Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them

by Charles David Musgrove

Before work.

If a man lies in bed until the last minute dresses in a hurry, perhaps cutting his chin while shaving and losing his shirt stud, bolts down his breakfast in the fewest possible minutes, and then runs to catch his tram or train, it is not to be wondered at if he returns home in the evening thoroughly fagged out. He has started the day by breaking nearly every rule of health in the course of about three-quarters of an hour, and is surprised and worried because he finds that his work takes such a lot out of him. Yet next morning he begins by doing the very same thing over again.

Then he sighs for the time when he will be able to rest on his oars and take life easily, leaving “the beastly business” behind him. And so long as he goes on in the way he is doing, he will sigh for it in vain. He may feel thankful if he is able to go on with his work, and does not find himself laid on one side, broken down in health and spirits.

Try an experiment, some of you who see yourselves in the picture I have just drawn. Get up in good time, and that means going to bed in good time also the night before. Dress and take your breakfast in a leisurely manner, and then either go for a turn in the garden or farther afield if you like, or else have a quiet rest by the fireside, if the weather is inclement. Give yourself plenty of time to get to your place of business, and at the end of the day you will be in a position to decide as to whether it was your work or your way of starting the day which was to blame.

Of one thing we have little doubt. Even if you do not feel as well as you might do when you reach home again, you will feel better than you have done for a long time past. But not so well as you may do before long. For there are different ways of going about your work, as well as of preparing for it and getting there.

During work. Hygiene.

It is astonishing how many people there are who are careful as to ventilation and such-like matters in their own homes, but will put up with all sorts of hygienic defects in their offices. They will sit with their heads or their feet in cold draughts in the winter time and in baking hot rooms in the summer. A strip of wood under the door, or a curtain over it, the removal of a desk to a more convenient position, or the fixing of a sunblind, as the case may be, would make all the difference in the world to their comfort and health. Yet they put up with these inconveniences, and go on taking colds and headaches, just because it is an office or a place of business and not a private house.

Noises.

Noises in the street outside are a frequent cause of tiredness. Through long custom people fail to hear them, and become unaware of their existence, but the consequent nervous tension is there all the same. No expenditure in the shape of mechanical contrivances, even if it necessitates some re-building, is too great if it can mitigate this constant source of irritation to the nervous system.

Telephone.