DEEP BREATHING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1924, 1 August 1889, Page 4

DEEP BREATHING.

Nobody teaches boys how to breathe. City boys, and many from the country, too, have finer chests before they go to school than ever they do afterwards. Sitting in a scb«olhouae, or shop, or factory, or any other room, five or six hours a day, and then sitting most of the rfest of the day besides, does much to weaken the chest j for when you sit still you do not breathe your lungs half full. Take one large, full breath now, and see how differently from a minute ago, wheL breathing only as you generally do. Many boys do not breathe their lungs full once a week. Is it any wonder that they have weak chests and easily catch colds ?' " How are you to have strong lungs if you do not use them ? Which has the strongest arms—the invalid leaving a sick bed or the blacksmith; he who uses his arms or he who does not ? When walking at the rate of four miles an hour you breathe nearly five times as much air as when you are sitting still. Now, the fuller breath you take, and the mora <sf thorn you take in a day, the stronger and fuller chest you are going to have, If every boy in the United; States would take a thousand slow, very deep breaths every day'from now on throughout his life,"it. would "almost double their vigor and effectiveness as a nation. For deep breathing not oaly enlarges the chest itself, and makes it shapely and strong, ibut. it gives- power and vigor to the lungs and heart, and makes them do their work far better. And it does the same thing to the stomach and bowels, the liver and kidneys j indeed, to all the vital organs. It makes'; the "blood richer. It adds directly to the vigor of the brain as well, and, so enables it to do more w<?rk..: In it is about the best known way of getting and keeping health. And who would care to hire a sick man to work for him ? Or who can do much hard work when he is sick? Not that we*can always avoid sicklies*, but it is less likely to come, and has harder work to enter, when we are robust and in good training than when we are weaß and run down. s