How to Live Part 9

Methods of preventing or correcting overstrain vary greatly, according to the kinds of overstrain. In general, overstrain of any kind tends to overfatigue. Overstrain is to be avoided, therefore, by paying heed to Nature's fatigue-signals as soon as they appear. A very moderate degree of fatigue is perhaps normal, but anything that approaches exhaustion should be avoided with the utmost care.

[Sidenote: Working Hours]

Working hours should be so arranged as to enable the worker to fully recuperate overnight, partly from sleep and partly from the recreation enjoyed in leisure between work and sleep.

[Sidenote: Variety of Work]

Variety of work is especially needed in modern times, when specialization tends to lead men to extremes. Changes in work which prevent a sense of monotony will greatly increase the power to work. A clerk will do more work, and do it more effectively, if he is occasionally allowed something else to do than to foot up columns.

[Sidenote: Monotony and Interruption]

If the monotonous strain of performing numerical additions is interrupted a few times daily, the adding faculty of the brain is given much needed rest. Many men in the higher rank of workers complain of the many interruptions which they suffer, but if they would welcome these interruptions instead of allowing themselves to be irritated by them, each interruption would serve the purpose of a vacation. It is in this way that some of the greatest workers, like Gladstone, have been enabled to accomplish so much.

The strain of modern life is sometimes special rather than general.

Often the strain comes on some one muscle or organ. Modern industry is so const.i.tuted that the individual strains one part of the body while other parts are in need of exercise.

[Sidenote: Eye-strain]

One of the organs which is most commonly strained in modern life is the eye. In its modern use, the eye is constantly focusing at a short distance. To look at the horizon is a rest. The reflex evils from eye-strain are great and numerous and are often incorrectly ascribed to entirely different causes. Headaches, nausea, and dizziness are especially frequent results of eye-strain. Probably some of the breakdowns in middle life are due primarily to the reflex effect of eye-strain.

Eye-strain is to be prevented by scientifically adapted spectacles, by care to secure the right kind of illumination, and in some cases by systematically resting the eyes. Reading on moving trains or looking for a long time at moving pictures may overstrain the eye. One should be especially careful not to read in a waning light or, on the other hand, to read in the glare of the sun. If one works facing a window, it is advisable to wear an eye-shade; otherwise there is a struggle between the tendency of the bright light to close the pupil and the tendency of the work requirement to keep it open.

To offset the evils of a sedentary life, it is advisable to spend one hour daily, or at least 15 minutes, in some kind of vigorous physical exercises.

[Sidenote: Mechanical Home Exerciser]

The rowing-machine is probably the most beneficial form of mechanical home exercise that is likely to be followed faithfully. Simple stretching in bed when one wakes up is helpful, especially if combined with breathing exercises.

[Sidenote: Stimulating Heart and Lungs]

The most beneficial exercise, as a rule, is that which stimulates the heart and lungs, such as running, rapid walking, hill-climbing and swimming. These should, of course, be graduated in intensity with varying age and varying degrees of vitality.

[Sidenote: Exercise after Meals]

Gentle muscular activity after meals promotes normal digestion and should be practised for a quarter or half an hour after each meal, but violent exercises immediately after meals should be avoided, as a large amount of blood is then engaged by the digestive system.

[Sidenote: Outdoor Exercise in Winter]

A very important fact for the average man to take into consideration is that, whereas he naturally gets considerable out-of-door exercise in summer, he allows it to lapse in the winter. Such a decided change in the amount of exercise is dangerous and should be avoided by taking regular gymnasium exercise. Even though a gymnasium is not elaborately equipped, use can be made of such games as hand-ball, volley-ball and other available games.

[Sidenote: Enthusiasm in Exercise]

Systematic exercise is important and beneficial, even when the individual finds it uninteresting. The idea, which is now spread abroad, that exercise in which one is not emotionally interested is of no benefit, is quite incorrect. A gentleman who had this opinion was challenged to test it and speedily changed his mind. For an entire winter he faithfully attended a gymnasium, though it was an unceasing bore to him. To his surprise, he found that he had never spent a winter in such good health.

But, although exercise when self-imposed is wholesome, exercise to which one is naturally attracted is more so. Golf, horse-back riding, tennis, usually inspire enthusiasm, and enthusiasm itself is healthful. Walking may also do so, if the walk has an object, as in mountain-climbing, when often the artistic feelings may be enlisted in the sport. Working out an ideal stroke in rowing, perfecting one's game in polo or other sports, are other examples.

[Sidenote: The Greek Ideal]

[Sidenote: Injuries from College Athletics]

The Greeks lifted their sports to a higher level than ours by surrounding them with imagination and making them a training in esthetics as well as in physical excellence. The American idea is too closely connected with the mere wish to win and the performance of mere "stunts" and not enough with the idea of beauty of physique and control of the body. There is acc.u.mulating considerable evidence that college athletics often seriously injure those who engage in them, although they were originated and encouraged for precisely the opposite effect. The value of exercise consists not in developing large muscles nor in accomplis.h.i.+ng athletic feats, but in attaining physical poise, symmetry of form, and the harmonious adjustment of the various parts of the body, as well as in furthering the proper activity of cell-tissues and organs and the elimination of waste products.

Even those whose work is largely muscular, unless it involves most of the muscular system, may do well to exercise the unused muscles--although Nature herself produces to some extent the necessary compensation by what is known as the "law of synergic movement," by which unused muscles profit by the exercise of those which are used.

[Sidenote: Exercise of the Mind, Will and Emotions]

Not only the functions of the body but those of the mind require exercise--exercise in thinking, feeling, and willing. A person who does not read or think loses some of his ability to read or think. The physical worker, for instance, often allows his mind to become dull and sodden. The accountant adds up figures all day and has no chance to exercise his judgment or other mental faculties. In the same way a person who does not exercise his artistic, poetic, or affectional side will suffer its atrophy. The plaint of Darwin that he had allowed his taste for music and poetry to atrophy could to-day be made by many intellectual specialists. Good music is especially healthful.

The exercise of the will is of first importance. Many young people to-day are brought up so well protected that they have lost the power to decide for themselves. Will is exercised every time a decision is made.

One of the advantages of all games is that they require decision by the players. A game like baseball calls out the exercise of almost every power. It requires the mind to play, the emotions to enjoy, the will to decide, the muscles to act, and all in mutual coordination.

[Sidenote: The Avocation]

Since the work of most people is likely to produce some unhygienic element which can not be avoided, a compensation should be sought in an avocation or "hobby," to be practised out of regular working hours. The avocation should be far removed from the nature of the regular work.

Often the avocation can serve a productive purpose. Gladstone and Horace Greeley sawed wood or chopped down trees for recreation. A well-known engineer divided his recreation between writing stories and painting pictures.

[Sidenote: Enjoy Recreation]

But one should beware of turning his play itself into work. Some people read Shakespeare to "improve their mind," and make as hard work of it as though they were studying geometry. We should enjoy our recreations for their own sake, or else they are not recreations. All work and no play make not only dull boys but dull men and women.

[Sidenote: Pleasures of Walking]

In some form, every one can secure recreation. If one can not play golf, or polo, or tennis, or swim, or climb the Alps, at least he can walk, and, if he tries, he can do so in good company on interesting highways and byways.

[Sidenote: Games]

Recreations in which more persons than one take part are far superior in this respect to those of a solitary nature. They require a give and take, a matching of wits, a feeling of rivalry, and at the same time, companions.h.i.+p.

Plays and moving pictures of the right character and free from morbid suggestions, if enjoyed in moderation, are hygienic. Comedy is generally more wholesome than tragedy. Laughter lengthens life; tears do not.

The proper kind of reading is often a most beneficial type of recreation.

[Sidenote: Morbid Literature]

It is best for the average individual to avoid literature that deals with the morbid and pathological, that depicts and a.n.a.lyzes abnormal psychological conditions. Such studies are better left for alienists.

Literature of mawkish sentimentality should also be avoided. Within the range of sound literature there is a wide choice of abundant material affording healthful mental suggestions.

[Sidenote: Dancing]

Dancing combines wholesome exercise, social enjoyment, and the acquirement of skill and grace, but it is seldom of much hygienic value because it is frequently overdone, and often involves bad air and loss of sleep. In one large plant where the employes were examined by the Life Extension Inst.i.tute, the management regarded the harmful effect of dancing as their chief obstacle to efficiency. Many of the large force of girls and women were accustomed to dance until late in the night, bringing on a condition of chronic fatigue.

[Sidenote: Card-playing]

Card-playing and similar games afford wholesome mental recreation for some persons. However, they, too, are liable to be a.s.sociated with late hours, and other disadvantages even when they do not degenerate into gambling. Card-playing, dancing, and many other popular forms of amus.e.m.e.nt often border on dissipation.

[Sidenote: Suicidal Amus.e.m.e.nt]

Amus.e.m.e.nts which weaken and degrade are not hygienic. Many who need amus.e.m.e.nt make the fatal mistake of getting it in suicidal ways, in the saloons, dives, and the low dance-halls.