Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them

by Charles David Musgrove

Yet these people should never have had brain-fag if they had only carried out the rules we are about to lay down.

Most of us are not in a position to go to the Sahara, but we can get at home, if not such a flood of sunshine, at any rate enough fresh air, in conjunction with other precautions as to diet and so forth, to prevent our systems ever getting into such a state as to make a trip of this sort, with its outlay of time and money, a necessity.

Apart from sunshine, fresh air has a potent influence on health. We all pine for fine holidays, and no doubt they do us more good, in addition to being more enjoyable, than wet ones. Yet it is amazing how much better people look after even a rainy holiday at the seaside or country. The rest from the worries of business and so forth has something to do with it, but I firmly believe that half the benefit is due to the fact that when people are on a holiday they spend the greater part of their time in the open air.

A friend once remarked to me that he always began to feel nervous and worried as soon as he got back home. He wondered if the district agreed with him. I asked him what sort of life he led when he was in the country. And he replied that he pottered about outside all the time. If it was wet, he put on a mackintosh and went out just the same. Yet he owned up that he never thought of doing such a thing at home.

Two men were walking down a street in the West of London on a winter’s afternoon. The one was plodding along wearily with his eyes fixed on the pavement and lines of care on his face. The other held himself erect, walking with easy strides, and looking around with genial eyes that seemed to find an interest in everything they saw. His breezy manner and the glow of health in his cheeks were a marked contrast to the look of weariness and pallor on the face of his companion.

Yet these two were brothers, brought up in the same way and under the same conditions. The one had applied himself to the law, finally settling down in London, amazed that his brother should be content to bury himself in the heart of the country.

A few hours later they sat down to dinner together, and the lawyer looked with envy at the hearty way in which the country brother ate his food, and the relish with which he seemed able to take anything that was set before him. His own appetite was fickle to the last degree, and even when he ate any of the courses it was with a doleful presentiment as to the effect they would have upon him.

It was after midnight before the lawyer could make up his mind to go to bed, and he went with the expectation of a restless night. By that time the other brother was enjoying a deep, untroubled slumber.

Six months later you might have seen those two men again walking side by side. This time it was on an August morning amongst the fields and hedgerows. The difference between them was not so marked on this occasion. The lawyer held his head higher, his eyes were brighter, and his cheeks had lost much of their pallor. He did not look down at the ground either, but gazed all around him, and some of the careworn lines had disappeared from his face. He had had three weeks of pure, country air, and had spent most of it in the open. He was dreading the time, a few days hence, when he would have to return to town.

That was not anything out of the common. We have all seen people returning from their holidays looking like that. The surprising part—surprising even to the man himself—was to follow. For during the following winter you might have watched that lawyer stepping out of his office any afternoon, and would have been amazed to notice that he had never lost the improvement which he had gained during his weeks in the country. His dread that he would sink back into the same nervous, dyspeptic state as before had been unfounded.