CHAPTER XIV.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What rest is.