A Girl Scout should avoid unusual exercise before, during and immediately following menstruation. However, she should remember that a reasonable amount of exercise at this time is quite normal and beneficial, except where there is an actual disorder of some sort. In this case a physician should be consulted.
3. Rest and Conserve Energy—Go to bed early and sleep from eight to eleven hours, according to age. Sleep with windows open all the year round. Rest sometime during the day, flat on the back if possible, but even five minutes sitting quietly with hands in the lap and eyes closed is better than nothing. The following table shows the number of hours of sleep that are needed at different ages:
| Age | Hours of Sleep | ||
| 10 and 11 years | 9½ | to | 11 |
| 12 and 13 years | 9 | to | 10½ |
| 14 and 15 years | 8½ | to | 10 |
| 16 and 17 years | 8 | to | 9½ |
| 18 and 19 years | 8 | to | 9 |
| 20 and over | at | least | 8 |
Save Your Eyes
The reason it is important to rest and to sleep enough is because it is while at rest that the body regains energy lost during activity, and stores it up for future work and play. There are other ways of saving energy, and one of them is by keeping the body in such good repair that like a good machine it does its work with a minimum expenditure of force and heat. This is the main reason for the setting-up exercises, or indeed for any sort of exercises. Perhaps the single best way to save energy is by saving your eyes. There is almost no work or play that does not involve the use of our eyes. If people are blind they can learn to do many things without vision, but it is infinitely harder than with it. Modern life, especially in cities, makes a constant demand on our eyes, and more than this, the demand is on one part of the eyes—the muscles concerned in near work. The best way to rest the eyes, and one which not only rests the tired parts but exercises the parts that are not used, is by doing things that will involve distant vision. Walking and looking far ahead and far away on every side rests the eyes best of all, and this is one reason why a good walk will often clear up a headache. Another way to insure distant vision is by riding backward in a car. Then as the landscape flows past you, your eye muscles relax to the position needed for distant vision. If you cannot walk or ride and are doing close work, like sewing or reading, look up and "at nothing" every once in a while.
The following are some important rules to remember in saving your eyes:
Rest your "near" eye muscles by looking at distant objects and places.
Do not work facing a light or where the rays from a light cross your field of vision directly.
Work so far as possible by indirect or reflected light.
If you must work near uncovered artificial lights, wear an eye-shade.