Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them

by Charles David Musgrove

Yet we pay vastly more attention to a weak heart, as it is called, or still more so to a broken leg, than we do to a threatened failure in the nervous system, which outweighs them all in importance. Once that has got out of order, the driving power is gone. Not only the heart and muscles, but every other faculty we possess loses its energy and usefulness.

So closely allied, however, are the different parts, that the nervous system itself, which governs all else, is dependent for its welfare on the very organs it governs. Like the power of a king, it rests not only on its own intrinsic qualities, but also on the strength and harmony of the units over which it rules.

Interplay.

And there is a constant interplay going on between the various parts of the body. No one organ or system can stand alone. If it is working badly, it affects other parts, and disturbs the harmony on which the health of the whole depends.

One of the most marked examples of this is to be found in the action and reaction which take place between the digestive organs and the nervous system. The presence of congenial company at meal-times is one of the best aids to digestion; a cantankerous discussion is the very opposite. Similarly, if a man sits down to his dinner with a grievance or a worry on his mind, it is safe to predict dyspepsia.

A lady once received a telegram containing disastrous news just as she was finishing a meal. Up to that time she had never known what indigestion was, yet for the next couple of days she suffered from it in a most acute form. The nervous shock had thrown the stomach out of order, inhibiting the secretion of gastric juice.

We cannot help troubles of this sort, but it is only once in a lifetime, perhaps, that we get a message of that sort during the progress of a meal. It is to be feared, however, that it is of almost daily occurrence for some people to sit down to table worrying over the business of the day. And the accumulated effects of these minor disturbances may in the long run prove more detrimental than one big one.

Conversely, the stomach has an equally potent influence over the nervous system. Everyone knows that when their digestion is out of order, and they are feeling uncomfortable or bilious, their heads are not so clear as usual. And with this there is a feeling of langour and irritability, and a difficulty in doing work efficiently. This is because the body fails to get its proper supply of nourishment, and also because it is poisoned at the same time. In order to understand the manner in which this is brought about, it is necessary to know something as to the events which are taking place throughout the body every moment of our lives.

Combustion and elimination.

When food is taken it is first digested and then passes out of the stomach, and is carried by means of the circulation to all parts of the body. It nourishes the various tissues, replacing the loss which is constantly going on.