Thread by @HindooHistory

Detroit Times, 1942

"5 RELAXERS"

"These Old Yoga Exercises Look Hard But They're Really Simple-- Try 'Em (If Your Doctor Doesn't Object) and Watch Your Cheeks Bloom with Color, Feel Your Spine and Muscles Limber Up and Those Jittery Nerves Just Fade Away"

#HindooHistory #Yoga

"Worried about the war? Tense from taxes? Got a double case of the jitters and screaming willies? Don't go nueces-- as one says South of the Rio Grande (It really means nuts to you.) Take a tip from Betty Atkinson who has a bag of tricks a thousand years old"

"Betty is the world's champion drum majorette. She's led so many parades that it's a wonder she doesn't have an everlasting hot foot. Although she's only 18 years old, Betty has crammed into her life 10 years of professional dancing, 5 years of baton twirling..."

"and 2 years of daredevil ice-skating in the show, 'It Happens on Ice,' in New York. All of which would drive the ordinary mental berserk-- but Betty doesn't let her strenuous jobs get her down"

"She knows the secret of relaxing. But relaxing is no simple thing, like flopping into bed with a book. It took Betty months to find quiet balance and self-discipline and she follows the way of the old Yoga exercises of India"

"The exercises are easy to perform, but unless you know how, they may prove dangerous.... betty shows you a few simple beginners in the pictures on this page. They're no short cut to Nirvana to Betty as they are to the Hindus, but they do stimulate meditation"

"When Betty first took up Yoga she was particularly interested in breath control. Acrobatic dancing and ice-skating require a lot of it. Now, after her Yoga, she says the difficult feats which she performs scarcefly affect her breathing control at all"

"Which all goes to show that the Yogis may have something which Americans can put to practical advantage. Nirvana may be in the room, who knows?"