The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-04-15
LEARN THE ART OF RESTING.
Nervous Woman often Does Not
Know Enough to Relax.
(China 90 c,L rnnin1O
Chicago Chronicle.)

NNHlCdSO CnrOnlcle.)
resting is an art. 1t is as difficult
TOT nervous woman to rest as Cor a
phlegmatic woman to work. There are
some women in this world who never
rest. The@ sit down, lie down and
sIee!' but they never relax. The mo-
hent you enter the presence of such a
woman you have an odd feeling of un-
rest yourself; you have a vague intui-
llon that, although the woman appar-
ently may be sitting perfectly still
she is twitching with nervousness and
WIN desire TO be doing something.
A great many women who are born
with calm, even temperament become
TINS sort of nervous wreck after a few
years OF LIES struggles or a few years
IN The strenuous whirl of society.
The woman who would be lovely. I'M
Wflnkled, even tempered and perfectly
healthy must learn first how to rest.
IL is simple, after all; much easier than
I taxing tonics, eating flesh foods, under
gong medical treatment, visiting the
masseuse and paying for Turkish baths
and yet women will do all of these
| thlngs in order to acquire a few pounds
| or flesh. One week of perfect relaxa-
| tion Will put five pounds of flesh on the
| most aenemic little bit of skin and
! bones" that ever lived
The first step in the art of resting is
L
woman never goes to sleep until she
! has doubled or tied herself up in a hard
Knot. She draws up her knees clenches
| her hands, crosses her arms and presses
! her feet hard against the mattress
! She unconsciously feels that if she did
not hold herself down on that bed she
would not stay there The delicious
comfort of soft ma ttresses and downY
| quilts never pervades her.
f,.,-
your bed is a hammock that it is sus-
pended in midair, that it is holding you
up, not that you are holding it down,
/ Sink into it, with all your weight, drop
upon it>like tired child in its moth
er's lap. Lie in perfectly comforta-
bic, relaxed position upon your back or
your right side. Feel that the bed
is holding up not only your trunk. but
your arms and legs. Do not grasp your
pillow. Do not dig your toes into the
mattress. Do not try to lie stiff and
straight. Just let the bed do all the
work, if there is amy to be done.
At once you will find every muscle
responding to this delicious sense of
responsibility. Legs and arms will
relax, and that tired feeling" which
you have not had for years, but which
healthy working man has every night
of his life, will percade your whole
body.
Little by little sleep will creep upon
you. Not restless. dream filled sleep, |
but good old-fashioned child sleep, and
in the morning you will awaken de- |
liciously refreshed. Do not try this
one night only, but every night, until
in time it becomes the natural thing |
to do and you learn to love your bed |
as much as does the stout, phelgmatic |
woman next door.
When you awake in the morning do |
not allow your eyes to fly open and |
thoughts of the days trials and duties /
to pop into your head. Put such |
thoughts away from you. and with |
eyes still half closed stretch out lazily !
in your bed. Never jump out of bed |
the moment you awake. Wake up |
slowly. Think again how delicious it is
to be held in the lap of a soft mat
tress. Lie perfectly still for at least
five minutes, with no thought of ris-
ing Then rise slowly and without
jerking or jumping. Simply roll out
of bed.
Whenever you are riding in train
or street car try to feel that the car
is carrying you along. How many
women ever do feel that they are be
ing carried" by the car? Nine out
of ten feel rather that they are help
ing to hurry the car along. They sit
tensely upon the seat thinking not Of
what they are doing. but of how soon
it viii be over and of what they will
do when they reach their destinations.
The nervous woman is usually dys-
peptic. She does not enjoy her meals
because she eats them with her mind
on something else. The only way to
acquire good digestion and to gain
flesh is to put your whole mind upon
what you are eating and to take a de-
light in every mouthful. Do not think
about your food, as does the health
crank; do not try to dissect it and TO
wonder what it is made of and whether
or not it is good FOR you. All food
is good for normally healthy person.
1t will be much better for you if you
can enjoy it. Look at the stout wo-
man across the table and see how she
enjoys the odor of the steaming spo-
tatoes, the taste of the butter on her
bread, the spice and sugar in her pud-
ding.
There was once a man who had lost
his appetite. He regained it by the
simple method of reading a chapter of
Dickens before dinner every day. Some
times he would read about the Christ
mas dinner of the Crummels, and again
he would read about another charac-
ter's enjoyment of buttered toast; but
always the chapter would be upon
something good to eat. The very
thought of how others enjoyed their
food would awake in his hypochon-
driac hunger that made his dinner
a pleasure instead of a torture.
Forget everything but what you are
doing when you sit down to the table,
and before you know it you will have
lost all signs of dyspepsia and will
have gained several pounds of good
solid flesh.
OF course, it is proper to wind up this
article by saying to the nervous wo-
man. Don't worry" 1t is as unneces-
sarv as it is useless, because once she
has learned to sleep. to eat, to sit
down and to rest. she viii cease to
worry. or at least to worry any more
than other ordinary mortals on this
earth.