ADVICE TO NEUROPATHS
"Great temperance, open air,
Easy labour, little care."
The above quotation epitomizes the cure for neurasthenia, for as Huxley
said:
"Our life, fortune, and happiness depend on our knowing something of
the rules of a game far more complicated than chess, which has been
played since Creation; every man, woman and child of us being one of
the players in a game of our own. The board is the world, the pieces
the phenomena of the universe, while the rules of the game are the laws
of nature. Though our opponent is hidden, we know his play is fair,
just and patient, but we also know to our sorrow that he never
overlooks a mistake or makes the slightest allowance for ignorance. To
the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid with that
overflowing generosity with which the strong show their delight in
strength. The one who plays badly is checkmated; without haste, but
without remorse. Ignorance is visited as sharply a as wilful
disobedience; incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime."
In many cases some real trouble is the best medicine for a neurasthenic,
for though disaster may crush him, it is more likely to act as a spur, by
diverting his thoughts from his woes, and making him fight instead of fret.
Since such blessings in disguise cannot be booked to order, first see a
doctor. Though little be physically wrong, the sense of comfort and relief
from fear, which a clear idea of what _is_ wrong brings, goes a long way
towards cure by giving the patient hope and confidence.
Having seen the doctor, assist him by carrying out the following advice as
far as real limitations--not lazy inclinations--permit. Do not say after
reading this chapter, "I know all that"; you have to _do_ "all that", for
medicine alone, whether patent or prescribed, is useless.
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Go for a long sea voyage, if possible.
If not, get a long holiday in a quiet farmhouse, or, better still, get to
the country for good, be it in never so humble a capacity, for a healthy
cowman is happier than a neurasthenic clerk. The rural worker has no
theatres, but he can walk miles without meeting another; he has woods to
roam in, hills to climb, trees to muse under: he has ample light and air,
and his is a far happier lot than that of a vainglorious but miserable,
sedentary machine in a great city.
The rural districts round Braemar, the Channel Islands, Cromer, Deal,
Droitwich, Scarborough, and Weston-super-Mare are, in general, suitable
holiday resorts for neuropaths.
Avoid alcohol, tea, coffee, much meat, all excitement, anger and _worry_.
Take tickets only for comedy at the theatre, and leave lectures, social
gatherings and dances alone.
Nerve-starvation needs generous feeding with easily digested food. Drink
milk in gradually increasing amounts up to half a gallon per day. If more
food is needed, add eggs, custard, fruit, spinach, chicken, or fish, but do
not forgo any milk. Avoid starchy foods and sweets.
Eat only what you can digest, and digest all you eat. Chew every mouthful a
hundred times. This is one of the few sensible food fads.
Drink water copiously between meals, and take no liquid (save the milk)
with them. Keep the bowels open.
If you _must_ "occupy your mind", take up some very simple, quiet hobby.
Gardening, fretwork, photography and gymnastics are not necessarily quiet
hobbies. Chess, billiards, and contortions with gymnastic apparatus are not
to be recommended.
If you _must_ read, peruse only humorous novels. Never study, and leave
exciting fiction and medical work alone. Symptoms are the most misleading
things in a most misleading world.
After your evening meal, take a quiet walk, go to bed _and sleep_. You
should occasionally spend from Saturday midday to Monday morning in bed,
with blinds drawn, living on milk, seeing nobody and doing _nothing_. The
deepest degradation of the Sabbath is to fill it with odd jobs which have
accumulated through the week.
Do not get out of bed too early in the morning, but rise in time to eat
your breakfast slowly, attend to the toilet, and catch the car without
haste. If your occupation be an indoor one, rise an hour earlier, and walk
or cycle quietly to work.
Take a warm bath followed by a cold douche on rising. If no warm after-glow
follows, use tepid water. Keep your body warm; your head cool.
Be continent. Nerve-tone and sexual delights are not compatible. Matrimony,
while a convenient cloak, is no excuse for lust.
Try suggestion for fears and impulses (see Chapter XVIII), for it is
useless to try to "reason them out", though it is useful for a brief period
each day to try deliberately to turn the mind away from the obsession, by
singing or whistling, gradually prolonging the attempts.
Rest, to prevent the manufacture of more waste products, the elimination of
those present, and the generation of nerve-strength from nourishing food
are the things that cure. Chapters XIX and XX deal with the drug treatment.
Do not Worry. Whatever your trouble is, it is useless to
"Look before and after, and sigh for what is not"
for the future cannot be rushed nor the past remedied. All patients reply
promptly that they "can't help" worrying, when in truth they do not try.
Work never hurt anyone, but harassing preoccupation with problems which no
amount of thought will solve drives many thousands to early graves. Anger
exhausts itself in a few minutes, fatigue in a few hours, and real overwork
with a week's rest, but worry grows ever worse. Ponder Meredith's lines:
"I _will_ endure; I will not strive to peep
Behind the barrier of the days to come."
"Look on the bright side!" said an optimist to a melancholy friend.
"But there is no bright side."
"Then polish up the dull one!" was the sound advice tendered.
_Learn to forget_!
One cannot open a periodical without being exhorted to train one's memory
for a variety of reasons. The neuropath needs a system of forgetfulness.
Lethe is often a greater friend than Mnemosyne.
To brood on disappointments, failures and griefs only wastes energy, sours
temper, and upsets the general health. Resolve _beforehand_ that when
unhappy ideas arise you will _not_ dwell on them, but turn your thoughts to
pleasant trifles; take up a humorous book, or take a turn in the fresh air,
and you will soon acquire the habit of laughing instead of whining at Fate.
To sum up: Go slow! Your neurons have been exhausted in your foolish
attempt to "live this day as if thy last" in a wrong sense; feverish
activity and unnecessary work must be abandoned to enable the nerves to
recuperate.
When the doctor says "rest", he means "_rest_", not change your bustle from
work to what you are pleased to regard as play.
So much is _absolute rest_ recognized as the foundation of treatment, that
severe cases undergo the "Weir-Mitchell Treatment". The patient is _utterly
secluded_; letters, reading, talking, smoking and visits from friends are
forbidden. He is put to bed, not allowed even to sit up, sees no one save
nurse and doctor, is massaged, treated electrically, grossly overfed,
fattened up, and freed from every care.
In leaving his habitual circle, the patient escapes the too-attentive care
of his relatives, and the incessant questions about his complaint with
which they overwhelm him. The results of this régime with semi-insane
wrecks are marvellous. It is a very drastic but very successful
"rest-cure", and while it cannot be undergone at home, neurasthenics will
benefit by following its principles as far as they can in their own homes.
High-frequency or static electricity sometimes works wonders in the hands
of a specialist, but the electric batteries, medical coils, finger-rings
and body-belts so persistently advertised are _useless_.
When the patient has in some measure recuperated, he may try the following
exercises in mental concentration. Vittoz claims good results from them,
but they must be done quite seriously.
1. Walk a few steps with the definite idea that you are putting forward
right and left feet alternately. Go on by easy stages until you
concentrate on the movement of the whole body.
2. Take any object in your hand, and note its exact form, weight,
colour, etc.
3. Look in a shop-window while you count ten, and as you walk on, try
to recall all the objects therein exhibited.
4. Accustom yourself to defining the sounds you hear, and concentrating
on a special one, as that of a passing tram, or a ticking watch.
5. Make a rapid examination several times daily of your feelings and
thoughts, and try to express them definitely.
6. Concentrate on the mental reproduction of a regular curve: a figure
8 placed on its side.
7. Listen to a metronome, and, a friend having stopped it, mentally
repeat the ticking to time.
8. Whenever you handle anything, try to retain the impression of that
object and its properties for several minutes, to the exclusion of
other ideas.
9. Concentrate on ideas of calm, and of energy controlled.
10. Place three objects on a sheet of white paper. Remove them one by
one, at the same time effacing the impression of each one as it is
removed, until the mind, like the paper, is blank.
11. Efface two of the objects, and retain the impression of one only.
12. Replace the impressions in your mind, but not the objects on the
paper, one by one.
The object of these exercises is to get your wandering mind daily a little
more under control; do not exhaust yourself.
After some months of treatment, ask yourself--
Am I able to walk ten miles with ease? when introduced to a stranger of
either sex or any age, to converse agreeably, profitably and without
embarrassment? to entertain visitors so that all enjoy themselves? to read
essays or poetry with as much pleasure as a novel? to listen to a lecture,
and be able afterwards to rehearse the main points? to be good company for
myself on a rainy day? to submit to insult, injustice or petulance with
dignity and patience, and to answer them wisely and calmly? When you are
able to answer, "Yes!" to these queries, your nerves are sound.
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