Beauty's Enemy: Fatigue

After you have spent an exhausting day — walking to buy what you need, or doing your housework, which demands movement and activity, or paying visits that you perhaps made on foot, all of which brings fatigue to your body as a result of the fatigue of your nerves — do a few exercises before getting into bed, for they help keep your figure slender as you sit and as you walk.

The fatigue caused by excessive movement produces fatigue in the nerves, which must always remain rested in order to perform their daily duty. To rest them, drink a cup of hot milk, for it helps relieve the strain that may come over the nerves after severe fatigue; a warm bath does the same. But this is not enough to give complete rest to exhausted nerves. The most effective remedy is a few exercises, because in being stretched the nerves relax, and afterward you will feel the need for sleep.

There are three healthful and necessary exercises before sleep, according to the doctor's instruction:

1 - Stand erect and set your feet somewhat apart, then raise your hands upward so that you feel the force of the lift from the shoulders to the fingertips, and repeat this movement three times in succession.

2 - Raise your hands straight upward, then bend gradually and slowly forward, letting your head be what pulls the body downward, and let your arms hang loose at your sides so that the spinal column stretches, each vertebra separately, and rests completely; this helps rest the muscles of the shoulders and neck.

3 - Stand erect — place your right hand on your shoulder, with the left extended comfortably to the side; then raise it upward and stretch the right; then carry the movement over to the left hand, and repeat three times.

Do these exercises every night for ten minutes before an open window, and breathe deeply throughout the exercises, for the lungs must fill with pure air and empty completely. This helps preserve the vitality of the lungs and prevents colds.

Do not overdo the exercises to the point of fatigue, which brings about the opposite of what you intend. Go to bed at once after you have finished them.

In the morning, when you leap from your bed, do vigorous exercises if you like. But in the evening, before you bid the world farewell so as to greet it again after complete rest, light and gentle exercises are what is called for.

Try them: they cost you nothing, and they will make you marvel at the results they leave upon your enchanting body.