CHAPTER XII
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.