SUPPOSED SECRETS OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE
Before laying down a simple programme which will give one a common sense method of keeping well, living long, and making the very most of life, it may be well to study some of the innumerable theories regarding long life.
If all the discussions upon health and long life, from the earliest time to the present, could be adequately chronicled they would form an interesting, if not an amusing history. In many of these, however, we should find the same serious thoughts which we may well consider and find by comparison a few points in which all agree as to what is necessary to health, happiness and length of days. Note the theories that have been seriously advocated and which have had vogue among certain classes for a time,—such as the use of cold water every day as a remedy for all diseases. The cold water cure advocated wet sheet packs for fevers, and water, in some form, for all ailments. To live long some physicians have advised sleeping on the right side, others have advocated the use of raw food or food that has been cooked very slightly. Some have contended that scientific food is the complete food found in Nature, such as nuts; still others have advocated whole wheat bread!
In our own time a method has been emphasized which has been called "Fletcherizing." This, of course, is taken from the name of the gentleman, who has made it so illustrious by his books and his discussions of the subject. Mr. Fletcher's principle consists in holding or masticating the food until it is in a fluid form; even a liquid must be held in the mouth until it is of the same temperature as that of the body.
Many consider that the chief advantage of Fletcherizing is that it makes a person eat less. This may be a part of the advantage.
I once had the honor of sitting at dinner by the side of Mr. Fletcher and observed his methods. He did not eat more than one-third of the amount, for example, of ice-cream that the rest ate, but he stopped when the others did, and said, with a smile:—"I have had enough; what I have eaten will give me more nourishment than a larger amount would and it will not give me any trouble."
There is great truth in some of these theories. We should eat less meat and more grain. We should not bolt the best food elements out of wheat; we should not bleach rice and take out its nutritious element. Certainly, our lives are very unscientific. Most men live merely by accident. The shortness of life is not surprising to one who understands how irrationally most of us live.
Others say, breathe deeply, naturally and constantly.
Still others have urged active life out of doors or an active participation in business. It is a well-known fact that many men have not lived long after retiring from their occupations.
Andrew Carnegie said recently that he attributed his long life, health and strength to his activity. The story is told that he walked the floor of his room with deep anxiety and consternation the night after his offer was accepted to sell the Carnegie Steel Works. He had not thought it possible that his price would be accepted, and he kept speaking to his old friend about the amount of money paid and the greatness of the responsibility. Fortunately he did not retire, as most men do, but took an interest in every phase of modern life. He has used his money, as a sacred trust, according to his own best judgment, building libraries and giving organs, pensioning teachers who have given their lives for truth rather than for making money, and has furthered many other causes.
One of the most common opinions is that long life depends upon "our constitution,"—upon what we receive from our ancestors. That is, long life is a gift, not an attainment. And we are in the habit of blaming our ancestors, near and remote, for our lack of strength and vitality.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once made the remark that if one wished to live a long life he should be afflicted with some incurable disease. This was thought to be merely a joke, but it has foundation in fact. Many men with poor constitutions live to a very advanced age. They study themselves and live simply. They realize that they are not strong and they do not indulge themselves, but reach out for health and strength in all ways.
Among all the practices which men have adopted through different ages for prolonging life we find many which are universally believed, though possibly not practiced. Some discussion of these may give us courage and enable us to realize how unscientifically, how carelessly, most men live, and how indifferent we really are to our well-being.
And yet we find wide-spread doubt as to the advisability of being too fastidious. Some of the extravagant ideas have naturally given rise to such scepticism.
On hardly any subject have men had such extreme views as they have regarding health or the prolongation of their own lives.
I know one lady who ate a raw carrot every morning because it was yellow, and, as yellow is a spiritual color, this practice, it was advocated, would free one from materiality and, consequently, from all disease.
I have known others who condemned all attention to proper food, exercise, and even to expression, because such attention would lead to faith in material means.
Webster said, "Truth is always congruous, and agrees with itself; every truth in the universe agrees with every other truth in the universe; whereas falsehoods not only disagree with truth but usually quarrel among themselves."
In accordance with this principle as a rule the untruthfulness of any view is seen in its failure to recognize anything else as true.
No one will advocate any extreme and irrational habit. Too much attention to food, too much attention to the care of the body and exercise will degrade even character. The morning exercises which are here recommended should be taken even as one washes his hands, as a matter of course. Man is spiritual, and character is developed spiritually, and mere attention to the body does not secure health and strength.
There is a great and easily demonstrated truth in the fact that people who believe in a spiritual life have endured untold hardships and have faced all kinds of conditions without injury. The power of mind over body, of spirit over matter, is too well attested to be doubted.
However, man is slow and progress must be made gradually. The first step must be taken before the last can be taken. Extravagant and wrong views prevent a great many people from doing anything.
If we examine all the rules for securing health and the leading secrets of long life, we find that one of the earliest is temperance.
A noted instance is Socrates. During the great plague, when at least one-third of the population of Athens died, Socrates went about with impunity. This was no doubt due to the cheerfulness and temperance of his life. We know of his cheerfulness from accounts by Zenophon and Plato.
Possibly the most illustrious example, which has been recounted of the preservation of health and the prolonging of life through temperance, is Luigi Cornaro, who was born in Venice in 1464. After having, according to Gamba, wasted his youth, his health was so broken and his habits so fixed that "upon passing the age of thirty-five he had nothing left to hope for but that he might end in death the suffering of a worn-out life."
This man, by resolution and temperance, battled with his perverted habits and became strong and vigorous and happy, and lived to be over one hundred years of age. "The good old man," said Graziani, "feeling that he drew near the end, did not look upon the great transit with fear, but as though he were about to pass from one house into another. He was seated in his little bed—he used a small and very narrow one—and, at its side, was his wife, Veronica, almost his equal in years. In a clear and sonorous voice he told me why he would be able to leave this life with a valiant soul.... Feeling a little later the failure of vital force, he exclaimed, 'Glad and full of hope will I go with you, my good God!' He then composed himself; and having closed his eyes, as though about to sleep, with a slight sigh, he left us forever."
A new edition of Cornaro's discourses on the temperate life, by William F. Butler of Milwaukee, has recently been issued under the title of "The Art of Living Long." The first of these discourses was written at the age of eighty-three, the second at eighty-six, the third at ninety-one, and the fourth at ninety-five. His treatises have been popular for all these centuries.
He held that the older a man grows the wiser he becomes and the more he knows; and if he will, by temperance and regularity of life and exercise, preserve his strength, his powers of enjoyment will grow, as his own did, every year until the end.
"Men are, as a rule," says Cornaro, "very sensual and intemperate, and wish to gratify their appetites and give themselves up to the commission of innumerable disorders. When, seeing that they cannot escape suffering the unavoidable consequences of such intemperance as often as they are guilty of it, they say—by way of excuse—that it is preferable to live ten years less and to enjoy life. They do not pause to consider what immense importance ten years more of life, and especially of healthy life, possess when we have reached mature age, the time, indeed, at which men appear to the best advantage in learning and virtue—two things which can never reach their perfection except with time. To mention nothing else at present, I shall only say that, in literature and in the sciences, the majority of the best and most celebrated works we possess were written when their authors had attained ripe age, and during these same ten latter years for which some men, in order that they may gratify their appetites, say they do not care."
We see not only in this passage but in many other places evidence of the fact that Cornaro lived a cheerful, contented life. The reform was evidently not merely in his eating and drinking but fully as much in the inner thought of his life. This is shown in many passages from his discourses.
He says: "Although reason should convince them that this is the case, yet these men refuse to admit it, and pursue their usual life of disorder as heretofore. Were they to act differently, abandoning their irregular habits and adopting orderly and temperate ones, they would live to old age—as I have—in good condition. Being, by the grace of God, of so robust and perfect a constitution, they would live until they reached the age of a hundred and twenty, as history points out to us that others—born, of course, with perfect constitutions—have done, who led the temperate life.
"I am certain I, too, should live to that age had it been my good fortune to receive a similar blessing at my birth; but, because I was born with a poor constitution, I fear I shall not live much beyond a hundred years."
According to the census of the United States not one man in twenty thousand attains the age of one hundred years. If we figure out carefully from these statistics, we find the average is only about one-third of this period of life.
One of the social customs is that we must eat an extraordinary meal,—far more than we need, as if life's enjoyment depended on the low sense of taste,—as if every contract or matter of important business must have this as an introduction. Theoretically speaking, many people believe in low living and high thinking, but it is very rare that we find one who practices it.
The two simple rules of Cornaro deserve our attention: to eat only what he wanted, that is, what he actually needed for the sustenance of his body, and to eat only those things which really agreed with him, that is, those which were really helpful to the sustenance of his life. If we should consider eating merely as a means and not an end, Cornaro's idea that the normal age of a human being was one hundred and twenty years would not be such a wild dream.
Another almost universally recognized requisite is exercise in the open air, or regular, systematic, simple and vigorous activity of some kind.
The necessity of thoroughly pure air must be emphasized from first to last. Some think that the dullness felt by many people in the early morning is due to the impure air of cities, and to the failure to open windows. A lady once said to me, "When I am in the country I always sleep out of doors. Then I have not the slightest disinclination to get up. I do it as naturally and as gladly as the animals."
It is to be hoped that the rapid transit and the automobile will enable people to live farther out in the country, farther from air poisoned by smoke and gases. Even in cities, however, one may have open windows and greater circulation of air than is common.
Some have gone so far as to place exercise over against temperance in eating, saying that if you take enough exercise you may eat and drink what you please. While there is some truth in this there is really no antagonism between them; in fact, they are usually found together.
Another view almost universally advocated, is to avoid drugs. The importance of this and its union with right exercise have been demonstrated in the impressive language of fable.
"There is a story in the 'Arabian Nights' Tales'," says Addison, "of a king who had long languished under an ill habit of body, and had taken abundance of remedies to no purpose. At length, says the fable, a physician cured him by the following method: he took a hollow ball of wood, and filled it with several drugs; after which he closed it up so carefully that nothing appeared. He likewise took a mallet, and, after having hollowed the handle and that part which strikes the ball, he inclosed in them several drugs after the same manner as in the ball itself. He then ordered the sultan, who was his patient, to exercise himself early in the morning with these rightly prepared instruments, till such time as he should sweat; when, as the story goes, the virtue of the medicaments perspiring through the wood, had so good an influence on the sultan's constitution, that they cured him of an indisposition which all the compositions he had taken inwardly had not been able to remove.
"This Eastern allegory is finely contrived to show us how beneficial bodily labor is to health, and that exercise is the most effectual physic."
Another illustration is furnished us by Sir William Temple:—
"I know not," he says, "whether some desperate degrees of abstinence would not have the same effect upon other men, as they had upon Atticus; who, weary of his life as well as his physicians by long and cruel pains of a dropsical gout, and despairing of any cure, resolved by degrees to starve himself to death; and went so far, that the physicians found he had ended his disease instead of his life."
Of all the methods advocated, possibly one of the most universally recognized is joyousness,—a hopeful attitude toward life, a cheerful, kindly relationship with one's kind.
According to Galen, Æsculapius wrote comic songs to promote circulation in his patients.
"A physician," says Hippocrates, "should have a certain ready wit, for sadness hinders both the well and the sick."
We know, too, that Apollo was not only the god of music and poetry but also of medicine. The poet, John Armstrong, has explained this:
"Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels disease, softens every pain;
And hence the wise of Ancient days adored
One power of physic, melody and song."
Sir Charles Clark, one of the greatest physicians of modern times, exercised a most exhilarating influence over his patients by his cheerfulness and jollity. It was probably one of the chief means of his wonderful success.
"Cheerfulness," says Sir John Byles, "is eminently conducive to health both in body and mind."
A recent writer says of Professor Charles Eliot Norton that he was "not of a rugged constitution, yet he did an enormous amount of work and lived to a beautiful old age." This is attributed to the fact that he was never "blue." The cheerful kindliness of his face, his genial smile and kind words were sources of great inspiration to me when a teacher at Harvard, and to all who met him.
The more we investigate the theories of long life the more do we become impressed with a universal longing for a length of days. We find a deep, underlying instinct "that men do not live out half their days." Everywhere, too, we find a certain expectation of "finding the fountain of youth," a hope in some way to conquer sickness and death.
This desire is normal and natural. It may, sometime in future history, be realized.
As we examine these theories we find, however wild they may seem at first, certain common sense views at the heart of all of them. No one need make a hobby of any one of them. Temperance, regularity, repose, patience, and above all, cheerfulness, do not exclude each other, they rather imply one another. In many instances one can hardly be practiced without some of the others. The practice of one would unconsciously bring up the others.
If we study carefully these theories, and especially if we study the lives of those who have not only professed theories but have faithfully practiced their principles and attained great health and age, we always find a combination of various methods.
There is no doubt, for example, that Cornaro completely reformed his life.
The character of Socrates was the secret of his good health. Temperance to the Greek did not mean total abstinence. It meant lack of extravagance; it meant what we mean by patience, by an unruffled temper,—it meant the right use of all the faculties and powers.
What new hobby, you may ask, is the theme of this book? Nothing that will interfere with the fundamental elements of the best ideas of all ages. First of all it is advocated that we go down deeper into all theories. Temperance should not be applied merely to food and drink but must cover self-control, repose of life, purity and depth of thought, and a harmonious development of human nature. The book tries to draw attention to many important things which are usually overlooked or not considered necessary to health and life.
The study of expression, to choose only one example, reveals to us, the necessity of a right poise of the body. One of the leading teachers of science in this country, after fighting tuberculosis for three years, changing climates and using all the help that science has provided, determined at last to go back to his work and to do his best even though he lost his life.
Making a constant and careful study of himself he again began his life as a teacher. He met with one with great knowledge of the human body, one who had studied it from many points of view. He was surprised when that expert said to him:—"Your dieting will not do you much good, that is not your trouble. You do not sit right nor stand right, your chest is too low, it not only cramps your breathing but what is still more important, it cramps your stomach and all the other vital organs." The scientist eagerly asked what he could do to recover his strength, and he received a few valuable suggestions, which he followed, and in six months he was stronger than ever.
As a student and teacher of human expression for nearly forty years, I have found most important connections between man's mind, body and voice. The right use of the voice is next to impossible unless a man stands properly. There are certain inter-relations between the simple conditions and actions of the body, and the conditions and the true use of the voice are determined by the way a man thinks and feels.
A man must not only have right feeling but must express it. He cannot get right expression without right thinking. Health, itself, is one of man's mental and emotional conditions.
This book is an endeavor to study human unfoldment from an all-sided observation of the whole nature of man. Man is a unity, and an endeavor to establish health from a mere material point of view has always failed. Expression is a study from a higher point of view. The organism is studied from the point of view of its mental function. Expression implies the subordination of the body to the actions of the mind. This gives a truer point of view for an all-sided human development.
It also implies a study of the especial significance and use of certain primary acts of our lives:—such as the way we wake up in the morning and certain movements which are taken at that time by animals and normal beings. The stretches, yawnings and breathings, peculiar to that moment, are never lost by animals, but human beings, with their higher possibilities but greater power of perversion, lose the significance and helpfulness of this primarily instinctive movement.
The study of expression also reveals to us that certain emotions are normal or positive and develop health and strength, while certain other emotions are negative and destructive of vitality as well as of manhood. We also find that the emotions we choose to express become our own and, therefore, we should choose normal conditions of mind and emotions, and express these consciously and deliberately, especially at the most negative time in the morning, when we first wake up.
Expression is one of the necessary elements of human development. We control emotions and control their expression. We welcome noble thoughts or noble feelings, and that which we welcome we become.
This book shows the smile, laughter, the taking of breath and the simple stretch as most important exercises which are to be regularly taken. It also implies a deeper study into human co-ordinations; it tries to show a universal necessity of rhythm and is an endeavor to establish the higher principles of training in a way that makes them applicable to the most simple of human actions.
The student is requested to study himself, to make a demonstration of every claim and of more than is claimed. The exercises are so simple that anyone can try and prove them, only let the trial be one continued long enough to be a real test.
The moment you awake center attention upon a pleasant thought or take an attitude of joy, thanksgiving and love for all the world. Have courage and confidence that all evils will vanish; express some normal feelings at once by the expansion of the chest, a deep full breath, an inward laugh or chuckle and an increased harmonious stretch of the whole body.
Everyone will be tempted to say that he cannot control his thoughts. He may say he does not wish to be a hypocrite and try to excuse himself for brooding over gloomy thoughts or the fear that he will not get through the day. Such lack of courage, lack of faith, lack of thanks for the beauties of life are sins which cannot be too strongly condemned.
We can and must at once put ourselves in a positive attitude of mind. We must begin our day with a song, with a smile. We must look upward, not downward. We must reject every discordant thought and accept accordant ones regarding the coming day. It is a new day which brings new life, new joys, new duties, it may be new trials, but these, instead of being accepted as obstacles, may be turned into opportunities.
The indulgence of negative thoughts in the morning may become a habit. A great battle may have to be fought at first, but perseverance and promptness can correct such evil tendencies. It is at this time that the demon of regret and of disappointment is apt to lay hold of us; the blackest thought in our lives likely to meet us.
Observe that this was so of Pippa. Though she awoke with joy, and is held up as an ideal, as she goes on thinking the darkest shadow of her life comes to her.
"If I only knew
What was my mother's face—my father, too!"
This thought, however, she puts out of her mind by resolution, by turning, as we always should turn at such an hour, to the Source.
"Nay, if you come to that, best love of all
Is God's; then why not have God's love befall
Myself as, in the palace by the Dome,
Monsignor?—who to-night will bless the home
Of his dead brother."
Here must begin the heroic endeavor to live. Effort will be required for a time till the habit is formed.
Instantly control the attention and express it by action. Give a positive welcome to the day and the light; express positive thanksgiving for the thought that you have strength and that you have the joy of work to do.
It is in the morning that we should begin to live a new life, a simple life; it is then that we should eliminate all whines and abnormal desires and open our hearts to receive the strength of a new day.
Life, growth and development respond to joy. Every flower seems to smile to meet the sun, and the little bird sings in the midst of its duties.
Some scientists are hoping to discover the germ of old age, and by destroying this to prolong life. The real germ, however, of old age is found in the doubt and worry which we allow to enter the holy of holies of the heart at the holiest hour of the day. If we guard the sacred shrine of thought and consciousness from impure, unkind and discouraging ideas at the moment of awaking it may be truly said that the enjoyments of life as well as its length will be doubled.
The primary acts that express this joy are: first, expansion; second, taking a deep breath; third, stretching of the body; fourth, a smile or inward laugh.
Sometimes these take place so rapidly as to seem to be simultaneous, but close examination will reveal a sequence, though rapid.
As in life we have to live a truth to know or understand it, so an act of expression embodies the emotion.
True enjoyment is also always expansive. Anger and negative emotions cause constrictions, while joy and love increase expansion.
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." It is the mind that makes the man. When we reject a negative thought and accept a positive one we begin the real battle of life. Negative emotion, every moment it is expressed becomes stronger, and gradually takes complete possession of us.
Prof. James says that everyone should do something disagreeable every day, but there is great danger in accepting anything as disagreeable. We must not only do something disagreeable, but we must accept and do it as if it were an agreeable thing. This is most important. The attitude toward life makes all the difference.
Another great teacher has said, "When a wrong thought comes in, say, Out of my house, you don't belong here!"
Remember that the field of consciousness is a sacred shrine. From it banish everything that is not full of joy and praise and comfort, that does not give you strength and courage. Do as Pippa did. Do not let the devil take possession, as he is always ready to do at this time.
This battle must be fought at once. There must be no delay. Idea will link itself to idea by the law of association of ideas, and we shall soon form a habit of negative thoughts in the morning.
The great point to note is that we should live rational lives, that we should give our attention and apply our own scientific knowledge and reason to the every-day duties of life, and not disregard the duty we owe to ourselves.
Men are continually doing something which they know to be wrong. They indulge in thoughts which they know will poison their minds and characters. They eat food which they know is not good for them. They pour into their stomachs stimulants which they know will dull their higher faculties and powers.
Some tell us that life is a continuous battle. It may be looked at in that way, but if we look at it from a more rational point of view it is a continual reaching up for higher enjoyment. Every day and every hour we must be on our guard; our theories must be a rule of life to be really obeyed and lived. Therefore, to apply our own knowledge to the restoration or maintenance of life demands that we avoid that which is injurious, and that we joyously, gladly accept that which is helpful.
Life is a sacred gift, a privilege, and an opportunity to be enjoyed, it is to be lifted up, and filled with high experiences.
To accomplish all these ends, we should study those moments when we are in greatest danger,—those moments which are most important and when we are best able to control our attention and to command our feelings.
The one supreme hour is the hour of awakening. If we can occupy a few minutes of this time in right thoughts, and right movements scientifically directed and as simple as those of the animals, the effect will be astonishing.
To come down to a few specific things that everyone should practice in order to be stronger, to be more efficient, to enjoy more and to live longer, let us summarize a few general points.
(1) Express joy first with laughter. If you cannot laugh aloud, laugh with an inner chuckle. It is not enough to have joy, it must be actively expressed to have an effect upon the organism.
(2) Maintaining the joy and laughter, express, therefore, all harmonious extensions of the body, that is, all simple stretches. Maintaining the laughter and the extension of the body, expand the chest and torso as much as possible.
(3) On waking up, take a thought of joy, of courage, of love toward all mankind, toward the day and its work.
(4) Maintaining all previous conditions, take a full, deep breath.
(5) Set free with the simplest movements every part of the body.
(6) Co-ordinate the parts of the body concerned in every-day work, and sustain them with primary and normal activities.
(7) Bring all the parts of the body into normal rhythm by alternative activity of the parts and in other ways.
To have good health we must rejoice, laugh, extend, expand, breathe, co-ordinate the primary parts of the body, act rhythmically, set free all the parts of the body and all the primary activities of function.
In short, this book tries to move everyone to study the simplest things, the simplest actions, the most normal duties of a human being, and to assert these and to exercise them the very first thing in the morning.