WORRY.
It is a true saying that worry, not work, kills. People can get through
an amazing amount of work if they do it in a quiet and methodical
manner.
One morning two men were walking along a road in the direction of a
railway station. One of them was going at a steady pace, with a look of
contentment about him, as if he were enjoying the walk. The other was
hurrying along with quick, nervous steps, occasionally looking at his
watch and breaking into a short run, while his strained expression and
panting breath formed a marked contrast to the easy deportment of his
friend.
They both caught the train, but while one was cool and collected and
felt invigorated for his work when he reached the terminus, the other
was hot and flurried, and this gave him a bad start for the day.
Moreover, each of them transacted his business in much the same way as
he had walked to the station, one doing it quietly and methodically,
while the other spent his time in rushing from one thing to another,
taking his lunch in the fewest possible minutes, and constantly
worrying himself and everyone else into the bargain.
The singular part of it was that the quiet, steady-going man got
through more work in the day than his friend did, and years later,
when they had reached middle age, was as fit as ever for his business,
whereas the other man was broken down by overwork, as he called it.
In the last chapter we considered the question of physical and mental
fatigue resulting from work. We purposely omitted the element of
worry, which does more harm than all the other conditions of work put
together. For worry does more than tire the mind--it demoralises it.
In a certain war two companies of men had to march an equal distance
in order to meet at a particular spot. The one arrived in perfect
order, and with few signs of exhaustion, although the march had been an
arduous one. The other company reached the place utterly done up and
disorganised. It was all a question of leadership: the captain of the
first company had known his way and kept his men in good order, while
the captain of the second company had never been sure of himself, and
had harassed his subordinates with a constant succession of orders and
counter-orders, until they had hardly known whether they were on their
heads or their heels. That was why they arrived looking completely
demoralised.
[Sidenote: Worry and the mind.]
Now worry has precisely the same effect on the mind as a bad leader has
upon his men. For the mind is not a vague mystery “somewhere inside
the head,” as it is generally supposed to be. The brain is a matter of
tissue and blood, the same as any other part of the body. We may not
know quite so much about it, but that does not affect the question. The
workings of the mind are as definite and practical as the movements
of the fingers. The brain cells have, stretching out from them, a
number of minute filaments. We know that the tips of these filaments
move about and touch their neighbours. And according to the manner in
which they move, different trains of thought are set up. The intricate
network is constantly changing its form, as the filaments link up
together various parts of the brain tissue.
It is, in fact, the counterpart of a telephone system, which has wires
and exchanges and call offices extending all over the country. From
these offices telephone callers are put into communication with each
other, and there is a never-ending linking-up and switching-off taking
place, and the harmony of the systems depends on the efficiency of the
operators. Fill one of the exchanges with a lot of fussy, ill-trained
people, who would lose their heads, and the whole system would be
disorganised in a very short time.
Each man possesses his own telephone system inside his head, and the
working of it depends entirely on himself. If he fidgets and fumes and
gets excited over what he is doing, he worries the brain filaments
until they begin to act all ways except the right one. And not only do
they fail to carry out their purpose, but the bother and flurry through
which they pass tire them out as no amount of steady work could ever
do. Like the men of the second company, they get to the end of their
day’s work fagged and exhausted.
If this goes on long, for days and months and years in succession, the
strain becomes too great, and they either refuse to work at all or they
get completely out of hand. And, whichever they do, it means that the
man who owns them suffers from a breakdown. And it was the worry, not
the work, which caused it.
Some people have a born knack of worrying. The mental agony through
which they pass when taking a railway journey is almost incredible.
They worry as to whether they will get to the station in time, and if
their luggage will arrive safely at its destination, and a hundred
other things as well.
We once heard a lady say--almost boastfully, she seemed proud of the
fact--that she never slept a wink all night if she was a penny out in
her household accounts. She did not say what happened if she was a
halfpenny out. We can only presume, therefore, that in that case she
slept for half the night.
With worries of this sort we have no sympathy. They can be overcome
by an effort of will, and those who give way to them had better
realise that they are not only bothering the people around them, but
endangering their own nervous systems as well. For worry leads to
worry. A mind that is addicted to them will always tend to distort
things, making mountains out of molehills. Objects invariably loom
larger in a fog.
And of all troubles in this life there are none so hard to bear as
imaginary ones. Many of us prefer to meet a burglar rather than a
ghost. The troubles we dread rarely come. Yet the strain of thinking
about them tends to precipitate other disasters. The man who is always
on the look-out for orange peel is very liable to run his head against
a lamp-post. If after that he is always thinking of lamp-posts, he is
almost certain to slip on a piece of orange peel. And people who are
constantly worrying about the future, and all the ills that it may
bring with it, are inviting troubles, for they are frittering their
energies instead of applying them to their work.
[Sidenote: Worry and neurasthenia.]
Worry is a potent factor in causing neurasthenia, and once that has
come about the system is deprived of its resisting power and laid open
to disease. And neurasthenics are singularly prone to forebodings.
The state of the nervous system alters the circulation in the body to
such an extent that it is apt to cause the feeling of illness, if not
illness itself. Such people are liable to feel chilly or burning hot,
even though their temperatures may be normal. Yet because of their
sensations they feel certain that they are going to be ill, and the
dread of this still further aggravates their nervous condition.
While worry brings on neurasthenia, the latter adds to worry. The whole
process is like a snowball rolling down a hill, increasing in size as
it does so. All the more reason, therefore, why we should take every
precaution to arrest it at the outset, by considering in what way
worry can be prevented.
[Sidenote: How to prevent worry.]
This can never be done by running away from responsibilities or
difficulties of any sort. Such as they may be, we must face them.
There are many people to-day, as in the ancient time, who sigh for the
wings of a dove that they may fly away and be at rest. Even if they
got the wings, it is doubtful if they would be much better off. In all
probability they would find that they had gone farther only to fare
worse.
Neither can worry be got rid of by sitting down and trying to make up
our minds that we will not give way to it. The seasick man might as
well command the waves to be still. We have little direct control over
the nervous system, but we have a vast amount of influence over the
movements of the body, which reacts in such a pronounced manner on the
mind.
[Sidenote: Body and mind.]
The man who walks and talks hurriedly or jerkily tends to think in
like fashion. Those whose minds are in a fume and a fidget usually
show it by fussing about and behave generally in a restless manner.
Let them force themselves to walk quietly and deliberately, and they
will be surprised to find how quickly their minds follow suit and
settle down into a steadier groove. And if they take care to speak in
the same deliberate fashion at the same time, the good effect will be
heightened. The movement of the limbs and of the lips react on the
mind to a surprising extent.
If any should doubt what we have said as to the close connection
between the body and the mind, let them try an experiment which was
advocated many years ago by a celebrated psychologist. It consists in
reading a comic book with the features contracted into a stern frown,
and following this up by reading a pathetic one with the face relaxed
into a broad grin. The result will convince them as to the truth of our
previous statements.
[Sidenote: Anticipation.]
Sometimes a man is worried to death on account of some event he is
anticipating, a reply to some letter he has sent, or the news of some
appointment he is in for. Often under such circumstances he will pace
up and down like a caged beast, until the nervous tension almost makes
him ill. Try as he may, he cannot sit still. But he can do something
equally efficacious, he can engage in some other occupation, keeping
his hands and mind employed, instead of glancing continually at the
clock or looking for the postman.
[Sidenote: Beset by work.]
And sometimes people are beset by business until they scarcely know
where to turn. Then it may be that they become so agitated that they
can do nothing to further the matter in hand. A man once consulted
a doctor as to an experience that had befallen him on the previous
evening. “At teatime,” he said, “I found myself becoming anxious and
worried as to the amount of work in front of me. And the harder I tried
to get on with it the more obstinately my brain refused to act, and by
bedtime I had got everything into a hopeless muddle.”
The doctor told him that curiously enough he himself had had a similar
experience the same evening, and just about the same time.
“And what did you do?” the patient inquired, and was much astonished
when the medical man replied, “Went out, had a couple of games of
billiards, then came back and finished it all comfortably in a couple
of hours.”
When a man finds that his work is worrying him unduly, or when he is so
overwhelmed by it that he cannot keep his mental equilibrium, the best
thing he can do is to stop it for a time and have a rest or a change of
some sort, even if it is only for a few minutes. It will facilitate the
work in the long run, and will save the nervous system from an amount
of wear and tear which may take days or weeks to put right again.
Unpunctuality and untidiness are responsible for a great amount of
unnecessary worry. The man who is habitually late in the mornings is
apt to find his work accumulate to such an extent that by the time he
ought to be finishing his day’s work he feels it has become a heavy
burden upon his shoulders. And people who keep their desks in an untidy
condition lose a vast amount of time, and harass themselves by having
to search for things they should have been able to put their fingers on
at once.
[Sidenote: Stimulants.]
Above all, let a man avoid stimulating his flagging brain by means
of alcohol, or soothing it by the aid of drugs. Tobacco, however,
is--in the writer’s opinion at least--a boon to people of a worrying
disposition. If used to excess, especially in the form of cigarettes,
it may sap the nervous system, and lead to more worry than it is likely
to prevent. Taken in moderation, and in its healthiest form, that of a
pipe, it often proves of great benefit to tired nerves.
[Sidenote: Leisure time.]
It is of the utmost importance for people who are subject to worry to
pay every attention to the way in which they spend their leisure time.
It is even more important in their case than in that of people who work
too hard.
[Sidenote: Overwork compared with worry.]
The effect of overwork is to cause fatigue. The mind has been kept
too long in a certain groove, until it has become wearied from sheer
exhaustion. Certain parts of the brain or the body are tired out
for the time being. Such persons need recreation pure and simple. A
pleasant game or a light novel is the best remedy for their fatigue,
taking the mind out of the groove in which it has been confined.
The effect of worry, on the other hand, is to produce a state of
restlessness, both of mind and body. The nervous system is in an
irritable condition, and requires something that will steady it down. A
game may only add excitement to the restlessness. The brain is acting
in an irregular, discursive manner, and needs some method of treatment
which will reduce it to order. And this can best be obtained by means
of a quiet hobby. The overworked man is like a horse that has been
plodding along all day in the shafts with a heavy weight behind it; a
little freedom, perhaps a gallop round a field, will do it more good
than anything else. The over-worried man is like a horse that has been
plunging aimlessly around, excited and irritable: an hour’s hard work
between the shafts is what it needs.
[Sidenote: Worries and hobbies.]
Therefore, while the fatigued man requires recreation, the worried
one will do better with some hobby that needs a certain amount of
concentration. The form of hobby best suited to him depends on his
tastes and capabilities. A celebrated physician once told me that when
he found himself becoming worried he could quiet his mind most speedily
by mathematical problems. They would do him far more good than any game
or other form of recreation.
Many people, however, might find this too great a strain, for it is
possible to be worried and tired at the same time, as we all know. Yet
there are many hobbies which demand a certain amount of concentration
without making too great a call on the mental faculties.
They may take up books on travel, for instance, and there is no more
fascinating form of reading. Let them select some particular country,
and read all they can find about it, its inhabitants and customs,
until they are authorities on that subject. Or they may go in for
history, studying some particular period, and read all the manuals and
historical novels dealing with it. Continuity is a great point in any
hobby; it makes it not only more interesting, but there is the pleasure
of knowing it is always there, waiting for them, without their having
to consider what to take up next.
Or they may dip into such subjects as astronomy, botany or a host of
others. And these will do more than refresh the mind at the time.
People of a worrying disposition are always restless and fidgety on
a railway journey, but those who take an interest in such things as
geology, flora and fauna will find plenty to occupy their minds with
as they go along. Even railway embankments may be made a cinematograph
of delight to the man who has studied land formations. And anyone who
is interested in architecture need never fear the tedium of having to
spend an hour or two in a strange town waiting for the next train.
Those who have a taste for poetry may consider themselves fortunate,
for there is something in the harmony of words that has a specially
beneficial effect on the worried mind. The rhythm, either of blank
verse or rhyme, is excellently adapted for reducing the aimless
wandering of an overwrought mind to a regular, steady running.
Especially is this the case if people take the trouble to learn it by
heart. For this acts as a kind of mental mastication, and the poetry
is consequently absorbed and becomes a part of their very being. Then
they are laying up for themselves a store of treasures which they may
enjoy at any moment. People who worry are always liable to be irritable
when alone, and need something to counteract their moody tendencies.
A man of this type was so subject to irritability of this sort when
he was dressing in the mornings that he invariably started the day
badly. And a day that begins in this way is like a choir that starts
on a wrong note, it is a difficult matter to get back to the right
one again. This man, owing to his unfortunate habit, found it almost
impossible to recover a harmonious frame of mind, until at last he hit
upon the secret. He had become enamoured of the writings of a certain
poet, and had begun to learn whole passages by heart. After that he
found himself repeating these to himself when he got up in the morning,
and it is no exaggeration to say that it altered his life. It gave him
a good send-off for the day, and saved him from many a mistake and many
a worry.
A hobby which combines hand and eye and brain is of great service to
a flurried mind. Engineers, carpenters and all who are engaged in
like occupations unconsciously acquire an orderly, methodical way of
thinking.
As to what form of manual work people take up their individual tastes
will decide, just as much as in the kind of reading they indulge in. If
they have a faculty for art, they can take up painting or music. And
when I say music, I mean practising it properly, not simply sitting
down to the piano to improvise or wander from piece to piece. It is the
steady practice which does the brain good.
Or they may prefer carpentry or wood carving, or preparing microscopic
slides, than which there is no more absorbing hobby. There are scores
of others, too, equally interesting.
Nothing, however trivial, is beneath our notice, if it will in any way
mitigate this deadly habit of worrying, which has such a detrimental
influence on the nervous system, and so often is responsible both for
the starting-point and the climax of a breakdown.