THE CARE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

FIGS. 65, 66, and 67. Rest and quiet recreation build up tired nervous systems.

THE nervous system is the ruler of all the body, and if it is not kept in health the whole body must suffer. To keep it in health requires good food, pure air, exercise, freedom from germ diseases, all the things that are needed by the rest of the body. There are also a few special points in regard to the care of the nervous system that it is well to know. In this chapter we shall discuss the need for rest and sleep, and the injury that comes to the nervous system from suffering pain.

The necessity for rest. No people have ever worked as the American people are now working. As a people, we hurry on from day to day, scarcely taking time to eat in a healthful manner. Even our play and our amusements are full of nervousness and excitement, and many of our people hardly know what an hour of quiet, peaceful rest is.

This kind of life is not healthful either for the body or for the mind, and while you are still in your

youth you should form the habit of resting. When you become tired at your play, lie down and rest. If you have a hard task and feel wearied after you have performed it, do not hurry off to play, but give your body the rest it needs. If you have a hard lesson, put your mind on it and study while you are at it; but if you find that your mind is tired and you are only looking at your book, stop and

FIGS. 68 and 69. A proper and an improper position for sleeping. Too high a pillow bends the spinal column to the side, interferes with the breathing, and disturbs the sleep.

rest. Get up and open the window and take a breathing exercise, while you think of something else. Endeavor to keep yourself calm and quiet, avoid fits of anger or great excitement, and do not overdo at your play or at your work. Learn that peace and quietness are as much a part of a healthful, useful life as the bustle and excitement in which some people always live. Learn to rest, and you will have learned something that will do much toward keeping your nervous system in health.

The necessity for sleep. The nervous system needs something that the rest of the body does not

require, and that is sleep. Without sleep we cannot remain in health. Young babies sleep nearly all the time, and the twelve or fourteen-year old boy or girl ought to have nine or ten hours of sleep every night. If you are sleepy at getting up time, go to bed earlier.

In this connection it is of interest to know that

many people who have

tried sleeping outdoors find

that they need about an
hour less sleep each night
when they sleep in the
open air than when they
sleep indoors. The ner-
vous system is built up and
restored more quickly when
we breathe pure air than
when we breathe impure
air. So move your bed
out on an upper porch, or

make sure that you have plenty of fresh air in
your room at night.

Pain. The suffering of pain has a very bad effect on the nervous system. Ill health and disease bring on old age faster than the passing of the years, and one reason why sickness so often leaves the body weakened and aged is that the nervous system has been wrecked by the pain that it has borne. A

week of toothache or of earache is a great drain on the nervous system. A corn that is continually causing pain can do as much to wear out your nervous system as an hour's extra work each day. Sometimes we learn to pay little attention to a dull pain and allow it to go on from week to week, but it is not right to do this. Pain is nature's danger signal; it is a call for help from some part of the body. Your nervous system can no more rest when these calls are coming to it night and day, than you could rest with the screams of some one who is calling for help constantly coming to your ears.

Have you toothache? Have you earache? Have you headaches? Do your eyes pain you? Do your feet hurt you? Have you pain in any other part of the body? If so, ask your parents to take you to a dentist or to a physician. For you ought to get up in the morning feeling fresh and rested; and you ought to go to bed, tired and sleepy perhaps, but free from pain.

Questions: 1. Mention three points that are important in the care of the nervous system. 2. Does a person who works quietly and rests when he needs it do any less work than the person who is hurrying all the time? 3. How many hours of sleep ought you to have? 4. How may a person know if he is getting enough sleep? 5. What should be done by a person who continues to suffer pain? 6. Why?

Suggestions and topics for development: How a vacation may best be spent to fit one for another year's work.

FIGS. 71, 72, and 73. Keeping the teeth clean, breathing pure air, and going to bed regularly at an early hour are three habits that have much to do with keeping us in health.

WHEN the nervous system has done a thing once, it does it the second time more easily. When one has performed an act a great number of times, one's nervous system becomes so trained that it carries out the act easily and quickly and often without thought. When the nervous system becomes trained in this way, we say that we have formed a habit.

Just what happens in the nervous system when a habit is formed no one knows. But we do know that in the movements of the muscles, in the training of the mind, and in the building of the character, nothing has so great an influence as the habits we have formed.

Habits and health. It is not single acts, but habits, that destroy the health. It is not single acts, but habits, that build up the health.