“That is all very well,” I hear my readers say, “but how are you going to stop living in abnormal excitement when every circumstance and every person about you is full of it and knows nothing else?”

If you really want to do it and would feel interested to make persistent effort I can give you the recipe and I can promise any woman that if she perseveres until she has found the way she will never cease to be grateful.

If you start with the intention of taking the five minutes’ search for quiet every day, do not let your intention be weakened or yourself discouraged if for some days you see no result at all.

At first it may be that whatever quiet you find will seem so strange that it will annoy you or make you very nervous, but if you persist and work right through, the reward will be worth the pains many times over.

Sometimes quieting our minds helps us to quiet our bodies; sometimes we must quiet our bodies first before we can find the way to a really quiet mind.  The attention of the mind to quiet the body, of course, reacts back on to the mind, and from there we can pass on to thinking quietly.  Each individual must judge for herself as to the best way of reaching the quiet.  I will give several recipes and you can take your choice.

First, to quiet the body:—­

1.  Lie still and see how quietly you can breathe.

2.  Sit still and let your head droop very slowly forward until finally it hangs down with its whole weight.  Then lift it up very, very slowly and feel as if you pushed it all the way up from the lower part of your spine, or, better still, as if it grew up, so that you feel the slow, creeping, soothing motion all the way up your spine while your head is coming up, and do not let your head come to an entirely erect position until your chest is as high as you can hold it comfortably.  When your head is erect take a long, quiet breath and drop it again.  You can probably drop it and raise it twice in the five minutes.  Later on it should take the whole five minutes to drop it and raise it once and an extra two minutes for the long breath.

When you have dropped your head as far as you can, pause for a full minute without moving at all and feel heavy; then begin at the lower part of your spine and very slowly start to raise it.  Be careful not to hold your breath, and watch to breathe as easily and quietly as you can while your head is moving.

If this exercise hurts the back of your neck or any part of your spine, don’t be troubled by it, but go right ahead and you will soon come to where it not only does not hurt, but is very restful.

When you have reached an erect position again stay there quietly—­first take long gentle breaths and let them get shorter and shorter until they are a good natural length, then forget your breathing altogether and sit still as if you never had moved, you never were going to move, and you never wanted to move.