Slide rest

“ Thus, while exercise is a duty, rest is equally imperative.
The eye, when exactingly used in fine work, should have frequent intervals of rest in a few moments of darkness by closing the lids. The brain, when urged by strenuous study, should have occasional seasons of rest by a dash of cold water upon the forehead, and a brief walk with slow and deep inspirations of fresh air. The muscles, long cramped in a painful attitude, should be rested as often as may be, by change of posture or by a few steps around the room. ”

“ Mere stillness is of course not at all the same thing, for stillness may go with rigid stiff{214}ness. But the point of relaxation is that during work every muscle that is not employed in that work should have nothing whatever to do, and that after work no muscle should have anything to do if the work has been physical, and if mental that the brain should be empty. True the will has to say, “Holiday for all, holiday for all,” because all rest better so; but no more. The energy of the whole frame is devoted to rest. ”

“ Her fatigue had merely created a wholesome desire for rest,–the sleepiness and indifference that come from weary muscles. But Pats’s exhaustion was of a different sort. All the strength of his body had departed. ”

“ That he is tired can be told by his sitting down on a bank by the roadside as soon as he reaches the summit, evidently to rest himself. What he carries could not be the cause of his fatigue—only a small bundle done up in a silk handkerchief. ”

“ When sitting, keep the body erect, or lean back slightly, resting the shoulders, rather than the spinal column, against any substance excepting [Pg 805] feathers, changing the limbs from time to time to any easy position. If tired, and one can consistently “loll,” recline to one side, resting the cheek upon the hand. If one is very tired, and desires to “rest fast,” sit with the feet and hands crossed or arms folded.
A CONSUMPTIVE POSITION.
If you lie crooked in bed, do it on the side. ”

“ When you sit down, let what you sit on hold you. When you lie down, do not try to hold yourself on the bed. Rest is the opposite of labor. Rest is recreation. Rest with sleep is a divine restorative. When you cannot rest, or sleep, you are expending energy without production. Try this little code for rest and sleep: "My mind is empty, my soul is at rest." Repeat it with your eyes closed and your body relaxed. Say it just as you would imagine the swing of the pendulum of an old fashion hall clock. I never knew it to fail of inducing sleep. Never rest or sleep with light falling on your eyes. ”

“ It is certain that too much exercise will prevent sleep, as well as too little. We seldom however hear the active and laborious complain of restless nights. It is the indolent and slothful who generally have these complaints. Is it any wonder that a bed of down should not be refreshing to a person who sits all day in an easy chair? A great part of the pleasure of life consists in alternate rest and motion ”

“ Should you rest upon a bench, and your tired eyes close, depend upon it the policeman would rouse you and gruffly order you to 'move on.' You may rest upon the bench, and benches are few and far between; but if rest means sleep, on you must go, dragging your tired body through the endless streets. ”

“ It is a healthful sign that the rest-cure is fast going out of style. Wherever it has helped a nervous patient, the real curative agent has been the personality of the doctor and the patient's faith in him. The whole theory was based on ignorance of the cause of nerves. People suffering from "nervous exhaustion" are likely to be just as "tired" after a month in bed as they were before. Why not? Physical fatigue is quickly remedied, and what can rest do after that? What possible effect can rest have on the fatigue of a discouraged instinct? ”

“ I just wish there was a slide near Calumet, so that I could take you down and let you see how splendid it is. Why, it's just like—let me see—I've got it! It's just like tobogganing on water. You jump on board the crib at the mouth of the slide, you know, and it moves along very slowly at first, until it gets to the edge of the first slant; then it takes a sudden start, and away it goes shooting down like greased lightning, making the water fly up all around you, just like the snow does when you're tobogganing. ”

“ We do not need to sit still and do nothing in order to rest the muscles. If we have been studying, it rests them to sweep the floor, hoe in the garden, or work or play. If we have been playing or working hard, it rests us to sit down and read or study. Change of work is better than to be idle. Walking, running, or working makes the muscles grow large and strong.
We must also have plenty of sleep. A boy or girl who works and plays out in the fresh air and sunshine, will be strong and well, while those who sit in the house will be weak and sickly. ”

“ One is not conscious in any way of fatigue, the practice may easily have not been at all excessive, yet for the time all briskness is lost. Now though rest is recommended by many as a remedy for staleness, the opposite treatment—namely, continuance, if not increase of work—is worth a trial; and if one steadily and perseveringly plays through an attack of staleness, one usually emerges from it better than when one went in. It is a point on which trainers disagree, some recommending, as we have said, an emollient treatment—namely, rest; others a tonic. ”

“ Exercise, travelling, and anything that tends to induce fatigue are prone to provoke relapse if indulged in prematurely; but a couch or chair in the garden is to be encouraged, weather permitting. The patient should rest for at least three weeks after temperature has become normal. ”

“ By stretching ourselves we can harmoniously adjust the activities of our breathing and circulation. All parts can be restored to harmony and we can rest properly.
After all, what is rest? It is not a mere slumping into inactivity. It is allowing the involuntary rhythm of our being, the sympathetic co-ordination of all the forces of our body to act normally. The rhythm of our volitional activities must be given up to the rhythm of the unconscious and involuntary life. ”

“ No definite rules can be given for the exact amount of exercise to be taken at one time, but the occurrence of fatigue is the signal for rest; after a five minutes’ rest, exercise may be again resumed, to be stopped again at the same signal of fatigue. ”

“ On the other hand this protective blood-vessel contraction creates again as in the other cases a characteristic organic sensation, the sensation of rest which arises when the threshold of perception and activity is raised. The world begins to appear dim and far away, no impulse for action excites us. This organic feeling of rest associates itself with the fatigue feeling. The fatigue sensation, the subcortical sleep center, the contraction of the vessels in the cortex, and finally the rest sensation form together the complete circle. ”

“ Hence sleep, “tired Nature’s sweet restorer,” may be regarded as a complete rest.
The periods of rest should vary with the kind of exercise. Thus exercise which produces breathlessness requires frequent but short rests. The trained runner, finding his respiration embarrassed, stops a moment to regain his breath. Exercises of endurance cause fatigue less quickly than those of speed, but require longer rest. Thus a man not used to long distances may walk a number of hours without stopping, but while fatigue is slow to result, it is also slow to disappear. ”

“ Sometimes pain in the head sets in from overwork. Even in the young, fainting may show itself. Rest is essential, and will prove a perfect cure, together with a little brain exercise of the kind described in article Brain Exercise, always avoiding fatigue. Let all readers remember that it is better to lose six months in rest than become permanently incapable, therefore let old and young take rest in time. ”

“ We have aroused more interest in fatigue elimination, and have made it general. With the establishment of properly distributed rest periods, chairs, seats, etc., the recovery process becomes interesting. As he knows how resting improves his working conditions, the worker becomes more warmly interested in the fatigue itself. It is a very different thing to talk about the evils of fatigue, or even to see the advantages of proper rest exhibited in object lessons, than it is to get proper rest in a specially designed chair for the first time in one’s working life. ”

“ The very interest of using less pressure adds zest to our work, however it may have seemed like drudging before, and the possibility of resting while we work opens to us much that is new and refreshing, and gives us clearer understanding of how to rest more completely while we rest.
All kinds of resting, and all kinds of working, can bring more vitality than most of us know, until we have learned to rest and to work without strain. ”

“ But if præcordial embarrassment be the result of the attempt, or of ordinary professional work, as occasionally happens, further rest will have to be taken, that is, rest for hours or days, according to the severity of the symptoms. I have already mentioned to you that middle-aged patients with cardiac strain, dating from their youth, occasionally break down in their work for months or even years. In such an event a thorough change of air and scene should be combined with rest as a method of treatment. A long voyage may prove invaluable, or foreign travel of an easy and interesting kind. ”

“ The great slide is like common slides in that when once you have started you have to go on to the end—unless you fall down—and then it hurts just as much as the smaller kind on ponds. The great slide runs downhill all the way, so that you keep on going faster and faster and faster. George and Jane went so fast that they had not time to notice the scenery. ”

“ In acute forms this becomes a nervous disease of such seriousness that a regular rest-cure has been often prescribed—and with great success—for it: the patient goes to bed and stops there for several weeks, and is allowed neither to read, nor to talk, nor to{271} make the smallest exertion that is avoidable. And in a less degree for ordinary restlessness the same treatment is applicable, and an increased allowance of sleep is desirable; or, if not of sleep, of deliberate rest; for the evil is due to over-excitation of the nerves without sufficient nourishment. ”

“ She should go up and down stairs slowly, carefully, and as seldom as possible for six weeks. She should not stand more than is unavoidable during that time, but sit with her feet up and lie down when she has time to rest. ”

“ At any rate he so believes it is, that the illusion is complete. The fact of saying to the muscles, “I will rest,” is indeed more immediately productive of refreshment than passive rest. This may sound fantastic, but to take a larger instance, how often has it happened that a patient in some serious fever, when exhaustion is the foe to be dreaded, has pulled through by an exercise{212} of will, by making an effort, whereas if he had lain passive—in the natural condition for recovery—he would certainly have died? ”

“ The weather was stormy, and the mountain brook which ran along the slide concluded to waste no more labor in carving out a bed for itself in the rock, when it might as well be using the slide which it found ready made. And one fine day it broke into the slide and half filled it, so that the logs, when they were started down the steep incline, sent the water flying, turned somersaults, stood on end, and played no end of dangerous tricks which no one could foresee. ”

“ On the appearance of the picture showing the group the fog incidental to a damp or new slide gradually appeared covering the whole slide, and only after some minutes cleared, and then quite contrary to usual practice did so from a central point just over the face that appeared in the centre, and refused even after that to clear right off to the edge. The general experience is for a slide to clear from the outside edges to a common centre. ”

“ Rest and relaxation are quite necessary for men and women even in the best of health. A kind providence has arranged that we spend a large portion of our time resting, and sleeping. In addition to unbroken rest at night it is well for the prospective mother quietly to withdraw from the family circle, when the first signs of fatigue begin to appear, and indulge in a little rest, before she gets into a state of nervousness—where nerves twitch and she becomes irritable. ”

“ PICTORIAL MOTIONS AT REST That a moving thing may sometimes seem to be at rest is well known by any one who has ever spun a top. The top spins itself to sleep. We gaze upon it in a peculiar spell of restfulness, which is broken only when the top wakes up and begins to wabble.
Now one trouble with the movies is that they often wabble when they ought to spin. The motions in the picture too often lack a center of balance, a point of rest. All of us have been annoyed by excessive motions, jumbling, clashing, on the screen. ”

“ If you are strong, austere, resolute, you may be able to wear them down and exhaust them by dusk. If you can do so, without prostrating yourself, then you may get them to bed safely and have a few hours of cheerful lassitude. But take every possible advantage. Let them run and frolic, yourself sitting down as much as you can. Favour yourself, and snatch a little rest while they are not looking. ”

“ It is a powerful thing to rest successfully. Over-fed persons, or animals, do not rest, they are stupefied. Rest is filling your capacities with energy. "Sleep knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," or it should. Rest is relaxing the nerves and muscles. ”