Up and Always Doing

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 12

Up and Always Doing

Strain on Nerve System

We are 'probably the. first generation to make a fetish of. activity. Onr ideal is to get there; to be up and always doing; ' : i. But there are wise medical men who have grave misgivings regarding this mode of life. - It burns us out too soon. We don’t live as long as our placid grandmothers did. We are stamping out many diseases of bacteria, but we are succumbing more and more to the diseases of breakdown and fatigue. At thirty, or forty, we may look younger than'our grandmothers did, but we are older in nervous exhaustion and deep corroding. strain than they were at sixty or seventy. An up-to-date plan of living should provide for new leisure and set up a now ideal —an ideal , not of doing, but of. doing nothing. Wo should ,earn to live with ease and composure, instead of'With rush and excitement. .And spring is a good time to start this new' life. It is little use trying to tell you how to pattern your life on this new' plan. It may take a generation or more to establish the slow tempo. Still there are a few suggestions that may be useful. . One is—take naps. You ha\*e no idea what a daily nap will do for your looks. Jn small, unthought-of ways you make, most of your wrinkles. You frown from effort, let your .mouth drop from fatigue, cringe from noise, squint at glare. Unconsciously, you string yourself up to resist those slight, but repeated shocks and strains. That state of taut resistance all day long makes frowning and drooping and squinting a habit. . . One way to break that habit is to break your day-long tension with a period of rest—a nap. Let go, and go to sleep. Scientists agree that sleep is in deep, important ways a tonic and S 1) anti-toxin. It restores and renews and rejuvenates your tissues and your spirit. jit. To help .you to keep young and fresh you need a nap just as much as your children do. Take it at the same hour, as they do. Or take it in the late afternoon and wake up rested and bright to welcome your home-coming : husband' and young folk. If you are out of the habit of daytime sleeping, begin by lying down in a cool dark Toom for 15 minutes a -day. Tie o black scarf over your eyes to keep out all consciousness of daylight.