ARE YOU TIRED?

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 434, 27 January 1912, Page 2

ARE YOU TIRED?

THEN TRY FORCED BREATIIXC. The value of forced breath in.": as a stimulant in cases of mental ami physical fatigue ie asserted to be very considerable. In fact violent breathing for several minutes will, we are bidden tn believe temporarily so change the human system as to make respiration n-n----issential for as much an five mi after the finish of tin indicate i preparatory breathing exercise. In this connection the f ulowitv: exhaustive personal testimony from a celebrated technological expert will be read with interest. WHAT AN EXPERT SAY£S. The authority alluded to says : "In my own case I have found that four minutes enforced breathin ■■ makes it possible to hold the breath for three and a half minutes, whereas without this preparation fifty-si;< seconds was my limit. Th?. time during which it is possil.de to dc without respiration increar.es, oi course, with the length of time during which the preparatory breath ing is carried on. The increase does not go on indefinitely, but reaches a definite limit, beyond which further length of time given to preparatory breathing does not increase the time during which the breath may be held. "Ths preparatory breathing is effective long after the 'washing o it' of the lungs must have been completed. The change produced in the system is certainly, therefore, more fundamental than a lung change, a"<l would appear to a layman to indicate a temporary change in Llood constitution. "The effect as a mental stimulant is very pronounced. I have noticed in my own case that mental fatigue may be postponed, far beyond the usual point, by two minutes of rapic deep breathing at half-hour intervals. A feeling of sluggishness or sleepiness may be almost completely dispelled I have never noticed any reaction as in the case of most stimulants, anc altogether it seems to me very satisfactory. HOW FATIGUE IS OVERCOME.

"The effect on muscular fatigue is also striking. A difficult arm exercise with heavy weights which ; could not repeat under ordinary circumstances more than twenty times. I found after about four minutes ol this preparatory breathing that I :ould do twenty-seven times, that is about 30 per cent. more. This increase I found to exist at all stages of fatigue, as might be expected. "The pulse beat, goes up very rapidly while the breathing is continued ; in my own case, from about (Hi tc 105 after four minutes' breathing. "Another curious effect which, perhaps, is worth mentioning is the apparent rapid lapse of time during the latter half of a hard breathing period. This change in the tim« sense is very noticeable.

"As a mental stimulant, and as o means to increase the time during whicbj the system can do without respiration, violent breathing might find considerable useful application, and during rescues from suflocnVon are common enough to make a. Knowledge of this possible threefold cn durance withour air of no little value."

This, as an individual experience, seems very striking ; but one would like to have the opinion of qualified physicians as to whether forcin r thn breathing in the conditions indicated would not tend to produce pronoun> Kl after mischief, as other violent exercises are known to do. —"'Scraps.'