MY
BODY TEMPLE
PART 21
Healthy
Muscles
If
you are right-handed, usually you can lift more with the right hand
than with the left. A carpenter swings his heavy hammer with his right
arm, and that arm becomes slightly larger and stronger than his left.
Exercise helps our muscles to grow large and strong, so that our
bodies will be healthy and vigorous.
If
a person kept one hand in his pocket all the time and only used the
other hand and arm, the idle arm would become small and weak, and the
other would grow large and strong. Any part of the body that is not
used, will after a time become weak. It is important that we get
exercise every day, just as we eat and drink every day.
Some
kinds of play, and almost all kinds of work, are good ways of getting
exercise. A very good exercise for little boys and girls is running
errands or doing chores about the house. Then when these are done,
there is always plenty of running, swinging, and ball catching that
can be done out of doors.
Most
of our food goes to nourish our muscles. Some foods make us strong,
while others do not. Plain foods, such as bread, vegetables, potatoes,
and nuts, are good for the muscles; but rich cakes, candy, pop, and
other things which are not food, such as mustard, pepper, and harmful
spices, do not give us strength, and are not good for the bodies that
God has given us.
We
should not try lifting heavy weights, or doing things which are way
too hard for us when we are small. Sometimes the muscles are
permanently injured in this way.
Our
clothing should not be so tight as to press hard upon any part of the
body. This will cause the muscles in that part not to work as well. If
the clothing is too tight around the waist, harm can be done. The
lungs cannot expand properly, the stomach and liver are pressed out of
shape, and the internal organs are crowded out of their proper places.
People
can spoil their feet by wearing tight shoes. Their muscles cannot act
right, and their feet grow out of shape. Years ago in China, it was
the custom for rich ladies to have tiny feet. They would tie up the
little girl babies’ feet in tight cloths so that they could not
grow. This was very painful and the little ones would cry and cry as
their feet were squeezed out of shape. By the time the girl grew up
her poor feet did not even look human. A woman who had such feet,
found it so hard to walk that she had to be carried about much of the
time. Do you not think it is very wrong and foolish to treat the feet
so badly just for fashion?
When
a drinking man drinks an alcoholic drink, it makes him feel strong;
but when he tries to lift, or to do hard work, he cannot lift so much
nor work so hard as he could without the liquor. Alcohol poisons the
muscles and makes them weaker, his muscles become partly paralyzed, so
that he cannot walk steady or speak as clearly as before. His fingers
are clumsy, and his movements uncertain. If he is an artist or a
jeweller, he cannot do as fine work as when he is sober. When a man
gets very drunk, sometimes he will "pass out," and he is for
a time completely paralyzed, so that he cannot walk or move, and seems
almost like a dead man.
If
you had a good horse that had carried you a long way in a carriage,
and you wanted to travel farther, but the horse was so tired that he
kept stopping in the road, would you let him rest and give him some
water to drink and some nice hay and oats to eat, or would you strike
him hard with a whip to make him go faster? If you whip him, he would
act as though he were not tired at all, but do you think the whip
would make him strong the way rest and hay and oats would?
When
a tired man takes alcohol, it acts like a whip; it makes every part of
the body work faster and harder than it ought to work, and wastes the
man's strength and makes him weaker, although for a little while his
nerves are numb, so he does not know he is tired and ought to rest.
The
evil effect of tobacco upon young people is so well known that laws
have been made which do not allow alcohol or tobacco to be sold or
given to people under a certain age. This shows us the harmful effects
of these poisons on the body. When we use alcohol, tobacco, or any
other hurtful drug, we rob our body of energy, and steal away the
vigour we need, as we grow older.
Tea,
cola drinks, and coffee, contain caffeine and also cause us health
problems. A person who drinks tea, cola or coffee feels less tired for
a while but he is more tired afterwards. These drinks are also whips,
they really act in the same way as do other narcotics and stimulants.
They make a person feel stronger than he really is, and thus use more
strength than he can afford to do. Later he suffers for it.
When
you grow up to be men and women, you will want to have strong muscles.
So you must be careful not to give alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine
drinks a chance to injure them. If you leave these things alone you
will be sure to suffer no harm from them. Remember-"Know ye not
that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which
ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" 1 Corinthians 6:19. God
has given us a wonderful house to live in. Let’s take wise care of
it. =^..^=
MY BODY
TEMPLE
PART 22
How
We Think and Feel
The
part we think with is inside of the skull, safely placed in a little
room at the top part of the head. It is called the brain. It is with
the brain that we study and remember and reason. So the brain is one
of the most important organs in our body.
You
cannot see your own brain, because it is in your skull; but you can
get some idea what it looks like by finding a picture of a brain.
Notice
first of all that there are really two brains, a large upper brain
called the cerebrum and a smaller lower brain consisting of the
cerebellum, the thalamus, and the hypothalamus. The upper brain is in
the top of the skull, and the lower one lies beneath the back part of
the larger one. If we look again we shall see that each brain is
divided in the middle into a right and a left half. Each half is, in
fact, a complete brain, so that we really have two pairs of brains.
The
brain is a curious organ of a grayish color outside and white inside.
It is soft, almost like jelly, and this is why it is placed so
carefully in our skull, which is like a strong, bony box. If we should
put a little piece of the brain under a microscope, we should find
that it is made up of a great number of very small objects called
nerve or brain cells.
Each
cell has one or more branches. Some of the branches are joined to the
branches of other cells so as to unite the cells together, just as
children take hold of one another's hands. Other branches are drawn
out very long.
The
long branches are such slender threads that a great number of them
together would not be as large as a fine silk thread. A great many of
these fine nerve threads are bound up in little bundles that look like
white cords. These are called nerves. These nerves are like little
electrical wires that run throughout the whole body.
The
nerves branch out from the brain through openings in the skull, and go
to every part of the body. Every little muscle fiber, the heart, the
stomach, the lungs, the liver, even the bones—all have nerves coming
to them from the brain.
So
you see that the brain is not all locked up in the skull, because the
nerves connected to it have slender branches running into all parts
of the body; and thus the brain itself is really in every part of the
body, though we think of it as being in the skull. This is how the
brain can communicate to the rest of the body.
There
are a number of small holes in the skull through which the nerves go
out, but most of the nerves are bound up in one large bundle and go
out an opening at the back part of the skull and run down a long canal
in the backbone. This bundle of nerves is the spinal cord. The
spinal cord contains cells like the brain. It is really an extension
of the lower brain down through the backbone.
Nerves
branch out from the spinal cord, to our arms, chest, legs, and other
parts. One of the branches to the hand runs along the backside of the
arm, over the elbow. If we strike the elbow against some sharp object,
we can hit this nerve and the underside of our arm and little finger
feel very numb and strange. We call this part of the elbow the
"funny bone." The cells of the spinal cord also send out
branches to the body and to other cells in the brain.
If
we cut or burn ourselves we feel pain. Why does it hurt to prick your
skin with a pin, pinch, burn, or bruise it? It is because the skin contains
many nerve branches from the brain. When we hurt the skin or the
flesh, these nerves are injured. There are so many that we cannot put
the finest needle into the flesh without hurting some of them.
It
is not pleasant for us to have pain, but if we did not feel pain when
we are hurt we could get our limbs burned, cut, or frozen and not know
about it until too late to save them. Our wonderful Creator has built
an alarm system into our body for this reason.
We
have different kinds of nerves of feeling. Some feel objects. If you
take a marble or a pencil in your hand, you know what it is by how it
feels. This is called the sense of touch.
There
are other nerves of feeling that let us hear, see, taste, and smell.
We also have nerves that tell us whether things are cold or hot, heavy
or light. Nerves of feeling tell us when we are hungry, thirsty,
tired, or when we need more air to breathe.
There
are other nerves, that do not feel. These nerves have a different use.
They come from cells in the brain that have charge of work done in the
body, and they send their branches to the parts which do the work; so
we call them nerves of work.
One
set of cells sends nerves to the heart, to make it go fast or slow as
needed. Another sends nerves to the liver, stomach, and other
digestive organs, causing them to do their part in the digestion of
the food. Other cells send branches to muscles and make them move when
we wish them to.
So
you see how useful the brain and nerves are to keep all the different
parts of the body working together in harmony, just like a
well-trained army. Without the brain and nerves the body would be just
like an army without a commander, or a lot of workmen without a
foreman. It wouldn’t know what to do! =^..^=
MY BODY
TEMPLE
PART 23
How
We Use Our Nerves
If
you happen to touch your hand to a hot stove, what happens? Your arm
pulls the hand away. Do you know why? The nerves of feeling
in the hand tell the nerve cells in the spinal cord from which they
come that the hand is being burned. The cells that feel cannot do
anything for the hand, but in the spinal cord their message is relayed
to the brain and to the nerves connected to the muscles of the arm.
The nerves in this reflex circuit send the message down their various
branches and cause the muscles to contract. The cells of feeling ask
the cells which have charge of the muscles to make the muscles of the
arm pull the hand away, which they do very quickly, and the response
is much quicker, because the message doesn't need to travel all the
way to the brain first.
So
you see the nerves are very much like telephone wires. By means of
them the brain finds out all about what is happening in the body, and
sends out its orders to the various organs, which may be called its
servants.
We
know that the upper brain is the part with which we remember, think,
and reason. It is also through the brain that the Holy Spirit speaks
to us. It is the seat of the mind. We go to sleep because the large
brain is tired and cannot work any longer. We stop thinking when we
are sound asleep, but sometimes we do not sleep soundly, and then the
large brain works a little and we dream.
The
lower brain, consists of such structures as the cerebellum, the
thalamus, and the hypothalamus. It thinks too, but it does not do the
same kind of thinking as the large upper brain. We may use our arms
and legs and many other parts when we wish to do so; and if we do not
care to use them we can allow them to be quiet.
This
is not the case with some other organs. It is necessary, for
example, that the heart, the lungs, and many other organs of the body
should keep at work all the time. If the upper brain had to attend to
all of these different kinds of work besides thinking about what we
see, hear, and read, and other things which we do, it would have too
much work to do, and would not be able to do it all well. Besides, the
upper brain sometimes falls asleep.
So
God has designed that the lower brain should do the kinds of work
which have to be attended to all the time, so the lower brain keeps
steadily at work when we are asleep as well as when we are awake. The
lower brain also regulates hunger, thirst, sleep and other basic
behaviors.
If
you tickle a person's foot when he is asleep, he will pull it up just
as he would if he were awake, only not quite so quickly. What do you
suppose makes the muscles of the leg contract when the brain is asleep
and does not know that the foot is being tickled?
And
here is another interesting fact. When you were walking about this
morning, you did not have to think about every step you took. Perhaps
you were talking or looking at different things; but your legs walked
right along all the time, and without your thinking about them. How
could this be?
It
would be too much trouble for the upper brain to stop to think every
time we step, so the lower brain co-operates in keeping the feet
walking. Reflex action, such as pulling up the feet if someone should
tickle them while we are asleep, is taken care of in a circuit to and
from the spinal cord. The sensory nerves in the feet feel the tickling
and send a message to the spinal cord. In turn the spinal cord relays
the message to the nerves which tell the muscles to move the feet away
from that which is tickling them. =^..^=
 
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