Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them

by Charles David Musgrove

The greatest mistake than can be made is to wait for an annual holiday in the expectation that it is going to exonerate us from consequences of eleven months or more of sinning against the rules of health. Everyone, men and women alike, should secure a holiday if only for an hour or so every day of their lives, in the shape of some congenial change of thought or occupation.

Value of the annual holiday.

Yet the annual holiday has a place of its own in our well being. It takes us away from our ordinary associations, and brings us into contact with fresh scenery and new faces, which mean new personalities. It invigorates our bodies and tones up our minds, broadening them and furnishing them with new ideas, so that both from the physical and mental standpoints it is a valuable aid to health.

It has a direct bearing on the subject of breakdowns, for change of scene is a potent means of getting a man’s mind out of the monotonous groove which is so wearing to his nervous system. It has an additional advantage in that it often happens that after a holiday he is apt to keep himself in contact with the fresh air and exercise, and recreation also, which he found so beneficial when he was away from home. In the incipient stages of breakdown, too, a complete change is one of the necessary items in treatment.

Seeing, therefore, how important it is and what it means to so many people, it is well worth while to consider how the time and money involved may be expended to the best advantage.

The usual plan is to fix on a spot because we have heard it spoken of as a “nice place to go to,” engage rooms by letter and set off, hoping for the best. Little wonder that the holiday often turns out a disappointment.

A family was returning from a visit to the seaside, to which the various members, parents and children alike, had looked forward with the greatest zest. The mother was tired out, the father seemed worried, and the children were jaded and spiritless. They had been unfortunate in their choice of a place, the lodgings had been uncomfortable, and the holiday had proved a failure. Yet with a little foresight it might have been entirely different.

It is always advisable that one of the older members of the family, preferably the mother, should see the locality and the apartments before hand. We cannot expect the proprietress of the apartments or the hotel to point out for our benefit that the bedrooms are musty and badly ventilated, the sheets damp, and the sanitary arrangements defective. We must go and investigate these things for ourselves.

Where to go.

The question as to where to go is one that needs careful consideration. The fact that it suited someone else is no reason why it should be adapted to our requirements. I once heard two men discussing this question, and one was advising the other to go to a certain place in the Highlands. He described it in glowing colours, and made it perfectly plain to the other man that if he went anywhere else he was an incompetent idiot. It was a village at the bottom of a deep valley, surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains.