FRESHENING UP by The Voice

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 24, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 59.

FRESHENING UP.

By The Voice

But if one is not to "throw off" weariness by having a cup of coffee or taking some nice hot tea, what is he to do with his tired feeling?

If it is near a meal time, take a half hour's rest in the open air, and then make a moderate but very slow meal. For immediate and temperate relief, take a glass of hot malted milk or plain hot milk and water salted can be recommended. Hot water is distasteful to some.

As to the half-hour's rest before eating, some will prefer to spend it in gentle outdoor exercise, others in a chair by the fire, others flat on a bed. This will depend on the sort of work done, and on the individual. Those who can refresh themselves by applications of cold water have a most valuable tonic at hand. Many to whom an indiscriminate cold bath would only cause depletion and depression, can get immense relief by sitting in a shallow bath of cool water with the feet in warm water, and then, with a sponge, laving the cool water up and down the middle of the back. This acts on the nervous centers in the spinal cord, and powerfully influences circulation in the body, as much as cold water on the face and neck gives a sense of refreshment there.

But when all is said, it still remains that, when tired, the thing of all things to do is to rest, and to rest fully and freely. Postponement becomes, then, the key to final accomplishment. When a pendulum begins to slow up and stop in one direction, by all means let it set off at once in the other, and swing as far as it will. The next return stroke will atone for the cessation of this one. That it should go on swinging its full stroke is the main thing. The rest needed may be a ten-minute stop in harness, or a full night's sleep, or two months away from everything. What matter if two years afield is the condition of obtaining full vigor for ten years following? A few days or months or years of over-exhausting labor rarely yield results so important as to make the partial breaking down of the man himself profitable either to himself or anyone else. So, in conclusion, when tired, accept the fact without resentment, and look mainly to natural agencies for recovery of the energy wished for.—The Voice.