XII
BREATHING AND EXERCISE
We have devoted most of our space to the problems of nutrition, since nutrition is the most important factor in the question of how to keep in health. We wish now to speak of other matters, of great importance in the art of keeping well; these are breathing, bathing, and exercise.
Many people have lived for more than a month without food. You can go for days without water. But if you are deprived of air for but a few minutes, your death is certain. Sixteen to eighteen times a minute the normal person respires, one breath being taken for every four beats of the heart, the central engine of life. Each time you breathe, the amount of air which passes into the lungs is about twenty-five cubic inches; which represent, however, but a small part of the actual capacity of the lungs. The average man can take into the lungs with an ordinary inspiration one hundred or more cubic inches, and is able to force out an equal amount with an ordinary expiration. If you have striven your utmost to expel all the air possible from your lungs, there will still remain about one hundred cubic inches of air within them. The total lung capacity of the average man is about three hundred and twenty-five cubic inches, or nearly one and a half gallons of air.
THE INDISPENSABILITY OF OXYGEN
Sunlight is the basis of all life. It is sunlight which plants absorb, and which they transform into materials which go to make up the living tissues of all things. The place of breathing in the process of life is manifold. But its primary function is to make available for the body’s uses the sunlight, or energy, which is stored up in the food we eat. It does this by means of the oxygen which it contains, and the purpose of breathing is to obtain from the air an adequate supply of oxygen. Oxygen is one of the essential materials required for the support of life. Without oxygen the whole life process would come to an end. From every breath that is taken into the body, about one and a quarter cubic inches of oxygen must be obtained by the body, to keep up the fire of life within us. You cannot burn a match, or your reading lamp in the evening, unless there is an adequate supply of oxygen; and even so does the body require this indispensable and all powerful element in order to maintain itself.
We have noted the fact that of the myriads upon myriads of swarming cells which the blood contains, a large proportion are the oxygen-conveyers. When you take air into your lungs, these cells absorb the precious element, and rush with it to all parts of the body. After distributing the oxygen wherever it is needed, they pick up for the return journey to the lungs all manner of débris and gases—the poisons which are produced by the organs of the body as they carry on their work. As Metchnikoff has shown us, it is the accumulation of poisons produced by the activity of our various organs which, unless properly disposed of, or kept below excessive quantities, bring about premature old age, the majority of all diseases, and early death. The amount of poisons which the average person throws off from the body with a single breath, as has been shown by delicate laboratory experiments, is enough to contaminate and render unfit for breathing three cubic feet or three-quarters of a barrel of air. Assuming an average of twenty breaths per minute, which is the normal rate for breathing for adults, the amount of air each person contaminates per minute will be sixty cubic feet, or one cubic foot a second.
If you hold your breath for a minute, you will be conscious of an extremely unpleasant feeling, which is the way in which the body manifests its urgent need for oxygen. The need of ventilation is not merely the need of oxygen, however. There may be plenty of oxygen in the air of a room which has been closed for some time, and which has been breathed in and out of the lungs of the people in the room; the trouble is that this oxygen is unfit for breathing, being full of impurities thrown off by the bodies of these people.
HOW TO CALCULATE ROOM VENTILATION
Dr. Kellogg has supplied some exceedingly useful calculations of the degree of ventilation needed in rooms of various sizes. “Every one,” he says, “should become intelligent in relation to the matter of ventilation, and should appreciate its importance. Vast and sometimes irreparable injury frequently results from the confinement of several scores or hundreds of people in a school room, church or lecture room, without adequate means of removing the impurities thrown off from their lungs and bodies. The same air being breathed over and over becomes intensely charged with poisons which render the blood impure, lessen resistance and induce susceptibility to taking cold and to infection with germs of pneumonia, consumption and other infectious diseases which are always present in a very crowded audience room.
“Suppose, for example, a thousand persons are seated in a room forty feet in width, sixty in length, and fifteen in height; how long a time would elapse before the air of such a room would become unfit for further respiration? Remembering that each person spoils one foot of air every second, it is clear that one thousand cubic feet of air will be contaminated for every second that the room is occupied. To ascertain the number of seconds which would elapse before the entire air contained in the room will be contaminated, so that it is unfit for further breathing, we have only to divide the cubic contents of the room by one thousand. Multiplying, we have 60 × 40 × 15 equals 36,000, the number of cubic feet. This, divided by one thousand, gives thirty-six as the number of seconds. Thus it appears that with closed doors and windows breath poisoning of the audience would begin at the end of thirty-six seconds, or less than one minute. The condition of the air in such a room at the end of an hour cannot be adequately pictured in words, and yet hundreds of audiences are daily subjected to just such inhumane treatment through the ignorance or stupidity of architects, or the carelessness of janitors, or the criminal negligence of both.”
TUBERCULOSIS POINTS THE MORAL
No circumstance has been more successful in impressing the great importance of fresh air and adequate ventilation upon the public mind than the success which has attended the open air cure for consumption. This is a mode of treatment of comparatively recent adoption in America, but it is by this time generally recognized as really the only possible cure for tuberculosis. The mortality from this disease is greater than any except pneumonia; another disease that proper breathing habits will do much to avert. In America one person in every nine dies of tuberculosis; and of the deaths which occur between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, one-third are due to the great white plague. We give these figures on the authority of Professor Irving Fisher of Yale, who is Secretary of the New Haven AntiTuberculosis Association. His interest in this disease is that of one who has had it, and who has cured it by the open air treatment. Of the authors of this book, one has had an experience similar to Professor Fisher. There is nothing academic about this insistence on the need of fresh air and proper breathing habits; literally, and in the fullest degree, it is a question of life and death whether you shall breathe properly, and have good air to breathe, or whether you shall not.
HOW BREATHING AIDS THE BATTLE OF THE BLOOD
To return for a moment to the processes of breathing, we find that the act of inflating the lungs is a blood-pumping process as well. This blood-pumping process has a great effect upon the struggle of the white soldiers of the blood to maintain the body against the inroads of disease. Each time that the wall of the chest is elevated after the lungs have been emptied, a suction force is exerted upon the large veins which enter the chest, especially those which come in through the abdominal cavity. “At the same moment,” to quote Dr. Kellogg again, “the downward pressure of the diaphragm by which the liver, stomach, and other abdominal organs are compressed against the muscular walls of the abdomen, serves to force the blood from below upward, emptying the venous blood of the abdominal cavity into the chest, thus helping it toward the heart. The more tense and well developed the muscles of the abdominal wall and the stronger the muscles of respiration, the stronger will be this upward movement of the blood. When the abdominal muscles are weakened by improper dress, by corsets, tight lacing, or by wearing of belts or bands or by sedentary habits, especially sitting in a stooped position, the weakened muscles yield to the downward pressure of the diaphragm, thus neutralizing to a large degree the beneficial influence of this action. This condition is unquestionably a cause of chronic disease of the liver and stomach, inactive bowels, and possibly lays the foundation of cirrhosis of the liver, spleen, and other grave disorders of the abdominal region.”
It is very obvious how deep breathing will thus influence the vigor of the blood’s army of cells. Deep breathing forces the blood to rush into the lungs, there to be charged with oxygen. Without this oxygen the white cells die. Vigorous breathing also directly aids digestion, and promotes the absorption of food materials. Those who have slow digestion will find that breathing exercises will be of especial benefit. In ordinary breathing of a quiet person, the movements of the chest are so slight as to be scarcely noticeable, but when vigorous breathing is indulged in, the diaphragm as it moves up and down kneads the stomach and its contents and, very materially, assists the digestive organs.
HAVE FRESH AIR AT NIGHT
During sleeping hours the breathing movements are slighter and slower than when one is awake and active. It is necessary that the activity of the body should be lessened in order that rest may be secured; and yet the work of the liver, kidneys, and other organs which are engaged in throwing off poisons goes on continually; as does also the repairing work of the living cells, which are forever building up the parts of the body broken down by work or sickness. For some six to nine hours the body is thus occupied in resting and repairing itself, in order that on the next day it may respond like a living machine to the demand of the conscious mind. We should do all in our power to help on this recuperative process; and no way will be more effective than to sleep, out of doors, or with the head at a window, or at least in a well-ventilated room.
There are a great number of breathing exercises described in various books on the subject, but the best breathing exercise is natural breathing. If the head is kept erect, and the shoulders low so that the chest is upright; if breathing is carried on through the nostrils, and the habit of deep breathing carefully cultivated—there will be no need for special exercises, save in the case of invalids. The most effective of all breathing exercises is to run or walk rapidly, or walk up a hill, or up stairs, if these be in the open air, with the head well back. This exercise heightens the action of the lungs, and all parts of the body are flooded with fresh air.
HOW EXERCISE AIDS THE BATTLE OF THE BLOOD
The question of breathing properly is intimately bound up with the question of exercise. The best of all exercise is play. All games in the open air which a person takes part in for the love of them far surpass the cleverest and most scientific sets of rules which physiologists have ever evolved. Unconscious performance of all the functions of the body is the ideal of hygiene. Exercise aids the battle of life within us in a direct manner. Exercise breaks down worn out tissue, making room for new and healthy tissue. It increases the rate of oxidation or burning up of fuel within us, and this in its turn enables the body to get rid of waste of material. Exercise also increases the strength and endurance of the muscles and fibres.
When muscles become weak, they relax and allow various portions of the body to drop into positions which are not only ungraceful, but are decidedly injurious. When the muscles are not used and become flabby, the shoulders get rounded and drop forward through the weakness of the muscles which are intended to hold them back in position. The ribs which form the framework of the chest not being properly sustained by the muscles attached to them, gradually fall inward, thus flattening the chest, and compressing the lungs. There is a very close connection between gracefulness of carriage and sound bodily health.
The person who lounges, or slouches, be it ever so picturesquely, does so at the expense of the body. Proper exercise will prevent these physical defects, and will remedy them in most persons who have not yet attained middle age. Even in advanced years, say the physiologists, much may be done to correct these physical deformities by properly directed and systematic exercises.
EXERCISES MAKE NEW BLOOD
Exercise has another most important task in supplying an adequate amount of blood to the bones of the body, in order that these bones may carry on their work of manufacturing fresh blood for the use of the body. Unless these bones are bathed with the already existing blood of the body, which carries to them oxygen and nourishment, the process of manufacturing new blood, which goes on within the marrow of the bones, would quickly cease. It has been demonstrated by science that muscular activity increases the blood flow through the muscles as many as six times.
Here, then, lies perhaps the first hope for supplying new blood to any body which has begun to deteriorate through the accumulation of poisons emanating from the large intestine, or from the other organs. Exercise will supply the blood-producing bone marrow with six times as much raw material to make new blood as a sedentary mode of life would produce, and at the same time this six-times-strengthened flood will wash out of the crevices of the bones and muscles and fibres the stored up poisons. For these purposes, the exercises which move the large muscle masses are the most helpful. Dr. Benton A. Colver, of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, to whom we are indebted for assistance in preparing this chapter, names the following exercises as being beneficial for this purpose:
Low knee bending, stretching and heel sinking, and heel raising; lying on the floor with the weight supported by toes and hands, and lowering and raising the body; raising the body by the arms, holding to a bar above the head; walking with a vigorous stride, and running and swimming.
Of all these exercises, swimming is theoretically the best, for the reason that it exercises equally all the muscle masses in the body, and requires the best balanced of all movements. Walking and running come next in the order of excellence, simply for the reason that they can be carried on best in the open air and without the bother that may accompany the performance of more formal exercises.
EXERCISES WHICH RETARD AUTO-INTOXICATION
Another way in which exercise directly helps the battle of the blood within us, is by assisting such organs of body-poison elimination as the spleen, the liver, and the portal system of veins. It is in these organs that the exhausted blood is broken up and cast off. The blood in these organs is loaded with broken down tissue and other waste material from the body, and is contaminated with gases and poisons. In the body of the person who leads a sedentary life a great volume of blood settles in these organs and is prematurely put out of use.
Proper exercises will empty this great tank of stagnant blood as easily as a sponge is emptied by the pressure of the hand. This passive blood, having access to all the organs of digestion, is largely responsible for the supply of inferior digestive juices, and thus is a leading factor in indigestion, loss of appetite, and such diseases as catarrh of the stomach and bowels. If, however, this blood is pumped on as it should be to the heart and lungs, there to be cleansed, the fresh blood rushes in to fill its place, armed by the activity of the lungs with its life-giving ammunition of oxygen.
By persistently keeping up this emptying and filling of the portal veins, and of the spleen and liver, the old cinders left from the oxidation of food are washed away, new digestive juices are formed, and the whole tone of the body is improved. For such purposes such exercises as the following are extremely valuable:
Stand erect and, with the hands on hips, bend the trunk forward, backward, and sideward, keeping the legs stiff. Trunk rotation, performed by bending forward and then describing as large a circle as possible with the head thrown first to the right and then to the left, and bending the trunk backward as far as possible when that segment of the arc is reached; lying on the back and raising first the head, second the feet, with bent knees, and third, the feet with straight legs. These exercises stretch the diaphragm against the liver and portal vein, and thus squeeze out the blood from these organs and send it back to the heart and lungs.
EXERCISES WHICH PROMOTE DEEP BREATHING
A third manner in which exercise directly assists the battle of the blood is by increasing heart action and deep breathing. Exercises which accomplish these functions insure an abundant supply of oxygen to the blood and the tissues. In this manner, more heat will be produced in the active tissues, and the blood current will carry this beneficial glow of heat to the most distant parts. This toning up of the “heating system” will be evidenced by the appearance of perspiration. When skin and lung activity are thus increased, the accumulated wastes of the body are quickly eliminated.
The person who takes vigorous exercise in the open air such as playing games like tennis or golf, or who walks vigorously, will have no need for formal breathing exercises. For those, however, who cannot readily obtain outdoor exercises the natural way, the following chest movements and breathing exercises are recommended. They should be taken with the body free from tight clothing, and either in the open air or a well-ventilated room. First, raise the hands above the head as far as they can reach, and then bring them forward and upward several times, and then upward and downward on the side of the head, inhaling on the uplifting of the arms, exhaling on the sinking of the arms. When the arms are lifted above the head, opportunity is given for the air inhaled to reach the upper part of the lungs, parts which in the sedentary person are very rarely used, and where usually the germs of tuberculosis begin their evil work. Arm extension forward, breathing deeply with arms carried sideward and backward, at shoulder height. If those who exercise in their rooms will be careful to breathe only through the nose and will keep the head erect, they will find that the performance of almost any set of exercises will serve also as breathing exercises, since they will increase lung activity.