REST.
There are more tired people in the world to-day than ever before.
Nervous exhaustion is taking the place of the old-fashioned
stomach-aches and coughs and colds as the prevailing complaint of the
times.
[Sidenote: Unrest.]
There is a spirit of unrest which is having a bad effect on many
nervous systems. The air is dark with threatened strikes, wars and
rumours of wars, and the clash of conflicting parties. The sense of
impending calamity fills the minds of many nervous people with anxious
forebodings. Probably things are not much worse, if any, than they have
often been in previous times, but news is transmitted to and from all
parts of the world with a swiftness that would have seemed incredible
even a few decades ago. We hear of things that are happening, not of
things that have happened, and there is a vast difference between the
two so far as comfort of mind is concerned.
[Sidenote: Conditions of modern life.]
Town life has become much more wearing since petrol has displaced the
horse and made the speed of traffic so vastly greater than before. And
the noise of motor drays and buses is exercising a bad effect on many
people’s nerves. They may become so used to the row that they do not
appear to notice it, but its irritating influence on the nervous system
is there all the same.
The ever-increasing stress of competition is making work a strenuous
affair. But what is worse is the fact that this stress is, with
many persons, invading their hours of leisure. We grudge no man his
pleasures, but when the rush for amusement is carried on to the
detriment of a body that is already fagged out, it is time to stop and
think where it is all going to lead to.
[Sidenote: Periodic rest.]
The phrase “day and night, Sunday and week-day” is a significant one.
It expresses the need for periodic rest as imposed by Nature. Loss of
sleep is equally harmful, whether it be due to work or pleasure. And
whatever views people may hold in regard to the old-fashioned Sunday,
when considered from a religious point of view, there is only one when
we look at it from the medical side. Change is rest, as we shall have
occasion shortly to emphasise, but the increasing tendency to rush off
motoring and golfing on Sundays is not change, for the simple reason
that most of the people who indulge in these pursuits are the very ones
who motor and golf most days of the week. The old-fashioned Sabbath was
no doubt carried to the opposite extreme, but it did at any rate infuse
an atmosphere of restfulness, which is lacking in these days.
[Sidenote: What rest is.]
It is not that we wish to encourage idleness. That is a very different
thing from rest, which implies cessation from work. There is a form of
languor due to want of exercise, and we meet with people who are always
tired because they lounge about too much. But there are others who are
constantly feeling languid because they have not learned how and when
to take suitable rest.
Some people are always on the go. They habitually walk beyond their
proper pace and rush at their work and their amusements with feverish
anxiety. Even when they are playing golf, they hurry after the ball as
though they were afraid it would run away from them if they did not
catch it up.
To people of this type illness, which is usually regarded as a
misfortune, often proves a blessing in disguise. For it has one great
advantage, in that it imposes upon the system the much-needed rest
which has been denied it.
We compared the human body to an engine. Yet in one respect this simile
falls short. For man is a living being, and it is on this account that
he needs something that the engine can do without. The marvellously
delicate machinery of his body must have rest. An engine is liable to
wear and tear, no matter how well it may be put together; even if it
is made of the best metal to be obtained, and constructed as nearly
perfectly as possible, there is always bound to be a certain amount
of friction and concussion, which will in time lower its quality
and impair its efficiency. But the machinery of the human system
is subject to more than simple wear and tear; for there is, as we
have seen already, a chemical process constantly taking place, which
produces waste matter that must be drained away every day of our lives.
Yet in spite of this, it is in a vastly better position than the
engine, for it possesses at the same time a faculty of self-repair. We
cannot take out parts and replace them by spare ones, but we do not
need to do so. The most marvellous thing about the human system is the
fact that waste and repair go on simultaneously. But in order that this
may take place the system must have periodic rest.
[Sidenote: Object of rest.]
The object of rest is not merely to add to man’s happiness and
enjoyment, to give him time for pleasure. It is to recuperate his body
and mind. If he were to go on using his muscles without any relaxation
they would gradually waste, and after a time would waste rapidly and to
a serious extent. If he were to exercise his mind without any respite,
the delicate brain-cells would become exhausted, for like the muscles
they would have no chance of renewing themselves.
Strong, hardy sailors who have had to undergo a prolonged physical
strain, as in the case of shipwreck, have been known to suffer
ever afterwards from debility; their hearts and muscles had been
over-exerted to such an extent that they were never able to recover
themselves. And people who have had to go through a long stretch of
brain work have lain in a stupor for weeks afterwards, unable to use
their minds or even know what was going on around them.
Rest is therefore of all considerations of health the most important,
and it demands our closest attention. Particularly so because it is
those who need it most who find the greatest difficulty in obtaining
it. Active-minded people abhor rest; to their minds it savours of
“doing nothing.” They do not understand that it is a positive mode of
treatment, and that a definite process of repair and building up is
going on all the time in the brain-cells and the various tissues of the
body.
The question of rest is simple enough in the case of animals and human
beings of a low order. The yokel if he feels inclined for a sleep
lies down and takes it just as the dumb creatures do. And many a man
of education and refinement has envied the tramp his siesta in the
roadside ditch. He would give anything to be able to get a rest like
that whenever he wanted it. His delicately-balanced nervous system
needs repose far more than that of the tramp or the peasant. Yet,
instead of submitting to lie dormant, it is his nervous system which
keeps him awake. It is like a fractious child, which will neither go to
sleep nor allow its parents to get their rest.
It is a matter of the utmost consequence, therefore, to consider in
what way rest can most easily be obtained both for body and mind.
[Sidenote: Bodily rest.]
Bodily rest can only be got by having the muscles completely relaxed.
The ordinary sitting position in a chair is not sufficient, as the
lower extremities are still more or less rigid. The chair should be an
easy one, with an extension or a footstool to support the lower limbs
just a trifle below the level of the body. A better rest can be had,
however, by lying full length on a couch or bed with the arms and legs
sprawling in the manner adopted by the tramp when he takes a sleep by
the wayside. This attitude assures ease if not elegance. And it does
more than relax the limbs, for it gives repose to the heart as well.
When the body is in this position the heart beats more slowly than when
we are standing, walking, or even sitting.
When we consider that from the moment of birth to that of death this
organ is working incessantly, it is evident that it needs rest more
than any other muscle in the body. Suppose a hard-working man takes a
quarter of an hour’s loll in the middle of each day; multiply this by
365 and again by the number of his adult years, and you will have some
idea as to the amount of rest his heart has had by the time he has
reached middle age.
This position of ease and relaxation has a beneficial effect on the
mind also. When we are thinking hard we instinctively contract our
muscles. The face of the thinker is always associated with a rigid cast
of countenance and a furrow between the brows. Conversely, when our
muscles are more or less stiffened the mind tends to be concentrated
at the same time. Relax the muscles, and the mind also tends to relax.
There is no more efficacious restorative to a tired body than a hot
bath, as hot as it can be borne, in fact. It should be fairly deep too,
so that the whole body is immersed. Ten minutes or so of this acts
marvellously as a refreshing tonic to body and mind alike, especially
if followed by a rest in the horizontal position.
[Sidenote: Rest of mind.]
Rest for the wearied mind is of even greater importance than for the
body, for a tired brain is apt to keep the latter on the rack. Every
evening thousands of men and women reach home too tired to think and
too tired to stop thinking, especially on the very subject which should
be strictly left alone, viz. their daily work.
It is not unnatural that they should feel tired. Yet they do not always
look at it in this light.
One Sunday evening a parson was sitting by his fireside with a book
in his hand which he was vainly trying to read. Time after time he
had taken it up, only to put it on one side again after scanning a
few lines. He had a look of utter weariness and dejection, and every
now and then would start out of his chair and pace restlessly up and
down. It was not the first time he had gone through this experience,
and he was not the only one of his kind who at that very hour and in a
precisely similar manner was having a bad time of it.
Now what was it that was troubling him? In the first place he was
tired. That was not to be wondered at, seeing that he had conducted
three services in the course of the day. Most persons from the navvy to
the king feel tired when their day’s work is finished, but this does
not worry them. There is no more delightful sensation than that of real
fatigue.
What chiefly troubled him was the fact that although the book he was
trying to read was one dealing with spiritual matters, he was not only
unable to give his mind to it, but could not even arouse any interest
in the subject. He did not see that it was the most natural thing in
the world that this should be so. If a surgeon were to perform three
operations in one day, I am quite sure that he would wish to talk
or think about anything except surgery. And if a pianist gave three
recitals in the day, I believe that the last subject which would
interest him would be music. His faculty for it, like the surgeon’s for
his own art, would be exhausted for the time being. Why then should the
parson who had thrown all his spiritual energies into his Sunday’s work
be surprised to find that his active interest in such matters was in
abeyance? His faculties had been confined to a certain groove all day,
and refused to work any longer on those lines.
That parson was only a type, if a pronounced one, of many other people,
business men, lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers and any other you can
mention, who cannot make out how it is that if they think of their work
in the evenings they only worry over it. Yet it forces itself upon
their notice, and they cannot shake it off. They seek rest and find
none because they seek it in the wrong way. They try to sit still and
think of nothing, and that is the most difficult thing on earth for any
intelligent human being to attempt.
We can arrest the movements of the body, but it is infinitely more
difficult to stop the workings of the mind. The engine is going at full
speed, and we are unable to pull it up. But we can do something equally
efficacious, we can switch it on to a different line.
[Sidenote: Change is rest.]
We can give it change. And change is rest. There is nothing more
wearying to a mind that is tired and yet strung up than for any man or
woman to sit gazing moodily at the fire, fretting their nervous systems
with the worries that should have been left behind. Recreation is as
indispensable to health as food itself.
A fascinating novel, a pleasant game or an absorbing hobby will afford
the wearied brain its much-needed relaxation.
And when, in one or other of these ways, the mind has been enabled
to settle down into a quieter groove, it will be in a vastly better
condition to secure the ideal form of rest, nature’s sweet restorer,
sleep.
So important are these considerations, sleep, recreation and a kindred
one, holidays, that they deserve more than a passing reference. In the
next few chapters, therefore, we shall describe them more fully.