The best way to insure a good head of hair is to wear it loose and free, without any artificial aids and appliances. Of course you may dress it any way it pleases you, but aside from pins it should never have any other pressure upon it.
The hair should be washed frequently in water with a little powdered borax, but remember you wash the hair only to clean the scalp, nothing should be applied to the hair directly.
There is another fashion which has made many a girl suffer from headaches, thinned her hair and injured her complexion. This is the wearing of tight collars, neck bands, and those torturing things with points you wear stuck right up under the ears. I forget now what you call them, and I won’t tell you what I call them, for it would not sound nice to polite ears. But if you keep on wearing them a man will be able to say almost anything without you being able to hear him; for you will be deaf.
The reason these tight collars do so much injury is that they compress the arteries and veins of the neck, which at this part of the body are near the surface. They are large, full-blooded vessels and bring the blood to and return it from brain and scalp. I have known girls to faint simply from the compression due to tight collars or bands around the neck. They will almost invariably cause headaches, and every one of you know of the great relief you derive from taking them off and putting on a loose wrap or dressing sack. I have known women to suffer violent pains in the head, then dizziness and final collapse, by preventing a free circulation through the brain. The same blood vessels supply the skin, and when these are stopped from nourishing the skin what do you get? A poor, pale and finally diseased skin, a starved face.
[CHAPTER V]
NERVES AND THE NERVOUS GIRL
It seems that not anything worth while in this world is gained without self-fighting and worry. The great things that are accomplished by men and women are accomplished only through will power, determination and concentration. Determination is different from will power in this respect: one may be determined to do a thing but find that she has not the nervous power to carry out the determination. In other words, the nervous force is really the basis of all will power. So all the factors which go to make for self-control and concentration upon whatever you have decided upon doing, are dependent upon a good and perfectly adjusted nervous system. Without a powerful nervous force we would be nothing but eating and sleeping animals.
The men and women who do not know from any personal feeling that there is a tremendous force in a trained nervous system are those who do nothing for the world’s progress; they only eat, sleep and automatically labor. Many who have plenty of nervous force but do not know what it means, and hence cannot control it and use it for the benefit of man and themselves, are those who throw it away in dissipations, abnormal excitement and riotous living.