The greatest mistake than can be made is to wait for an annual holiday in the expectation that it is going to exonerate us from consequences of eleven months or more of sinning against the rules of health. Everyone, men and women alike, should secure a holiday if only for an hour or so every day of their lives, in the shape of some congenial change of thought or occupation.

Yet the annual holiday has a place of its own in our well being. It takes us away from our ordinary associations, and brings us into contact with fresh scenery and new faces, which mean new personalities. It invigorates our bodies and tones up our minds, broadening them and furnishing them with new ideas, so that both from the physical and mental standpoints it is a valuable aid to health.

It has a direct bearing on the subject of breakdowns, for change of scene is a potent means of getting a man’s mind out of the monotonous groove which is so wearing to his nervous system. It has an additional advantage in that it often happens that after a holiday he is apt to keep himself in contact with the fresh air and exercise, and recreation also, which he found so beneficial when he was away from home. In the incipient stages of breakdown, too, a complete change is one of the necessary items in treatment.

Seeing, therefore, how important it is and what it means to so many people, it is well worth while to consider how the time and money involved may be expended to the best advantage.

The usual plan is to fix on a spot because we have heard it spoken of as a “nice place to go to,” engage rooms by letter and set off, hoping for the best. Little wonder that the holiday often turns out a disappointment.

A family was returning from a visit to the seaside, to which the various members, parents and children alike, had looked forward with the greatest zest. The mother was tired out, the father seemed worried, and the children were jaded and spiritless. They had been unfortunate in their choice of a place, the lodgings had been uncomfortable, and the holiday had proved a failure. Yet with a little foresight it might have been entirely different.

It is always advisable that one of the older members of the family, preferably the mother, should see the locality and the apartments before hand. We cannot expect the proprietress of the apartments or the hotel to point out for our benefit that the bedrooms are musty and badly ventilated, the sheets damp, and the sanitary arrangements defective. We must go and investigate these things for ourselves.

The question as to where to go is one that needs careful consideration. The fact that it suited someone else is no reason why it should be adapted to our requirements. I once heard two men discussing this question, and one was advising the other to go to a certain place in the Highlands. He described it in glowing colours, and made it perfectly plain to the other man that if he went anywhere else he was an incompetent idiot. It was a village at the bottom of a deep valley, surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains.

“What do you do with yourself if the weather is wet?” the second man asked.

“Well, of course you have to stay indoors.”

“And what do you do when it is fine?”

“Oh, you climb the mountains.”

“Well, seeing that my wife suffers from a weak heart, and cannot climb an ordinary hill, I think we shall go somewhere else,” which he very wisely did. It is not much use going to a place if you have either to forego the pleasures of the holiday or run the risk of injuring your health.

People who suffer from asthma are often worse at the seaside, and should always take this into consideration. Those liable to bronchial attacks should be wary as to visiting the East Coast. They will derive more benefit from the softer atmosphere of the South or West.

It is a mistaken idea to suppose that people who are run down will get the most good from going to a bracing climate. Often it has the effect of making them irritable and restless, and their nerves do better in a more relaxing place.

A fortnight on a farm always sounds attractive, but in reality it often turns out the very opposite. The accommodation is apt to be of a primitive order, and the cooking by no means up to the mark, while it is not uncommon to find that none of the bedroom windows will open. So much, too, depends upon the weather, and if it happens to be wet, the holiday is likely to be devoid of pleasure, and detrimental to health at the same time. Rheumatic people should avoid farmhouses, as the atmosphere is often damp, especially in the evenings. Even if the weather is fine, there is a danger in the dew which rises from the fields at sunset. If it is wet, the consequences are apt to be serious. A seaside place with a light, sandy soil is better adapted to such persons.

In these days of quick and cheap travel no paper on holidays is complete without a reference to the problem of continental trips. These are undoubtedly a source of interest, but not necessarily of health. It may be a delight to see fresh places and experience new national customs and a totally different diet, but in many cases these advantages are obtained at the expense of bodily health. People who are run down rarely get any benefit from them. Even if they have the sense to make for one place and stay there or use it as a centre, the long railway journey tires them to such an extent that they cannot enjoy their holiday properly. Usually a visit to some home resort is of infinitely greater value.

As a rule, however, a continental trip means one of the advertised tours, in which a maximum of travelling and sight-seeing is carried out in a minimum of time. People who are strong enough to undertake such a task do not come under the category of health-seekers.

When the journey, either home or foreign, includes a sea-trip, it is well to take only light food for a day or two previously, if you are subject to mal de mer, and also to take a good aperient the day before starting. These precautions will often serve to avoid the biliousness which so frequently spoils the first few days of the holiday.

In making preparations for a holiday it is necessary to be ready for all sorts of weather. The day may be tropical when we start, and like winter the next day, and it is both uncomfortable and dangerous to have brought nothing but light summer clothing. There is an old superstition that people do not catch cold by the sea. This is a huge mistake, as they are just as liable to do so as at home, often more so in fact, as home comforts are missing. It is a pitiable sight to see numbers of people wandering about a seaside resort on a damp, chilly day, looking cold and miserable, simply because they think it their duty to dress in flannels while they are on a holiday.

That phrase “on a holiday” covers a multitude of sins. People seem to think that they can dispense with all the precautions they would find necessary at home, and that they will escape the consequences of running needless risks because they happen to be at the seaside or in the country.

The result is that many people complain that they feel tired and headachy when they are on a holiday, and that much of their pleasure is spoiled in consequence. They attribute it to the fact of the air being too strong for them, or else that it is the reaction from previous overwork. It is neither one nor the other, but is due to something quite different.

For one thing, most people eat too much when they are away, a great deal more than they would dare to take at home. Often, too, they indulge in things which they know to disagree with them in an ordinary way. The consequence is that they become dyspeptic, and their livers get out of order. That is why they have headaches and get tired so easily. If they could take less rather than more, and eschew all those things which do not suit them, the value of the holiday would be considerably enhanced. In the case of men, smoking to an excess they would never dream of at home has a similar effect in producing a feeling of lassitude.

The amount of exercise has a pronounced influence on the good of a holiday. People who have been overworked or ill, or have neglected to take regular exercise at home, should be extremely careful as to exertion when on a vacation, particularly during the first few days. A man who had saved up for a long time to have a fortnight among the mountains did so much climbing on the first day that he was knocked up for the remainder of his stay. Many others, without going to extremes such as this, feel languid all the time from the same cause. They try to make up for lost time at home by doing as much as possible in the weeks at their disposal, and think it a crime to miss any opportunity of getting about. They walk more in a day than they do in a week at home, and are surprised to find that instead of feeling braced up they are listless and tired out.

Unwonted forms of exercise, too, such as many persons indulge in when away from home, are responsible for more than the spoiling of their enjoyment. For example, it is not necessary for them to bathe simply because they are at the seaside and everybody else is having a dip. Numbers of people in good health do not feel well for the rest of the day after a bathe, but in other cases the results may be more serious. Those who are run down, or broken down, or are recovering from an illness, had better avoid entering the water. Otherwise they run the risk of bringing about a recurrence of their malady.

Exercise of all sorts is an admirable thing, but like many other good things in this world it has to be used with discretion. For alongside it there is the companion virtue rest, and this aspect of a holiday has always to be kept well to the fore, especially in the case of those who are feeling jaded or depressed, restless, nervous or irritable, or present any sign of incipient neurasthenia or breakdown.

For people of this type a restful holiday is essential above all things. But this does not mean that they are to go to some quiet spot with no company except their own thoughts. It needs a peculiar temperament, such as few of us possess, to spend a fortnight lying under a hedge or on the sands in some secluded place, with hardly a soul to speak to. It is all very well in theory, but in practice it usually amounts to the very opposite. The body may be rested, but the mind is apt to be kept on the go. Black care rides behind the horseman, and a man’s worries too often accompany him and refuse to be driven away, unless he has some amusement or interest to divert his thoughts.

If people happen to be ardent lovers of Nature, they may find diversion in some place noted for its scenery. Unfortunately, however, the neurasthenic is easily bored, and no matter how beautiful his surroundings may be, he should take care to furnish himself beforehand with plenty of literature suited to his needs. The local library is often interesting when regarded from the point of view of the antique, but it is often hopeless as a means of securing anything worth reading.

In many cases people who run down need something of a lighter, we might say a more frivolous nature. Their taste for scenery, like many of their other faculties, is tired out for the time being. Taken all round, the best place for the neurasthenic is a lively seaside resort, where he can sit about and amuse himself with watching the doings of the people around him. Everything in this world has a place, and a troop of nigger minstrels or a Punch and Judy show may afford rest and relaxation to a wearied mind when mountain scenery has failed to do so.

In either case one thing is essential. The scenery or the amusements must be obtained with a minimum amount of fatigue. On this account it is necessary to select a place mild enough to permit of sitting out of doors. That is why in the great majority of cases the neurasthenic gets on much better in a warm, if relaxing, climate.

One other point we must emphasise particularly. Many visitors, whether they are run down or in good health, suffer from headaches when on a holiday simply because of tired eyes. They want to enjoy the full benefit of the air, and are also ambitious to return home sunburnt, so walk about without any proper shade to the eyes. They succeed in getting tanned, but much of the pleasure of their vacation is spoiled owing to a constant feeling of ache and oppression in the head. A wide hat-brim or a pair of smoked glasses will avert this, and add to their enjoyment in proportion as they do so.

For the same reason a good rest in a shady room in the middle of the day is of the greatest value. It rests not only the eyes but everything else as well. People regret the waste of a single minute when they are taking a hard-earned holiday, and often ruin the good of it by staying out of doors until they are too tired to enjoy themselves. An hour’s rest in the house after the midday meal will be found to make their holiday worth twice as much as it would be otherwise.

It is always a pity to spoil the good effect of a holiday by returning home at the last possible minute, late at night it may be. Better lose half a day of the vacation than get up next morning to resume work tired out and utterly unfit for it. For this will rob the holiday of those pleasant recollections which are one of its greatest boons.