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Show Advice on Your Health By Morris Fishbein, Editor, Journal American Medical Association ' number checking and typing, the work is said to be facilitated. This new scientific evidence will be good news to the manu- . facturers of chewing gum. Professor Pro-fessor H. L. Hollingsworth, under un-der whose direction these studies were made, says that perhaps these studies throw some light . on the striking fact that during the last 10 or more tense years, chewing gum manufacturers have enjoyed greater prosperity. It has been suggested repeated- ' ly that one of the chief benefits of smoking and chewing gum Is their value as outlets for increased in-creased tension. It has been said that most habitual movements of the body represent release of such Inner tension. Fidgeting, wriggling and gum-chewing gum-chewing are examples of movements move-ments which may be beneficial to the human body because they release excess pressure. Recently psychologists at Columbia Co-lumbia university made a study of 20 people over a period of 20 days to find out Just how much chewing served as a means of relaxation. Each of the persons concerned was studied first while not chewing; second, while chewing chew-ing ordinary chewing gum, and third, while allowing a flavored candy wafer to melt in the mouth. It was necessary first ot all to find some measurement of tension ten-sion or strain. This was done by watching each one of the persons per-sons concerned throughout a working day and recording restless rest-less movements. In many of these subjects it was found that tension as measured by decrease of restless movements was decreased de-creased about 10 per cent during chewing. Studies were also made to determine de-termine whether indulgence in such a habit had any relation to fatigue. Fatigue produces increased psychologic tension. When people . are tired from overwork and overstrain, the use of tee and coffee seems to Increase tension. On the other hand, it was found in these studies, chewing tended to decrease de-crease tension. The amount of muscular effort Involved Is hardly hard-ly sufficient to Increase fatigue. A study was also made to find out whether chewing during work would Interfere in any way with the work output because be-cause of this decrease of tension. ten-sion. It was found hatcith the possible exception of work In which a wholly new performance perform-ance is being learned, chewing while working does not interfere inter-fere with the output. Indeed, In some kinds of work, like |