Then have your legs treated in the same way.  It is good even to have some one throw your arm or your leg up and catch it; also to let it go unexpectedly.  Unnecessary tension is proved when the limb, instead of dropping by the pure force of gravity, sticks fast wherever it was left.  The remark when the extended limb is brought to the attention of its owner is, “Well, what did you want me to do?  You did not say you wanted me to drop it,”—­which shows the habitual attitude of tension so vividly as to be almost ridiculous; the very idea being, of course, that you are not wanted to do anything but let go, when the arm would drop of its own accord.  If the person holding your arm says, “Now I will let go, and it must drop as if a dead weight,” almost invariably it will not be the force of gravity that takes it, but your own effort to make it a dead weight; and it will come down with a thump which shows evident muscular effort, or so slowly and actively as to prove that you cannot let it alone.  Constant and repeated trial, with right thought from the pupil, will be certain to bring good results, so that at least he or she can be sure of better power for rest in the limbs.  Unfortunately this first gain will not last.  Unless the work goes on, the legs and arms will soon be “all tightened up” again, and it will seem harder to let go than ever.

The next care must be with the head.  That cannot be treated as roughly as the limbs.  It can be tossed, if the tosser will surely catch it on his open hand.  Never let it drop with its full weight on the floor, for the jar of the fall, if you are perfectly relaxed, is unpleasant; if you are tense, it is dangerous.  At first move it slowly up and down.  As with the arms, there will be either resistance or attempted assistance.  It seems at times as though it were and always would be impossible to let go of your own head. of course, if you cannot give up and let go for a friend to move it quietly up and down, you cannot let go and give way entirely to the restful power of sleep.  The head must be moved up and down, from side to side, and round and round in opposite ways, gently and until its owner can let go so completely that it seems like a big ball in the hands that move it.  Of course care must be taken to move it gently and never to extremes, and it will not do to trust an unintelligent person to “prove” a body in any way.  Ladies’ maids have been taught to do it very well, but they had in all cases to be carefully watched at first.

The example of a woman who had for years been an invalid is exceedingly interesting as showing how persistently people “hold on.”  Although the greater part of her time had been spent in a reclining attitude, she had not learned the very rudiments of relaxation, and could not let go of her own muscles any more easily than others who have always been in active life.  Think of holding yourself on to the bed for ten years!  Her maid learned to move her in the way that has been described, and after repeated practice, by the time she had reached the last movement the patient would often be sleeping like a baby.  It did not cure her, of course; that was not expected.  But it taught her to “relax” to a pain instead of bracing up and fighting it, and to live in a natural way so far as an organic disease and sixty years of misused and over-used force would allow.