HOUSEWIFE FATIGUE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 812, 18 February 1955, Page 27

HOUSEWIFE FATIGUE

This is the text of a talk on health broadcast recently from ZB, YA and YZ stations of the NZBS by

DR

H. B.

TURBOTT

Deputy-

Director-General of Health .

that wives get more tired doing housework than they do earning the daily bread. There’s a right kind of tiredness, relieved by a rest, a meal of cup of tea, and that sends you to sleep soon after touching the pillow, to awake next morning fit for the new day. There’s a wrong kind of fatigue that’s there every mortiing. This chronic tiredness requires examination. Its source may be mental ot physical. Titedness that is always theré can be purely psychological. You don’t like housework. You are tied to the home. You are bored with it and sorry fot yourself. This frame of mind only makes it harder, wears you down into a cfoss, nervolis person, actually makes the tasks take longer, and makes you tired next day. Emotional stress in the home has the same effect. Resolve the méntal strain atid pleasure will return to housework. If you are sorry for yourself and boted, reverse the thinking. Take pride in household tasks, mix rests with activity, and you will lose your chronic fatigue. More commonly, the cause of fatigue is physical in housewives, from plain overwork. The same pattern is gone through daily, steady work till tired out. It’s a long day, from before breakfast till the children are asleep, with the big meal of the day as the climax, just when fatigue is catching up on you. In industrial life they’ve found out that these kind of days are bad for production. A rhythm of work and rest is required to keep output high. In one tryout in the steel industry, workers made to take regular rests raised procuction by a third and found themselves not So tited as when they worked without breaks. After Dunkirk the production "drive kept people working 12 hours a day the whole week through: Output soon fell off in spite of the desperate urge to do more. The wotk week was cut to 60 hours on advice. then to 56, and in some processes td 44. Now the output increased, and more’ war materials .flowed ftom less time at work. In a sttidy on rjveters, resting a few minutes after every dozen rivets raised the number of rivets driven 100 per cent. Every job has to be studied to determine the best altefnation of work and rest. For, if it can be found, there’s a rhythm of labour and spelling that gives the best output with the least fatigue. Somebody should do an on-the-job study of housework. Housewives . flog theniselves along till tired out. Fatigue prodiicts pile up in the muscles. The blood doesnt get a chance to elitninate them in one fiight’s rest, because they're piled up so continuously during the day. So you wake up tired, lose your appetite, can’t sleep next night, and this goes, on till tired lines mark the face, you get cross, and constantly feel worn out. You are in a vicious circle of chronic fatigue. There’s only one way to break this. Find out the rhythm of rest that must/alternate with your work periods. Instead of driving yourself through the day till exhausted, stop before the tiredness catches up on you. The secret is little rests every iow and then. Getting your feet off the ground for five minutes ifi évéry hour may do the trick -restore efiergy before fatigiie piles up too much) Mind you, it has to be min-. H ive rarely realise

utes of real relaxation. Deliberately shut out worry about time and tasks, slump easily in a chair, have .a cup of tea or a cigarette, or look at a picture magazine-five minutes really off duty! Don’t overdo the éigarettés; chain smoking is a sure way,to chronic tited-

ness. If you are going to that rare dance or play or late night out, plan a short nap for that afternoon. The next attack on chronic tiredness is to study your houseworking methods. I never understand why you have to stand throughout that tedious job of preparing vegetables or ironing. Is there something about a high stool that repels womenfolk? Look for the easiest way of doing each task, and so lessen fatigue. If you wake up tired each morning, have a medical check for hidden disease. If reassured there’s nothing physically wrong, change your routine. Try more rest periods for keeping your good looks and getting more life out of living.