Basic HTML Version
162
The Ministry of Health and Healing
to regard their condition as worse than it really is. This state of mind
is unfavorable to recovery and should not be encouraged.
Ministers, teachers, students, and other brain workers often suf-
fer from illness as the result of severe mental taxation, unrelieved
by physical exercise. What these persons need is a more active life.
Strictly temperate habits, combined with proper exercise, would
ensure both mental and physical vigor and would give power of
endurance to all brain workers. Those who have overtaxed their
physical powers should not be encouraged to forgo manual labor
entirely. But work, to be of the greatest advantage, should be sys-
tematic and agreeable. Outdoor exercise is the best; it should be
so planned as to strengthen by use the organs that have become
weakened. And the heart should be in it. Manual labor should never
degenerate into mere drudgery.
When invalids have nothing to occupy their time and attention,
their thoughts become centered upon themselves, and they grow
morbid and irritable. Many times they dwell upon their bad feelings
[131]
until they think they are much worse off than they really are and
wholly unable to do anything.
In all these cases well-directed physical exercise would prove
an effective remedial agent. In some cases it is indispensable to the
recovery of health. The will goes with the labor of the hands, and
what these invalids need is to have the will aroused. When the will
is dormant, the imagination becomes abnormal, and it is impossible
to resist disease.
Inactivity is the greatest curse that could come upon most in-
valids. Light employment in useful work does not tax either mind
or body but has a beneficial influence on both. It strengthens the
muscles, improves the circulation, and gives invalids the satisfaction
of knowing that they are not wholly useless in this busy world. They
may be able to do but little at first, but they will soon find their
strength increasing, and the amount of work done can be increased
accordingly.
Exercise aids a person with indigestion by giving the digestive
organs a healthy tone. To engage in severe study or violent physical
exercise immediately after eating hinders the work of digestion, but
a short walk after a meal, with the head erect and the shoulders back,
is a great benefit.