Deep breathing aids digestion and assimilation, not alone because of the regular exercise given to the pancreas, the spleen, the stomach, and the liver by the correct movement of the diaphragm, but because of the latent heat which the oxygen liberates within the digestive organs and out among the tissues.
While the chemical action of food creates activity within, this activity is materially aided by exercise, and oxygen is imperative, as shown above. Exercise and oxygen are also necessary for chemical action in tearing down waste and in putting raw material into condition to be appropriated to the body needs.
Two glasses of water in the morning and fifteen minutes’ brisk exercise of well selected movements, to start a forceful circulation and to surge the water through the vital organs, are a daily necessity if one is to keep clean and strong within. It is as important to cleanse the body within as without. It is the method employed by all men and women who would retain strong vital forces to a ripe old age. They fully enjoy the mere LIVING.
“Tired” or Disturbed Balance
Since the condition of the body so materially affects the digestion, absorption, and metabolism of food, as well as the elimination of waste, it is not amiss to discuss it here.
The habit of eating when too tired and then at once going to work, so that the blood is called from the stomach, is almost sure to result in indigestion.
The average person is tired because the brain and nerves are more active than the muscles and is rested by muscular exercise, or change of work.
The regular work of the body in keeping up the heart action and the circulation and in renewing and relieving waste, requires a certain quantity of oxygen to liberate energy. This energy the system, in normal condition, with normal breathing, readily furnishes, but when that used in undue muscular work is more than that being liberated at the time, through combustion, the energy required for the constant bodily needs is called upon, and the muscles, nerves and tissues are then in the state termed “tired.” They remain so until sufficient oxygen has liberated more potential energy than is needed for the work constantly going on in the body. When a sufficient supply of oxygen has been consumed to equal the demand, the body is in a state of rest.
In mental work the nerves and the brain call for the surplus energy, while in muscular work the tissues require it, hence undue work, either mental or physical, expresses itself in bodily fatigue, until the oxygen equals the demand in all parts of the body.