S.wiNt; Strength. 633 



Still it may be a clear gain of time to indulge in these resting periods 

 and the couch and easy chair should be frequently used. 



Oftentimes we spend as much energy in useless effort to get things 

 done when we do not feel like doing them as we do in the accomplish- 

 ment of much more when we are fit for work. We are much more 

 satisfied with the work that is done in the morning when we are fresh, 

 than with that done later in the day when the spirit lags from want of 

 strength. It has been noticed by housewives that perhaps just before 

 dinner when the family is expected home, or at any other critical moment 

 in the day's work, there is a nervous tension invited which wearies 

 more than the real work does. One way to get along with this is to 

 screw up the nervous energy a little harder and try to go through the 

 ordeal of being the leading spirit in the household and at the same time 

 seeing that the dinner is on the table in good condition and properly 

 served; or when the tension comes, one may relax physically and by 

 such effort throw off nervous tension with the idea that everything 

 will come out all right, and even if there are mistakes they are not 

 serious ones. This is a good time to use the rocking chair, to close the 

 eyes, relax the jaw, rest the head on the chest, and become possessed 

 with the idea that "all's right with the world." Repose settles very 

 gracefully upon a housewife. The other members of the family don't 

 always come home with the spirit of helpfulness and cheerfulness, and 

 a woman who finds it necessary to be the pacifier or the encourager 

 will find this is the time to call upon her reserve power of strength. 

 She needs to store up energy for the unexpected because emergencies 

 are always having to be met in the household. If she does not plan 

 for the unusual, but uses her strength and her time to the full limit, 

 the unusual which happens is liable to be the "straw which breaks the 

 camel's back." 



Rest for a minute. The wise woman will not fail to take a few min- 

 utes for rest several times during even her busiest and most taxing day. 

 Indeed, it is on just such days that she most needs to practice the sweet 

 and beneficial gospel of relaxation. To relax — to let go the nerve, brain 

 and muscle strain — for even sixty seconds is a positive gain to the whole 

 system. Complete relaxation and thorough rest are most easily obtained 

 by lying down and unreservedly yielding the support of the body to the 

 couch. Thus to spend five or ten minutes in the middle of each day 

 would enable many a worn and weary house-worker to accomplish mere 

 with less fatigue than is otherwise possible. The foregoing suggestion is 

 so remote from what many an industrious woman considers "her 

 -duty to her family" as to seem to her like theoretical nonsense. Never- 



