TALKS ON HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 October 1929, Page 4

TALKS ON HEALTH

WALKING AN IDEAL EXERCISE.

(By a Family Doctor).

For the middle-aged, and those of a younger age, who db not have the opportunity of playing games, walking is the ideal exercise. It is a natural exercise, which cannot be said for some of the unnatural contortions of many advertised methods of development. It. is very easily measured and graduated. The walk may be quite short at first in the case of those who are just beginning to take up the exercise. Anaemic girls, fat old men and convalescents must not overdo the walking in the first days or weeks. The patient who starts off on a course of treatment with wild enthusiasm, and gives the whole thing up at the end of the week, is the despair of the physician. A fat old gentleman was ordered walking exercise. He rushed off the same evening for a long walk, contrary to all‘his former custom; he suddenly felt faint, had to lie down at the side of the road, and was ignominiously brought home on a costermonger’s barrow. His wife went round the next morning to interview the doctor. She was not exactly speechless with indignation. The doctor wished she had been. But the poor man had to go without his tea while he was trying to make the lady understand that he had been very careful to order graduated exercise.

HOW WALKS SHOULD BE TAKEN

The walk should be taken in air as fresh as it can be procured. Green fields are better than dusty pavements. It varies the monotony to take the train out to some picturesque spot and walk home. That is better than reversing the procedure. If you walk out and train home, you may have a long wait in a cold station, and then a draughty ride after you 'are heated and perspiring with the exercise. The idea of walking home is that you should finish up the last half-mile at a brisk pace and go straight upstairs to the bathroom, where you have a good rub down and a change of clothes. A little stiffness the next day is not an unfavourable sign. It merely indicates that muscles that have lain dormant too long are being made to do a bit of work. Walking exercise sometimes falls into disrepute as a means of reducing weight, but only because the diet is not regulated in accordance with the general scheme. The walk gives a healthy appetite, and, instead of eating enough, our stout weight-reducing friend eats more than enough, and all the benefit derived from the walk is swallowed up by what is swallowed at the meal. HOW BENEFIT IS SPOILED. Have you ever noticed that husbands and wives grow fat together? Their sedentary habits and meals are similar. Now the husband, douce man, does make an effort and goes for his walk like a good ’un, and the wife spoils everything with her, “Now’, dearie, I am sure you can manage another nice little slice of mutton —and a lovely bit of fat; come along, pass your plate.” The husband’s flesh is weak, and he succumbs to the lovely piece of fat as readily 'as ever old Adam did to the forbidden fruit. And sooner or later follow the usual effects of dyspepsia, flatulence, and biliousness. No, I am not going to be argued out of my praise of walking exercise by those of you who have failed by your own fault. THE CASE OF THE INVALID. Walking is beneficial to invalids, even those suffering from consumption or heart disease. But all the responsibility must be put on the doctor, who is quite willing to bear it. It may be that after a severe illness it is quite an exciting adventure to walk from the bed to the window’. Later, amidst the plaudits of the wondering nurse, wife, daughter, and doctor, the patient walks round the bed, and feels at the end of the journey like Captain Cook or Dr. Livingstone. Time passes, and the walk is extended to a peregrination of the garden, then to the pillar-box and back, and so on. It is most cheering to the invalid to go through this course of graduated walking; he laughs a scornful laugh when at the end of the month he passes the point that was marked as his furthest limitation four weeks ago. TIP TO SHAVERS. Sore places on the face may be prolonged by the use of the shaving-brush. The sores are due to germs, and every morning the brush is covered with the discharge from the scores. The germs live happily on the brush, and when the skin of the face is beginning to grow clearer the brush brings in a fresh supply of the septic organisms that are the true cause of the evil. It pays to burn the shaving-brush and face-rags and sponges, and to start fresh when the sores are quite healed. Meanwhile, a piece of cotton-wool may be used instead of a shaving brush. If your brush were sent to a laboratory to be examined by a bacteriologist, the result would surprise you. The germs of anthrax lived on dry shaving brushes all through a long voyage from Japan. SLAVE OF THE CIGARETTE. If you are a cigarette-smoker, you must stop smoking altogether for one week in six. I cannot allow you to become a slave to the habit. Possibly you may find you are so much better at the end of the week of abstinence, that you will voluntarily continue for a second week. But I want to abolish all these cases of irritated throats, loss of voice, breathlessness on exertion, and many other conditions which are all I,° be laid at the door of cigarette smoking. Lozenges and throat sprays are useless unless the cause of the trouble is removed. The next abstention week is to begin at once, and the money saved is to go towards the children’s holiday fund.