When you are really awake and have had a good look to see what kind of
morning it is, you will feel like yawning and stretching, and rubbing
your eyes four or five times, before you jump out of bed; and it is a
good plan to take plenty of time to do this, unless you are already
late for breakfast or school. It starts your heart to beating and your
lungs to breathing faster; and it limbers your muscles, so that you
are ready for the harder work they must do as soon as you jump out of
bed and begin to walk about and bathe and dress and run and play.
When you jump out of bed, throw back the covers and turn them over the
foot of the bed, so that the air and the sunlight can get at every
part of them and make them clean and fresh and sweet to cover you at
night again. Though you may not know it, all night long, while you
have been asleep, your skin has been at work cleaning and purifying
your blood, pouring out gases and a watery vapor that we call
_perspiration_, or _sweat_; and these impurities have been caught by
the sheets and blankets. So after a bed has been slept in for four or
five nights, if it has not been thrown well open in the morning, it
begins to have a stuffy, foul, sourish smell. You can see from this
why it is a bad thing to sleep with your head under the bedclothes, as
people sometimes do, or even to pull the blankets up over your head,
because you are frightened at something or are afraid that your ears
will get cold. Your breath has poisonous gases in it, as well as your
perspiration; and the two together make the air under the bedclothes
very bad.
Now you are ready to wash and dress. But before you do this, it is a
good thing to take off your nightdress, or turn it down to your waist
and tie it there with the sleeves, and go through some good swinging
and "windmill" movements with your arms and shoulders and back.
(1) Swing your arms round and round like the sails of a windmill;
first both together, then one in one direction, and the other in the
other.
(2) Hold your arms straight out in front of you, and swing them
backward until the backs of your hands strike behind your back.
(3) Hold your arms straight out on each side, clench your fists, and
then smartly bend your elbows so that you almost strike yourself on
both shoulders, and repeat quickly twenty or thirty times.
(4) Swing your arms, out full length, across your chest five or ten
times.
(5) Swing forward and down with your arms stretched out, until the
tips of your fingers touch the floor.
(6) Set your feet a little apart, swing forward and downward again,
until your hands swing back between your ankles.
[Illustration: STARTING THE DAY]
When you come back from these down-swings, bend just as far back as
you can without losing your balance, so that you put all the muscles
along the front of your body on the stretch; and then swing down again
between your ankles. This will help to tone up all your muscles, and
limber all your joints, and set your blood to circulating well, and
give you a good start for the day.