This automatic action of the spinal cord is a wise provision of nature to conserve strength.
The spinal cord energy is what you might call automatic habit.
For instance, in dressing and undressing yourself, you will recall that you put on or take off your clothes in regular order without giving the matter any thought. It is just habit.
If you wish to demonstrate the difference between the control of the physical body by brain impulse, and the spinal cord impulse, try this some morning: Start out for your exercise and mentally frame sentences like this as you walk--"right step, left step, right step, left step,"
and so on. Give thought to each step you have taken, and notice how tired you will be when you have gone half a mile.
The next morning, start to walk naturally; give no thought to walking; keep your mind on the beauties of nature which you are pa.s.sing, or indulge in pleasant soliloquy, and you will feel no fatigue.
There isn"t a bit of theory in this chapter; it is positive, practical sense that I have proved by my own experiences and by the experiences of everyone to whom I have made this suggestion of walking alone.
The moral is this--walk every morning and walk ALONE.
22.
The body is made up of billions of little cells. These individual cells are in a state of perpetual activity. They exhaust, wear away, break down with work, and rebuild on food and rest. Every process of life--the beat of the heart, the throb of the brain in thought, the digestion of food, the excretion of waste--all are due to the activity of groups of highly specialized individual cells.
[Sidenote: Body Waste.]
Every cell uses up its own material and throws off poisonous by-products during activity. These by-products, or wastes, are very poisonous to the individual cell as well as to the entire organism. To get rid of this waste is one of the first duties of the system.
It is with the body, made up of its countless millions of individual cells, just as it is with a city and its myriad people: the sewage of the community must be collected and disposed of. The city forms its poisons which we call sewage and the body its poisons, which we call excreta (or carbonic acid, urea, uric acid, faeces, etc.). It is no more important for a city to gather up and get ride of its poisonous sewage than for the animal organism to collect and excrete its cell-waste. Hence, the importance of maintaining normal and constant elimination throughout the body.
[Sidenote: Health"s Safety-First.]
Elimination is kept up by the alimentary tract, the kidneys, the skin, and the lungs. These four are the great pipe-line sewerage systems, so to speak, by which the body throws off its gaseous, liquid and solid poisons.
The lungs momentarily strain carbonic acid out of the blood and throw it out in the expired air. They likewise exhale other noxious matters from the system.
The alimentary tract throws off faeces, made up of the waste tissue from the whole system, especially the digestive organs, as well as indigestible and non-nutritious portions of the food.
The kidneys strain out urea, uric acid, and certain other poisons from the blood and eject them through the urinary tract.
Finally the skin likewise is an excretory organ and exhales a very definite amount of gaseous and fluid waste in the course of each twenty-four hours.
The skin throws off all the way from a pint to two quarts of liquid each day in the form of vapor.
[Sidenote: Proper Functioning.]
Thus, to carry on normal elimination from the body, the breathing, digesting, urinary and cutaneous systems must be kept working normally.
To impair the work of any of these is to r.e.t.a.r.d bodily drainage. To make certain that elimination is going on naturally, it is necessary to secure perfect functioning of lungs, bowels, kidneys and the skin.
Any stoppage in the process of elimination means that some fault has crept into the work of one of these excretory systems. It must be plain now why a disorder of any one of these organs of elimination means so much more profound disturbance to the whole organization than merely disease in one structure. It means that waste products are retained which ought to be thrown out of the body; so straightway every cell in the body begins to be more or less affected. Some poisons disturb one organ more and some another, but in the end the whole body must inevitably be affected.
Lack of exercise, bolting of food, eating soft, starchy things, failure to chew properly, failure to get enough roughage, insufficient water, insufficient fruit--these are the general causes of stoppage in the elimination processes.
Drink one or two gla.s.ses of warm water, not hot, the first thing in the morning.
Eat one or two apples, skins and all, every day. Eat toast, especially the crust. Eat cracked wheat or whole wheat bread often.
Exercise plenty. Keep cheerful. Eat regularly.
Very likely you eat too much. You don"t need three big meals a day unless you work outdoors at hard physical labor.
Your body is an engine. No use to keep the boiler red hot and two hundred pounds of steam on if your work is light.
Good health depends upon proper a.s.similation and elimination as nature intended.
Eat less, exercise more, you who work indoors. If you don"t use this caution, you are just slowly killing yourself.
23.
[Sidenote: Never Say "Can"t."]
Many have the habit of keeping their minds on their weaknesses or their shortcomings. If they read of some one doing a great thing or making a worth-while accomplishment, they say: "I never could do such a thing."
These persons are always saying, "I never have luck. I can"t do this. I can"t do that."
Always knocking, always thinking "can"t" instead of "can" makes for fear, irresoluteness, uncertainty and weakness of character.
To say, "I can"t, I haven"t the ability, I am unlucky" makes you weak and knocks out all chance for doing things.
Nothing comes out of the brain that wasn"t burned in by thought. If you disparage yourself, belittle your capacity, or drown your good impulses with doubt and self-accusation, you are putting away a lot of bad thought in your brain, and no wonder you will lack in initiative, ambition, confidence and courage.
To those who claim to be unlucky, I want to say you are not unlucky--you simply lack pluck.
You start at undertakings with a handicap of fear. You have made up your mind that you can"t accomplish. You are half beaten before the game starts. In place of the will to achieve, you approach your task in fear and trepidation. In place of confidence and courage and high aspirations, you set out on your journey with the millstone of doubt and irresolution around your neck.
[Sidenote: Confidence and Success.]
There is but one way to succeed. That is to cast fear and self-accusation aside, and throw your full weight into the struggle with a song on your lips and confidence in your heart. "Victory" should be your battlecry and "Confidence" should be emblazoned on your shield.
Many a man has been whipped in a fight, defeated in a contest, or beaten at an undertaking, but he didn"t show it or let the other fellow know it. He just kept on with a brave front, and finally the other fellow quit, mistaking grim determination, pluck and perseverance for strength and victory.
Ethan Allen with his handful of men were asked to surrender by the British general with his superior force. By all the rights and rules of war, Ethan was licked, but he didn"t give in. He replied: "Surrender h--ll; I"ve just commenced to fight." If Ethan had accused himself and said, "I can"t whip that big bunch; there"s no hope," he would have been whipped to a finish.
Don"t show the enemy or the world your weakness. Don"t admit anything impossible that is capable of accomplishment.
It"s the "I can" man who wins. No man ever won a fight if he started out by saying, "I can"t whip him, he is too much for me; I am no match for him, but I"ll try."