ctice what I
may term harmonious or rhythmic breathing, which I regard as of
exceptional value. By this I mean taking the same amount of time to draw
in the breath as you do to exhale it, keeping time with a certain number
of steps. For instance, while taking eight steps, draw in a breath
and exhale during the next eight steps. You may make this six, eight,
ten or twelve steps if you like. If you have some piece of music in mind
that carries with it a rhythm that accommodates itself to your steps
while walking, and if each inhalation and exhalation takes up an
even number of steps, you will find that you are swinging along with a
sense of harmony and pleasure that will make distances pass away
and cause you to be unconscious of the length of your walk. This
rhythmic or harmonious breathing is an excellent means of cultivating
the deep-breathing habit.

Another exercise is of material value in connection with the practice of
deep breathing while walking, serving especially to stimulate the
digestive and other internal organs. This consists in holding a fairly
full breath for a series of four, six or eight steps, and at the
same time expanding the body still further in the region of the stomach.
This is accomplished largely through the action of the diaphragm and
the muscles across the front of the body in the region of the stomach.
This should be executed with a sort of pumping motion, that is to say
by a series of alternate contractions and relaxations rapidly following
each other. Expand the region of the stomach by this muscular effort
for an instant, relax, repeat, and continue in that way several times
during the course of the six or eight steps during which you hold the
breath. Then exhale freely and after one or two breaths repeat. This has
the effect of massaging, as it were, the internal organs, and is of
material value in bringing about improved functioning, as well as
strengthening these parts.

If you can find an opportunity to go camping there is no better way in
which to spend a vacation. Everyone knows that a term of two or
three weeks in the woods or by the side of a lake, living out-of-doors
to some extent after the manner of primitive man, and getting a certain
amount of pleasurable exercise with the continuous fresh air, will work
wonders.

But if camping for a short period is beneficial, then a part of each day
in the open air during the summer is well wort