PHYSICAL NEEDS 



proportion of the inhabitants of Europe and America, 

 even of the cultivated classes, sleep habitually in rooms 

 with closed windows, rooms so closely approximat- 

 ing hermetic sealing that the air inevitably becomes 

 positively noxious before morning. 



Having thus deliberately set about poisoning them- 

 selves, they marvel at the natural sequence of events, 

 in accordance with which they sleep poorly, are dis- 

 turbed by dreams, and awake stupefied rather than 

 refreshed. 



Even during the waking hours, a large number of 

 people secure a less adequate supply of oxygen than 

 they might supply their tissues had they learned to 

 practise better methods of breathing. Under ordinary 

 conditions, breathing is, to be sure, an involuntary 

 function. In response to the insistent demands of 

 the tissues, the lungs are inflated, without conscious 

 direction from the brain, sufficiently to secure at least 

 a minimum quantity of oxygen. But persons of 

 sedentary habits do well to supplement this reflex ac- 

 tivity by giving conscious attention from time to time 

 to the manner of their breathing. 



It you will now and again go to an open door or 

 window and, standing erect with shoulders thrown 

 back, practise forced breathing to the fullest capacity 

 of your lungs for a minute or two, you will directly 

 benefit every tissue of your body, and will tend to de- 

 velop improved habits of involuntary breathing. 



To women in particular this practise is to be com- 

 mended, partly because they as a class are more given to 

 sedentary habits of life, but partly also because the 



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