Exercise at least twenty minutes every morning, and so vigorously that you perspire ; then your bath, then your coffee—if you want it.
Begin tomorrow morning and keep it up one month. Then you will know more about health than you could possibly learn from any book.
7. several thousand years the human race has had A chance to study itself and think about its needs and what is good for it. Yet many people today think that play is a waste of time. You will hear them say, "I never play cards or billiards. I never had any time to throw away on such things." In the normal man the love of play is instinctive. When a man no longer has any taste for play, old age has got him. So long as a man loves play and hails with joy every chance to play, old age dare not go near him.
Play, fun and laughter are agents of health. They promote digestion, soothe the nerves, stimulate the cir culation, give power to the heart. While you are at play those parts of your brain which you are using con stantly in business or at your work are relaxed and in repose. Other parts of the brain are active and the whole body is being charged with new vigor. When your play is done you can sleep without dreaming of your business difficulties, and the next day the chances are that you will get much more business done than you would have if you had kept your nose constantly on the grindstone. A man who does not play cannot be 100 per cent efficient, for much of the time Ile works with a tired mind., There are countless ways of playing and each man must select those he en joys most. It is usually wise for a man to have different modes of play and relaxa tion. Golf is at present a popular sport and has un doubtedly saved the lives of many business men, be sides increasing their efficiency, but the man whose only sport is golf is not utilizing his play instinct to the greatest advantage. Any game played to the exclusion of others—whether golf, tennis, bridge, whist or billiards—does not always yield the maximum of benefit. The law of variety holds in play as well as in other forms of human pleasure.
Many forms of play exercise the muscles, make us perspire and breathe deeply of fresh air, and in that way are beneficial to health, but the special value of play lies in the effect it has upon the mind and those organs of which we are normally 'unconscious, such as the ductless glands, the' liver, the stomach and the heart. If a man spends half an hour a day at the
setting-up exercises, it does not matter much whether his play is indbors or out in the open.
8. Right mental attitude.—Much has been written in recent years about the influence of the mind upon the body, and some extremists go so far as to hold that all disease has its origin in the mind and can be healed by some process of right thinking.
We need not here discuss the merits or demerits of any of the modern cults based upon the power of the mind over the body. It is enough for us to know that the mind and the body are intimately connected and that each in a mysterious way is dependent upon the other. As I said in a former parag,raph, laughter promotes health, and anything which promotes health is an enemy of disease. It stirs to activity those little things within us which the physicians call "anti-bod ies," whose business it is to police our insides and club' into oblivion all hostile bacilli. If this theory of the physicians is correct, a. man in a laughing, cheerful, kindly mood has an army of active anti-bodies at work in him, and is less liable to be sick or to become fatigued or exhausted than if his mood were one of dis content, grief or despair.
A physician tells of an interesting experiment made upon a cat. Fifteen minutes after the cat had eaten generously of raw beef it was placed under the X-ray, and its stomach was seen working vigorously and rhythmically while Tabby purred contentedly. Then a door was opened and a dog admitted into the room. Instantly the cat's stomach became rigid; and it did not resume its activities until ten minutes after the dog bad been ejected. Here is an illustration of the effect of fear upon the unconscious and automatic ac tivity of a most important organ.