equilibrium in that way. Then again, since we use so much
unnecessary tension in everything we do, although we cannot remove
it entirely until we learn the normal motion of our muscles, still
after an hour's practice and the consequent gain in extreme
relaxation, it will be impossible to attack our work with the same
amount of unnecessary force, at least for a time; and every day the
time in which we are able to work, or talk, or move with less
tension will increase, and so our bad habits be gradually changed,
if not to good, to better ones. So the true equilibrium comes
gradually more and more into every action of our lives, and we feel
more and more the wholesome harmony of a rhythmic life. We gradually
swing into rhythm with Nature through a child-like obedience to her
laws.

Of one thing I must warn all nervous people who mean to try the
relief to be gained from relaxation. The first effects will often be
exceedingly unpleasant. The same results are apt to follow that come
from the reaction after extreme excitement,--all the way from
nervous nausea and giddiness to absolute fainting. This, as must be
clearly seen, is a natural result from the relaxation that comes
after years of habitual tension. The nerves have been held in a
chronic state of excitement over something or nothing; and, of
course, when their owner for the first time lets go, they begin to
feel their real state, and the result of habitual strain must be
unpleasant. The greater the nervous strain at the beginning, the
more slowly the pupil should advance, practising in some cases only
five minutes a day.

And with regard to those people who "live on their nerves," not a
few, indeed very many, are so far out of the normal way of living