There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything — and you're probably doing it wrong.

All the activities of life — big and small, monumental and trivial, from waking to sleeping, bathing to eating, dressing to undressing, working to playing — raise us up or cast us down, depending on how we do them. Example: You thought (having been told often enough!) that brushing your teeth immediately after eating was good. It isn't. The health and fitness magazine Tarzan (April) is quite positive on that point — as on many others. Digestive enzymes combine with toothpaste to corrode tooth enamel. Wait till the enzymes have left the scene. Give them half an hour.

Do this, don't do that. Draw your curtains at night, lest you expose yourself too soon to morning sunshine and disorient the sleep hormone melatonin, putting your next night's sleep at risk. Wake up slowly, lazily, repressing if necessary your irrepressible eagerness to spring forth and greet the brand new day — your first-thing-in-the-morning pulse is low and shouldn't be strained. Skip the morning bath or shower. It feels good but that's deceptive. Hot water stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is fine at night as a prelude to sleep but not to a day brimful of challenges, opportunities and pitfalls demanding all your vigor and alertness.