REST AND REFRESHMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 16

REST AND REFRESHMENT

By MRS. ABBIE HARGRAVE. If you are middle-aged, or, as some prefer to put it, “the usual age,” when meeting one of your contemporaries, it is always a question .of who gets out first the accustomed, “Well, and how are you, my dear?” to which the other answers, “All right, really. Only, you know, -always tired!” It is the complaint of all who have passed their youth, and the curious thing is that all seem to a’ccept it as inevitable—not one in a hundred does anything to remedy it. Of course, to a certain extent, that “tired feeling” is merely the years taking their toll, there is no remedy that will actually put back the clock for us. Our capacity for thrills and excitement is lessened, very greatly lessened, and the nerves on which we ; moderns live so recklessly do not respond to artificial stimulus as they did. If our bodies are intact, the, mental springs are beginning to sag, and the more persistently we pretend that we are just as we -always have been, the greater the subsequent reaction from any overstrain. Facing Facts Yet, frequently, we are more tired than we need be if we faced the thing fairly and tried to circumvent it. Personally, I think that the revolt from that long period almost amounting to coma and bodily disintegration, when our grandmothers retired from outside interests, let their figures spread and frankly took fireside comfort for their god, was a very good revolt indeed. Only the pendulum has swung rather far for individual good in many instances. It is almost as bad, constantly to be doing things for which you are not fitted, as to do nothing at all.

A wise middle-age should allow for depreciated energy, without pampering or ignoring it. All the doctors tell us that the older we grow the less we reed to eat; now, is our particular brand of tiredness anything to do with diet? Do we come hungry to all our meals? Because, if not, we don’t need them. Perhaps they are too solid. There are very' few middle-aged people, we read, who would not feel less tired without puddings, cakes, sweets, soups, potatoes, so why not try giving up some if not all of these? Lots of cold water, between meals, is always being advised —so cheap, and so handy, and if you will believe me, so reviving! Need For Rest Then you need rest, and even more than rest, quiet. Shut yourself away from everybody for a short period in the middle of the day, or, if you can’t manage it then, late in the afternoon, before, perhaps, the family come home; before you have to spur yourself to final effort of the evening, which is often more than you can bear.

Do not think you can take this healing rest darning socks, which you hate doing, or sitting over the fire. Make yourself really comfortable, lying down for choice, shut your eyes, and, as far as you can, shut your mind. Every day you will find it a little easier to do until it becomes a most life-giving habit. You will find that by taking some such measures as I have suggested, or any others that fit your need, you will soon cease to drop things, that alarming symptom of tiredness, call people by their wrong names, forget things, and snap at those you love without meaning to! We all long to look and seem young, especially when we are not young! Serenity, allied to mental alertness, rather than‘incessant activity, makes a middle-aged woman seem less than her age.