WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY
tension in this direction. They tell you they are subject to headache or dyspepsia, or other disorder; as if it was out of the question to think of preventing it. But had the work been so arranged, as it nearly always could be—far oftener than most persons think—to secure daily an hour for pleasant vigorous muscular exercise for all the parts; this running down would, in most instances, never come. The sharp, hot work, till the muscles are healthily tired, insures the good digestion, the cleared brain, the sound sleep, the buoyant spirits.
The president of one of the largest banks in this country told us that, disappointed one summer in not getting a run to Europe, reflection told him that one marked benefit such jaunts had brought him was from the increased sleep he was enabled to get. That thereupon he determined on longer sleeps at home. He got them; and found, as he well put it, that he could "fight better." Beset all day long with men wanting heavy loans; that fighting tone; that ability to say "no" at the right time, and in a way which showed he meant it; must have not only added to his own well-being, but to the bank's protection as well.
Again, many men are liable to occasionally have sudden and very protracted spells of head-work; where sleep and almost everything else must give way, so that the business in hand may be gotten through with. "Tom Brown" told the writer that, when in Parliament, he could work through a whole week together on but four hours of sleep a night, and be none the worse for it; provided he could have all he wanted the next week; and that, since he was twenty-five, he had hardly known a sick day.
A father, tired from his day of busy toil, may have a
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