Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them

by Charles David Musgrove

With worries of this sort we have no sympathy. They can be overcome by an effort of will, and those who give way to them had better realise that they are not only bothering the people around them, but endangering their own nervous systems as well. For worry leads to worry. A mind that is addicted to them will always tend to distort things, making mountains out of molehills. Objects invariably loom larger in a fog.

And of all troubles in this life there are none so hard to bear as imaginary ones. Many of us prefer to meet a burglar rather than a ghost. The troubles we dread rarely come. Yet the strain of thinking about them tends to precipitate other disasters. The man who is always on the look-out for orange peel is very liable to run his head against a lamp-post. If after that he is always thinking of lamp-posts, he is almost certain to slip on a piece of orange peel. And people who are constantly worrying about the future, and all the ills that it may bring with it, are inviting troubles, for they are frittering their energies instead of applying them to their work.

Worry and neurasthenia.

Worry is a potent factor in causing neurasthenia, and once that has come about the system is deprived of its resisting power and laid open to disease. And neurasthenics are singularly prone to forebodings. The state of the nervous system alters the circulation in the body to such an extent that it is apt to cause the feeling of illness, if not illness itself. Such people are liable to feel chilly or burning hot, even though their temperatures may be normal. Yet because of their sensations they feel certain that they are going to be ill, and the dread of this still further aggravates their nervous condition.

While worry brings on neurasthenia, the latter adds to worry. The whole process is like a snowball rolling down a hill, increasing in size as it does so. All the more reason, therefore, why we should take every precaution to arrest it at the outset, by considering in what way worry can be prevented.

How to prevent worry.

This can never be done by running away from responsibilities or difficulties of any sort. Such as they may be, we must face them. There are many people to-day, as in the ancient time, who sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly away and be at rest. Even if they got the wings, it is doubtful if they would be much better off. In all probability they would find that they had gone farther only to fare worse.

Neither can worry be got rid of by sitting down and trying to make up our minds that we will not give way to it. The seasick man might as well command the waves to be still. We have little direct control over the nervous system, but we have a vast amount of influence over the movements of the body, which reacts in such a pronounced manner on the mind.

Body and mind.

The man who walks and talks hurriedly or jerkily tends to think in like fashion. Those whose minds are in a fume and a fidget usually show it by fussing about and behave generally in a restless manner. Let them force themselves to walk quietly and deliberately, and they will be surprised to find how quickly their minds follow suit and settle down into a steadier groove. And if they take care to speak in the same deliberate fashion at the same time, the good effect will be heightened. The movement of the limbs and of the lips react on the mind to a surprising extent.