CHAPTER IV. Activity

ACTIVITY

Section I--Work, Play, Rest and Sleep

In order to live a hygienic life it is not only necessary, as shown in the foregoing three chapters, to supply the body with wholesome substances and to exclude unwholesome substances, but it is also necessary that the body should at times act, and at other times be inactive. There are two great forms of activity, work and play; and two great forms of inactivity, rest and sleep. All four of these are needed in the healthy life and in due relation to each other.

The whole personality should be utilized and energized in a daily rhythm. When, as too often happens, the equilibrium and mutual proportions of the various wholesome elements in a well-rounded life have been lost, the balance should be restored if possible the next day. If a physician has had his sleep broken, he should aim to make it up at the earliest opportunity. If the afternoon exercise has had to be omitted, an extra amount should be taken as soon as possible. Some people find that while it is difficult to live a complete life every single day, it is quite within their power to give every element its due proportion in each week, taken as a whole. To go a step farther, when the balance has not been kept even in a week as a whole, the next week should be modified to compensate. But it is ideal to make the day, not the week, the unit. It is almost as absurd to relegate all our exercise to Saturday afternoon as to do all our eating on Sunday.

It is distinctly unhealthful either to overdo or to underdo work, play, rest, or sleep. "Moderation in all things" is a rule that is particularly important in this realm. Not all people are in need of exercise, nor are all in need of rest; but almost every one needs to change his proportion between the two. To-day many people are suffering from too much or too little work. For instance, the increase in diseases of the heart is often due to nervous overstrain combined with either too much or too little physical exertion.

The remedy for the evils of idleness is obviously to find some useful work which will inspire real interest and enthusiasm. There are few things more necessary to a normal healthy life than to have purposeful work. A great dream or ambition in life often obviates personal ailments and nullifies their potency. Work, when done with zest, is a wonderful tonic. Exertion of any kind is usually pleasurable at first, and becomes drudgery only when too far protracted.

Normal work is one of the greatest blessings of life, but too many miss the joy of it, some because their work has gone to the extreme of drudgery and others because it has shrunk into nothingness and futility. Sometimes people become ill because their personality, hungry for work, is given nothing but introspection to feed upon. This is the self-imposed curse of the idle rich.

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.

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.

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.

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 constituted that the individual strains one part of the body while other parts are in need of exercise.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 accumulating 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 accomplishing 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, companionship.

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.

It is best for the average individual to avoid literature that deals with the morbid and pathological, that depicts and analyzes 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.

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 Institute, 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.

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

Amusements which weaken and degrade are not hygienic. Many who need amusement make the fatal mistake of getting it in suicidal ways, in the saloons, dives, and the low dance-halls.

Play is simply a half way stage between work and rest. In a hygienic life there must be a certain amount of actual rest. Every bodily power requires rest after exertion. The heart rests between beats. The muscles require relaxation after every contraction. The man who is always tense in muscle and nerve is wearing himself out.

The power to relax, when fatigue requires it, is one of the most important safeguards one can possess. Lying down when tired is a good rule. A very hard-working college president when asked about the secret of his working-power and length of life replied, "My secret is that I never ran when I could walk, never walked when I could stand, never stood when I could sit, and never sat when I could lie down."

Such rules as these are valuable, of course, only when the requirements of one's occupation tend toward ceaseless activity. For idle and lazy people the rule should be reversed--never to lie down when one could sit, never to sit when one could stand, never to stand when one could walk, and never to walk when one could run! A complete life must have all in due proportion. Relaxation is only a short vacation, as it were, between two activities.

Bathing and swimming supply, in their numerous forms, examples of both healthful activity and relaxation. A cold spray or shower, alternated with hot, affords excellent gymnastics for the skin. A very hot bath, lasting only a minute, or even a hot foot-bath, is restful in cases of general fatigue. The most restful of all is a neutral, that is, tepid, bath of about the body-heat (beginning at 97 or 98 degrees and not allowed to drop more than 5 degrees and continued as long as convenient).

The wonderful nervous relaxation induced by neutral baths is an excellent substitute for sleep in case of sleeplessness, and often induces sleep as well. Neutral baths are now used not only in cases of insomnia and extreme nervous irritability, but also in cases of acute mania. When sleep occurs in a neutral bath, it is particularly restful. A physician who often sleeps in the bath tub expresses this fact by saying that "he sleeps faster" there than in bed.

Sleep may also be induced by monotonous sound, or lack of sound, or the monotonous holding of the attention. Keeping awake is due to continued change and interruption or arrest of the attention.

Exercise taken in the afternoon will often promote sleep at night in those who find sleep difficult. Slow, deep, rhythmic breathing is useful when wakeful, partly as a substitute for sleep, partly as an inducer of sleep.

Sleep is Nature's great rejuvenator, and the health-seeker should avail himself of it to the full. Our sleep should not only be sufficient in duration but also in intensity, and should be regular.

The number of hours of sleep generally needed varies with circumstances. The average is seven to nine. In general one should sleep when sleepy and not try to sleep more. Growing children require more sleep than grown-ups. Parents often foolishly sacrifice their children's sleep by compelling them to rise early for farm "chores," or in order to sell papers, or for other "useful" purposes.

One's best sleep is with the stomach empty. It is true that food puts one to sleep at first, by diverting blood from the head; but it disturbs sleep later. Water, unless it induces bladder-action during the night, or even fruit, may be taken without injury before retiring. If one goes to bed with an empty stomach, he can often get along well with six or seven hours' sleep, but if he goes to bed soon after a hearty meal, he usually needs from eight to ten hours' sleep.

It has already been pointed out that sleeping outdoors is more restful than sleeping indoors.

A pillow is not a necessity if one sleeps lying prone with one arm extended above the head and the leg opposite drawn up. This sleeping attitude can easily be reversed to the opposite side. It has one advantage over pillow-sleeping, that of not tending to round shoulders. This prone position is often used now for infants, but is seldom enjoyed by adults.

A modern "hard" bed is far preferable to the old-fashioned soft (and hot) feather bed.

The character of sleep depends largely on the mental attitude on going to bed. One should get into the habit of absolutely dropping work and cares at bed-time. If then one suggests to himself the pleasantest thought which memory or imagination can conjure up, his sleep is likely to be far more peaceful and restful than if he takes his worries to bed, to keep him awake until sleep comes in spite of them, and to continue to plague him in his dreams. If one is worried, it is a good plan to read something diverting, but not exciting, just before retiring.