it has become
tiresome. Dropping to my heels and standing with my soles flat upon the
floor, I stretch the arms out at right angles with the sides. The fact
that one is always moved to yawn with this exercise shows that it is
valuable. For yawning is nature’s violent means of ridding the body of
an excess of impure air and securing a new supply.
If you can yawn naturally, do so while stretching or at any other time.
If you cannot yawn naturally, yawn artificially--that is, simulate a
yawn. It is at least as helpful to respiration as the Turkish bath is
to perspiration. They are both substitutes for the natural process.
Lettuce salad, both at luncheon and dinner, or raw onions eaten with
bread and butter at night before retiring, calm the nerves and aid
sleep.
Light--that is surface--massage is a good corrective for nervousness.
Deep, seeking-the-bone massage, which is used for liver complaint and
for obesity, is too severe for the nervous patient. Besides, so many of
the nerves lie near the skin that the region of the skin is the real
seat of operations for cure. Light massage by coaxing the blood to the
surface and inducing a new and stronger interflow among the nerves,
feeds and strengthens them.
Electrical treatment applied to the seat of the nervous affection, as
well as to the spine, is a means that has stimulated many depressed,
nervous patients. This I advise only under the supervision, or at least
by the direction, of a physician.
Long walks, and for disturbed nerves walking is better than driving,
have cured many cases of nerve exhaustion.
Cold plunges or showers are recommended by many physicians for
diminished nerve force. But the patient should be sure the advice is
adapted to her individual case, and she should be sure of her heart.
Neither the plunge nor the shower should be taken until a physician has
prescribed them.
Cold sprays upon the spine given at Turkish baths are tonic to the
nervous system. They, too, can be applied at home. The rubber tube
fixtures for a spray can be bought for ninety cents, and can take the
place of the expensive shower attachments.
For tic douloreux, for pains at the ends of the nerves, for spinal
affections and for vertigo, one needs the aid of a physician. But in
all nervous affections we must aid the physician by intelligent care of
ourselves and conservation of our energies. Never waste your nervous
force by unnecessary movements.
Deep breathing is helpful in correcting a nervous tendency, and
improving the general health. This is no strange or obscure act. It
is simply breathing as deeply as you can, from the very depths of
your being, “clear to your toes,” a little girl put it--not breathing
shallowly from a space somewhere near the collarbone.
I always recognize a shallow breather at sight. Usually she is round
shouldered. Always she has a pale skin, pinched nostrils, dull eyes and
a languid walk. Always she has little or no magnetism. The magnetic
person is one who is most fully alive.
But how to acquire the habit of deep breathing is the important thing.
Summon imagination to your aid. Stand at the open window or go to a
garden or to a roof where the air is purest, and imagine that you smell
the fragrance of a rose. Determine to draw into your being all the
fragrance you can gather.
Stand erect and draw in as much air as your lungs seem capable of
holding. Hold that breath; that is, keep the air in the lungs so that
it may do its cleansing work, while you count five. That is equivalent
to five seconds. Gently empty the lungs of the air. Then slowly fill
the lungs again, hold as long as you can and slowly expel the air. You
will learn to hold the breath longer and longer. Expert and experienced
deep breathers can hold the air newly taken into the lungs for fifty
seconds. But no beginner in the art should expect, nor try to do this.
At first the practice may cause a sensation of dizziness. But this is
not alarming. On the other hand, it is encouraging. It means that the
poor, pale, ill-nourished brain is receiving as large a blood supply as
it needs and it will soon become used to your new generosity.
If you are not so situated that you can get to a garden, a roof or
open window, try to go alone to a room where you can recline for a few
minutes. There let the muscles become limp. Folding the arms above the
breast or clasping the hands loosely above the stomach will aid this.
To be sure that both nostrils are doing perfect work, press one shut
by placing the finger against it and breathing through the other.
Generally you will discover that the left nostril draws a larger
volume of air through it than does the right. I have noticed it very
frequently while doing my deep breathing.
Test the correctness of your breathing by placing your hands against
your abdomen. If its walls rise and fall regularly and in obedience
to every breath, you are doing deep breathing. If not, you have not
mastered the art.
In two weeks, by repeating these exercises six or eight times a day for
two or three minutes each time, you will not only have learned how,
but you will have derived such benefit from it that you would not ever
forget giving up so healthful and improving a practice.
What does it do for one? I can hear as an echo this question,
impatiently put by practical American women. That is the feminine
variation of the question often heard in America: “What do I get out of
it?”
You get out of it free, well developed lungs. You get chest expansion.
You get, if you begin early enough, immunity from that dread disease,
tuberculosis. You get quieted nerves and an improved temper. You get
pure blood which will make your complexion clear. You energize the
whole body and stimulate your vital forces.