My secrets of beauty

EXERCISES THAT HELP MAKE YOU BEAUTIFUL

THERE are exercises that reconstruct, build over, and there are exercises that destroy, chiefly by excess. I am going to tell you of the first sort. The second may be dismissed as violent exercises. Violence is always a destroyer of beauty. Excessive exercise with heavy dumbbells, whose weight exceeds the strength of the person wielding them, I mention as one of the worst of these destroyers.

I have before said, and I am glad to have an opportunity to repeat, that I disapprove of heavy exercise for women. Extreme physical effort taxes the strength and leaves its marks upon the countenance, writing the heavy, disfiguring characters of fatigue. It overdevelops the muscles, robbing the figure of its soft, delicate outline, making it bumpy, unseemly and masculine.

Exercise for women should have three aims. First, securing as much fresh air as is needed for health. Second, as much motion and adjustment of the internal organs as are needed for health. Third, for the correction of such habits as are threatening to the health and disfiguring to the beauty. A good eclectic system of exercises serves all these purposes.

A simple exercise that I have long used when I noticed a tendency of the shoulders to sag forward is to place my arms behind me, bend them at the elbows and thrust between the back and the elbows my brother’s cane. When he rebelled or when he and his precious cane were absent, I used my own umbrella or sunshade. The temporary support drew the shoulders far back and expanded the lungs so greatly that it became my favorite exercise. In this attitude I walk about the room many times, or, standing before the open window, tightly close my lips and breathe deeply. This I continue for fifteen minutes, unless my arms grow very weary, in which case I cease for the time, beginning again in a few minutes when I have rested. In all exercises I stop short of the point of fatigue.

For a sagging abdomen, slow, regular bending exercises are best. Stand with the arms raised above the head and the palms forward. Keep the elbows straight. With a slow, sweeping motion bend forward until the tips of the fingers reach the floor in front of you. This is difficult, especially for the stout and those with muscles stiffened from lack of use.

When you have mastered this exercise, by practise, thrust the hands clasped at the finger points as far back between the knees as you can. In this way a semicircle is described at one sweeping motion, and the abdominal muscles are strengthened at the same time and the abdominal organs stimulated.

For inactive, heavy back muscles the rotary trunk motion is best. Bend the body forward from the waist line, and swing the upper part of the body slowly around as though the waist were a pivot. Move the trunk slowly to the right as far as it will go, then to the left as far as possible. Sway slowly from the extreme right to left and back again, being careful not to wrench the body. These last two exercises are invaluable for setting sluggish intestines at work.

Hundreds of queries are sent me putting in various ways the one essential question: “What shall I do for a muddy complexion?” Let me answer all those questions now and briefly. Set your sluggish liver to work. The exercises I have just described will aid in that most necessary work. So will walks long enough for sufficient exercise, yet not long enough to exhaust you.

If all these, together with much water-drinking, fail to correct the liver-marked complexion, this will be assuredly helpful: Standing perfectly erect, raise the right arm as high as you can, stretching the left arm downward at the same time. Reverse this motion, and alternate the two. This air-sawing, done rapidly, will bestir the laziest liver.

For chronic indigestion I recommend walking, varied by rope-jumping. After a brisk walk, return to your room and, resting briefly, jump the rope from twenty to fifty times. Your strength must determine the number. It is better to begin with ten times and increase the number to fifty, or even seventy-five, as you become accustomed to the unusual exercise.

A favorite exercise of mine is the simple, easy one of sitting straight. Sitting straight develops the habit of poise. I sit every day before a mirror, and at sufficient distance from it so that I can see my reflection at full length. I note whether my chest is high or drooping. If high, I know that my figure is at normal. If drooping, I at once seek the cane or umbrella of which I have spoken and take the shoulder and chest raising exercise I first described, and which I call my “uplifting” exercise.

This I vary by clasping my hands behind and letting the head rest in them as a cup, while I inhale and exhale profoundly, moving the head slowly in its socket of clasped hands from one side to the other.

Swinging about on my revolving dressing stool, I note closely and critically my profile from brow to toe. If my chin tends to sag, seems by the slightest tendency to sag, I lift it as high as I can and, closing my teeth tightly, draw the backs of my hands alternately across it. I repeat this exercise fifty times, until the chin tingles and I know that the renewed circulation is doing its work of restoring the firmness of the muscles. My chin, I may explain, seldom displays the pendulous tendency, for I sleep with a very low pillow or no pillow at all. The high pillow I regard as one of the greatest enemies of beauty, for it causes curving shoulders and heavy chin.

Deep breathing is in itself a superb tonic, and certain exercises aid greatly in forming that habit and developing the power to breathe from the very extreme of the lungs, creating, so to speak, a continual draught in the lungs. Climbing is one of these. The well-known value of mountain-climbing is due to the fact that it necessitates deep breathing. If mountain-climbing is not open to you, there must be hills within your reach. And there are always staircases. This exercise, being somewhat taxing, should be moderately and gradually taken. Climbing develops the calves and thighs.

A horse is a splendid colleague in the work of upbuilding. A gallop sends the “reconstructive” fresh air, the true carpenter of the body, rushing through the body, doing his work quickly and well.

Young women who complain of dark circles under the eyes admit, by describing that symptom, depressed circulation. All of these exercises that develop the power and habit of deep breathing correct lowered circulation and impoverished blood and cure their unlovely symptoms.

From India, where the gospel of deep breathing as a spiritual as well as physical aid was born, comes a method of deep breathing that is wonderfully quieting to rebellious nerves. Close the eyes, and with the forefinger pressed closely against the left nostril, completely closing it, inhale and expel the air solely through the right nostril. Next, closing the right nostril by placing the forefinger upon it, breathe deeply through the left. Reverse these operations, and continue this alternate breathing for several minutes.

For clearing clogged lungs this, also derived from India, is useful: Inhale naturally and deeply, but expel the air slowly and thoroughly from between the lips, letting it escape with a whistling sound. Remember, however, to inhale through the nostrils alone, expelling only with the lips, for while germs cannot be drawn into the system through the nostrils, the fine hairs which line the nose being nature’s sieve, they swarm from without into the open mouth at the slightest chance. That chance is afforded by the intake of air. This outrush, of course, bars their entrance.

It is really one of the simplest things in the world to have healthy lungs. Sit erect, stand erect, walk erect. And if you go through life sitting correctly, standing correctly and walking correctly, you will breathe correctly, and, breathing correctly, you will have healthy lungs.

And in order to have a good pair of lungs, a working machine that will serve you well all your life, begin at once—the younger you are, of course, the better—to build up the muscles between the shoulder blades, the muscles at the top of the shoulders and the muscles at the back of the neck.

Fresh air you must have, of course—plenty of it. But of what avail the purest oxygen if there are districts in that wonderful region inside your ribs where a breath of fresh air can never reach. And those are the very spots where pulmonary germs, like Jeshurun in the Bible, wax fat and kick. When one has little plague spots like these inside of his anatomy, fresh air and exercise, the usual prescriptions for sick lungs, are of no great value unless erect sitting, standing and walking are systematic and continuous habits. Then only are fresh air and dry sunshine of avail to affect radically the germs of tuberculosis.

Begin right off now. Straighten up. Whether you have well lungs or sick lungs, start exercising. The results obtained by even the simplest gymnastics are often magical, not only as a gain in health but as a distinct asset of physical beauty. One of your shoulders may hang a little lower than the other; that will work much harm to a depressed lung. Look to it always that your shoulders are well up in the air and well back. Lift up and throw back your shoulders so that your shoulder blades will lie flat on the back of your ribs, with the tops of the shoulders themselves pointing directly upward. Make this a habit.

I myself exercise but little. The reason is apparent. I am of slight physique, requiring rather a fostering of the vital spark than a lavish expenditure of it, in the direction of muscle making.

Light gymnastics after the bath in the morning, and a drive in the afternoon quite suffice for me. Since I never grow fat there is no need of training down. Therefore the exercise I take is quite enough for my needs.

But for American women, with their tendency to grow fat, this, I know, is not enough. While I believe there should be only enough exercise to properly tone the body, yet some require much more for this purpose than others, and there is not enough toning, when the body grows fat.

There is no one form of exercise so generally tonic to the system, I think, as walking. If a woman be of the bilious temperament, with an inclination to grow sallow and heavy-eyed, she needs longer walks than the woman of sanguine temperament, whose blood leaps through her veins and seems to seek escape by way of the mounting blushes in her cheeks.

A woman who needs walking, and she and her physician should be the best judges of whether she does, may begin by walking five city blocks and end by walking five or six miles. She should increase the distance gradually, for one long walk may be of brief benefit, but regular long walks are of inestimable value. It is never well to begin suddenly violent, unaccustomed exercise.

The chief value of walking is that it forces deep breathing, and deep breathing causes a cleansing of the intestines, as when a blast of cold air is introduced into a furnace it burns up all the refuse that while the fire was low clung to the sides and back of the grate. Here is a fact that should be kept hanging on a prominent peg in the memory. In ordinary instances, when a person rests he breathes four hundred and eighty cubic inches of air a minute. This is much less than is needed for cleansing the body. That is the reason why I oppose too much sleep. During the sleeping hours the amount of air we breathe is much reduced. That is the reason why many persons look at their worst when they rise in the morning. Lack of the amount of oxygen they take into the body when they are moving about, leaves their cheeks pale, their muscles sagging, and their eyes dim. Note how much handsomer you are an hour afterward than immediately upon rising.

On the other hand, while walking at the rate of four miles an hour, which is not the maximum rate, you will inhale five times as much air, that is 2,400 cubic inches, in the same time. Have you a room or suite of rooms, containing four windows? Have you opened one, and, finding that the air was not being freshened fast enough, have you opened the other three and noticed the instant improvement? That then must be the best argument for walking as against driving.

If you form the daily walk habit see that it becomes a daily habit. Don’t stay indoors, because it is too hot, or because it is raining. One should not take her daily walk in midsummer while the sun is highest. Rise earlier and take the walk in the dewy part of the day before breakfast.

If it is raining dress for the walk in the coquettish little rubber boots that are now fashionable, and the short serge or flannel walking skirt, and the little Tam o’Shanter or turban. Thus garbed, you don’t care how wet you become. Leave your umbrella behind and let the rain pour upon your face. It will be the most grateful bath you ever had in your life. The rain bath for the face is delicious. Having had one you will lose no opportunity to take another. You will see in your glowing cheeks their first resemblance to the rose complexion of the Englishwoman, the finest complexion in the world.

The walk is cheaper and its effects a thousand times more lasting than any cosmetic. It throws off the enveloped cloak of lassitude that hides beauty. No woman is so attractive when she is listless as when she is thoroughly and happily alive. The walk awakens the sleeping or submerged self. It makes life under any circumstances seem worth while. And a woman, to keep her beauty, must always think life worth while.

I have seen a woman start on her walk pale, dull eyed, with the drooping lips that give the appearance of greater age, and have seen her return from that walk an hour later, her sallowness replaced by a clear pink skin, her eyes youthfully bright, her lips curling upward, the sign of content, her step springy. By the magic of the walk she seemed at least five years younger. Most of the famous pedestrians live to an old age. In a small town in America lives a man of seventy-five who recently took a two hundred mile walk in three days, stopping only for short rests of a few hours. He returned home, having rid himself of a bilious attack.

Another seventy-year-old youth walked off the rheumatism in a ramble from San Francisco to New York.

Therein lies one of the greatest values of the walk. It eliminates lingering, self-made poisons from the system.

An excess of uric acid is just now the fashionable affliction. No one suffers from it who is an habitual walker. Rheumatism and gout are caused by the settling of deposits about the joints. Those deposits of poisonous matter are not permitted to form if there is a thorough elimination by means of walking and much water drinking.

Indigestion in its various forms can be corrected, especially in the earlier stages, by walking, in connection with careful diet. Indigestion is a physical failing, especially peculiar to women. Walking, by bringing into play unused muscles and by making deep breathing necessary, as a walk always does, relieves this condition. Whatever clears the internal organs clears the complexion. Whatever naturally clears the internal organs brightens the eyes. Whatever promotes deep breathing lays in a new stock of vigor, as we fill our cellars with coal in the winter.

Riding is good exercise for women, if not taken in excess. Its drawback is that the side saddle forces one hip and shoulder higher than the other. If a woman rides she should by all means ride astride, so obviating this difficulty.

While I take my own morning exercise after the bath, with no aid whatever, dumbbells are valuable to those who “cannot become interested in freehand exercise.” I should advise beginning with the smallest dumbbells made, those weighing one to half a pound.

Wrapped in a lightweight woolen bathrobe, and wearing tights or knickerbockers, hose and sandals or slippers, let her stand before the open window while she manipulates the dumbbells. With shoulders back and chest thrown out and head erect, let her curl the dumbbells twenty times, meanwhile breathing slowly and deeply in time with the exercise.

Start with the dumbbells at the shoulders and push them high over the head, counting and breathing deeply twenty times.

Rest for five minutes, the dumbbells standing on the floor in front of you. Bending your knees very little, but keeping your arms straight, rise to an erect position, with the dumbbells resting at your waist. Repeat this exercise, but raising the bells as high and as far behind your neck as possible.

Now start with the bells held by the arms in a horizontal position. Raise the bells until they are high above the head, then lower to the first position, keeping the elbows straight.

When this exercise has become easy, turn back the face until you are gazing at the ceiling. Breathe deeply. This is one of the best known exercises for chest expansion. The others develop the back, arms, chest, shoulders and waist.

This is valuable to correct a torpid liver. Stand erect. Raise the right arm, reaching as far as you can with it, at the same time pushing downward with the left hand. Reverse this movement, pushing upward with the left hand and downward with the right hand. Alternate until you are nearly breathless.

For a flat chest this exercise without apparatus is helpful. Shrug the shoulders as high and as fast as possible, ceasing only when you become dizzy. This, if the shoulders are even. If they are uneven, practice raising the defective one alone until in the course of weeks or months they are straightened, or carry a high cane on that side.

For the girl who has not learned to breathe correctly—that is, deeply, it is well to stand before the open window, and with her hands raised, the palms outward, inhale deeply, counting ten, hold, counting ten, exhale, counting ten.

Or this: Clasp the hands behind the head, the palms supporting it, and with the chest thrust forward, inhale, count and exhale as advised. If this at first causes giddiness count but four and gradually, as the body becomes accustomed to the new exercises, increase the counts to ten, and even to twenty-five.

For a stretching of all the muscles the best exercise I know is to clench the fists and, raising the arms, with elbows unbent, above the head, stretch the body to the greatest possible height.

Another to give suppleness to the body is to rise on the tiptoes, then lower the body until the weight rests upon the soles, then up and down again fifty times. I have known persons so infatuated with this exercise that they repeated it two hundred, and even five hundred times a day.

One warning: Never carry exercise beyond the point of slight fatigue. Never let it reach the point of exhaustion, for exhaustion, like illness, is a synonym for ugliness.

Women fancy that a weak back is the heritage of their sex. They fancy that aches and pains in that region are inevitable. In this they are mistaken. The back may be rebuilded and strengthened as can other weak spots. Discreet exercises are the best aid in that desirable direction.

For children who are growing round shouldered, shoulder braces are, for a time, beneficial, for they train the muscles to erectness. When this training has been accomplished the braces should be removed and the child required to practice the carriage the brace has taught him. But for a grown person I never advise braces except as a last resort in a desperate case, and particularly in cases of lung affections, to require the person to inhale fresh air.

We often receive the advice, “Rest your back to stop its aching.” This is sound advice in cases of extreme fatigue, but generally the best way to rest the back is to strengthen it, and the way to strengthen it is by well directed, but not violent, exercises.

Every muscle in the body is there for some use. Everyone should have enough exercise to keep it healthy. The muscles of the back are weak because they are so seldom used.

The best exercises for development of these neglected muscles are those which involve stooping. Spoiled, pampered beauties test themselves by stooping, and if they can touch the floor with their finger tips, without bending the knees, they pronounce themselves fit. Women less spoiled and pampered have far less anxiety about keeping fit. Their everyday work requires enough stooping to keep the muscles of the back flexible and the muscles of the abdomen firm, and of normal size.

Lifting moderate weights from the floor is a good exercise for strengthening the back. If the back be very weak it is well to begin with an empty bucket. As exercises strengthen it gradually fill the pail. A basket with a handle may serve the same purpose. Stoop slowly, and slowly lift the weight. Keep the leg muscles tense and make the muscles of the arms tense. Reach slowly forward and lift the weight with both hands. Lift it on a level with the waist line. Then lower it as slowly to the floor.

Next to stooping, twisting the muscles of the back is a good exercise for strengthening it. But let this twisting be slowly and gently done, or this will be one of the instances in which the remedy is worse than the disease. Violent exercise will only make the muscles weaker and cause a more severe ache, and possibly a severe injury, by wrenching them.

This is the best method for the twisting. Lift the arms slowly above the head, with the elbows unbent. Then slowly turn the body to the right, resting its weight on the left leg. Swing the body around, keeping the arms above the head but shifting the weight to the right leg. This is a most valuable exercise, for it contorts the muscles, causes a supply of blood to flow through them and by the unusual action they gain strength.

The same exercise as the foregoing can be advantageously done with the arms stretched out horizontally before you, and swinging them in a large half circle, being careful to shift the weight from one leg to the other and keeping tense the muscles of the legs on which the weight rests.

As a rule round shoulders are the sign of weakened muscles. Or the appearance of round shoulders may be given by a too great accumulation of fat across the shoulders.

A good exercise to correct this is a simple squaring of the shoulders, drawing in at the same time lungs full of air. Push back your arms so that the forearms are on a level with the waist and the elbows are pushed as far back as possible. By a gentle sawing motion move the elbows forward and back. This causes a rush of blood to the muscles surrounding the shoulders, and nourishes the muscles which you are exercising and banishes the fat cells.

To banish fat from the back draw the arms back as I have described. Thrust between the back and elbows a stout cane or a broomstick. Manipulate the cane by means of the elbows so that the muscles are not only strengthened but the cane is rolled over the flesh. The effect is to break the fat cells.

This is sometimes more easily done if you hold the cane in a diagonal position.

Useful to the same end is the exercise of sitting erect in a chair and exaggeratedly shrugging the shoulders, first one, then the other, then both together.

Work with light dumbbells will also in time reduce the fat of the back, but I counsel the use of light clubs and these in moderation. Standing erect, the feet resting flatly on the floor and the knees unbending, raise the dumbbells slowly above the head without bending the elbows. As slowly lower them until the arms hang loosely at the sides.

If you notice that one shoulder is higher than the other, give heed to your hips. The hip on the other side is probably thrust up and the shoulder on that side sinks, the shoulder on the opposite side rising to balance it. So if one shoulder is high, correct your way of standing. Stand with the weight evenly divided and rest on the balls of your feet. Your shoulders will drop naturally into place. Keep them in place.

Have you ever thought of the broomstick as an aid to beauty? Jesting? Not at all. I wish to convince you that that everyday tool for keeping your home clean is a means of making yourself handsomer. Indeed, yes.

Sweeping itself is an admirable exercise. It gives a variety of activity by causing several of the least used muscles to stretch and contract. Sweep vigorously and thoroughly and you will feel the rush of blood to the muscles of your forearm, to the muscles surrounding your shoulder blades and to those at the small of the back. And, more valuable than any of these, it causes you to bend the body at the waist, thus strengthening the muscles which are weak in nearly all women, those of the abdomen, muscles which, allowed to become weak and flaccid, cause that part of the body to sag, giving an unlovely prominence with the ugly bulge at the hips which caused a visiting artist from Europe to sneer:

“Ah, the great American figure is not, as I thought, the Almighty dollar. No, it is the unexercised forms of the women.”

The American woman has learned to develop and keep in control the upper half of her figure. Fine chests, with a graceful line from the shoulder to the bust, have grown common among American women. Many of them have mastered the not difficult art of deep breathing, so expanded the chest, developed the lung power and perfected what may be termed their upper halves.

But the glaring defect remains—the clumsy, conspicuous lower half of the body, which can only be made pliable and symmetrical with the rest of the body by exercises, among which note this simple one I have named, sweeping. Any household exercise that causes you to bend at the waist to the floor will keep the hips and abdomen in control, and in time diminish their size.

For this reason, if not for that of neatness, never lose an opportunity, if your figure has the defect I mention, to stoop to pick up a bit of paper or lint, or a scrap of cloth, from the floor.

Stoop from the waist. Don’t resort to that trick of the indolent or the awkward, falling upon the knees when you pick up anything. Stooping is a graceful posture. Learn it.

If the defect in your figure is the other sort, the broomstick is still your friend. But use it in a different way. If you have a weak, narrow chest, if you are round shouldered, you should apply yourself to development in a different direction and your sweeping should not be the main object, but an incident, of your broom handle exercise. And if you are of this habit be sure to protect your not robust lungs from the dust raised, to some extent, by sweeping, even though the broom be swathed in a damp cloth, by keeping your lips firmly closed. Dust is nearly always disease laden. While the dry disease germs might continue their way through the air without causing breeding of disease, the darkness and moisture and the weakness of your lungs, to which they find their way through the open mouth, will stir them into new life and you will be the victim. Never, in any circumstances, inhale through the mouth. Occasionally to rid the body of an excess of carbonic acid gas you may safely exhale through the mouth to still further purify the body. Never, never, take in air through the mouth. Don’t allow the nose to become lazy. To inhale air is its duty. Force it to perform it. And aid it by keeping the nostrils free from clogging substances.

The broom stick will serve its best purpose for you by being shortened, cut to a length of two or two and a half feet, according to the “reach” of your arms. Grasping the stick firmly, with a hand at either end, hold it high above the head and draw the air in deeply, filling the lungs to their capacity with full draughts of air. When you have filled every cell of the lungs with the fresh air hold the stick firmly above the head, count silently at least five. This done, drop your arms slowly, your hands still clenching the stick, in front of you, below the waist. While doing this expel the air gently until you feel that the lungs are almost empty of air.

It is not enough to say to most persons: “Shallow breathing is a bad habit. Correct it.” The active human mind is an interrogation point and demands the courtesy and satisfaction of an answer.

Well, then, the results of shallow breathing are these: Sensitiveness to all the conditions that cause colds, and a disposition to allow colds to deepen into consumption or widen into pneumonia. Shallow breathing makes the liver lazy, and soon the body is bile flooded, the eyes becoming dull and the complexion yellow and lifeless. Clogged stomach and intestines are the marks of the shallow breather, for the body engine has not enough oxygen draught to burn up the fuel that has been thrown into it as food.

It is only the deep breather who enjoys life to its full and shows her enjoyment of it.

If you are not already an out-of-door woman become one at the earliest opportunity. Make a business of learning at least one of the outdoor sports.

Shall it be golf? Then you will have chosen well, for golf develops the muscles which are not strong in women, those of the back. By encouraging deep breathing it develops her chest. By causing her to bend considerably from the waist it strengthens her abdominal muscles. Because it causes her to walk a great deal it strengthens weak ankles and develops the muscles of the lower leg. These points, remembered and practiced, will make you a better golf player and will develop your health and strength in a corresponding ratio. Select your clubs with careful view to their length, and this will depend upon your own height and the length of your arms. To choose a club that is too long is as foolish and injurious as it is, if you are short, to sit upon a chair so high that your feet dangle.

Learn a good position for your strokes with wooden clubs at the very beginning. You should be erect. One leg should be straight under the body. Its heel should be on the ground, the toe a little pointed in. Slightly below the hips and not more than four inches from the body should be the level of the grip.

Because freedom of the wrists is so very important better practice when not on the links with a cane or closed umbrella. Place the hands together and hold them quite still in front of the hips, depending for the motion of the stick entirely upon the wrists. Remember that the golf stick swings on a pivot formed by the hands and wrists.

One of the benefits of golf playing to a woman is that it teaches concentration. The eye must be kept upon the ball, not before it is struck or while it is leaving the sward, but after it has left the ground.

If you take up lawn tennis play in moderation, especially at the beginning. I like tennis for women because it induces a fine flow of perspiration that will carry the clogging poisons out of the system. It stimulates the circulation and forces deep breathing. It has the further value of distributing the exercise rather generally throughout the muscles of the body. Many women play tennis, but few play it well. A reason is that they are careless in learning the first principles of the game. They are liable to grasp the racket loosely, and this spoils their play. Relax your grasp and the racket will turn in the hand while you make your stroke. Always hold it by the extreme end, letting the leather binding on the handle rest against the palm.

For your preliminary practice before you play a game that is watched by critical friends practice strokes alone. Bat the ball against the kitchen door or the barn door or the neighbor’s fence.

You will have spent your vacation well if during it you learn to swim.

Train yourself to the confidence and fearlessness that are necessary to master swimming. Make yourself realize that you need not fear deep water. It is no more dangerous to have two feet of water over your head than as many inches. This is especially true of salt water, for the deepest water has the greatest power to hold a body on its surface.