Why Worry?

by George Lincoln Walton

Extreme antipathies to various foods are fostered among this class. A lady told me that she perfectly abominated cereals, that she could not stand vegetables, that she could not bear anything in the shape of an apple, that she could not abide spinach, and that baked beans made her sick at the stomach.

The heart is perhaps the organ most often the object of solicitude on the part of the hypochondriac. When we realize that the pulse may vary in the healthy individual from 60 to over 100, according to circumstances, and that mere excitement may send it to the latter figure, we may appreciate the feelings of one who counts his pulse at frequent intervals and is alarmed if it varies from a given figure.

Inspection of the tongue is a common occupation of the hypochondriac, who is generally more familiar than his medical attendant with the anatomy of this organ.

Insistent desire regarding the temperature is common not only among hypochondriacs, but among others. I do not allude to the internal temperature (though I have been surprised to learn how many people carry a clinical thermometer and use it on themselves from time to time); I refer to the temperature of the room or of the outside air. The wish to feel a certain degree of warmth is so overpowering in some cases that neither work nor play can be carried on unless the thermometer registers the desired figure. A person with this tendency does not venture to mail a letter without donning hat and overcoat; the mere thought of a cold bath causes him to shudder.

Golf has cured many a victim of this obsession. It takes only a few games to teach the most delicately constructed that he can remain for hours in his shirt-sleeves on quite a cold day, and that the cold shower (preferably preceded by a warm one) invigorates instead of depresses him. Further experiment will convince him that he can wear thin underwear and low shoes all winter. Such experiences may encourage him to risk a cold plunge in the morning, followed by a brisk rub and a few simple exercises before dressing.

Morbid fears in themselves produce physical manifestations which add to the discomfort and alarm of the hypochondriac. I allude to the rush of blood to the head, the chill, the mental confusion, and the palpitation. These symptoms are perfectly harmless, and denote only normal circulatory changes. It is true that one cannot at will materially alter his circulation, but he can do so gradually by habit of thought. To convince ourselves of this fact, we need only remember to what a degree blushing becomes modified by change of mental attitude. Similarly, the person who has practiced mental and physical relaxation will find that the blood no longer rushes to his head upon hearing a criticism or remembering a possible source of worry.

The automatic processes of the body are in general performed best when the attention is directed elsewhere. After ordinary care is taken, too minute attention to the digestive apparatus, for example, may retard rather than aid it. Watching the digestion too closely is like pulling up seeds to see if they are growing.

The more attention is paid to the sensations, the more they demand. Nor can the degree of attention they deserve be measured by their own insistence. If one tries the experiment of thinking intently of the end of his thumb, and imagines it is going to sleep, the chances are ten to one that in five minutes it will have all the sensations of going to sleep. If this is true of the healthy-minded individual, how much more must it be so in the person who allows his thoughts to dwell with anxious attention on such parts of his body as may be the immediate seat of his fears. The next step is for various sensations (boring, burning, prickling, stabbing, and the like) to appear spontaneously, and, if attention is paid to them, rapidly to increase in intensity.

It is probable that the mere pressure of part upon part in the body, even the ordinary activity of its organs, would give rise to sensations if we encouraged them. Given an anomalous sensation, or even a pain, for which the physician finds no physical basis, and which, after a term of years, has produced no further appreciable effect than to make one nervous, it is always in place to ask one's self whether the sensation or the pain may not be of this nature.

Medical instructors are continually consulted by students who fear that they have the diseases they are studying. The knowledge that pneumonia produces pain in a certain spot leads to a concentration of attention upon that region which causes any sensation there to give alarm. The mere knowledge of the location of the appendix transforms the most harmless sensations in that region into symptoms of serious menace. The sensible student learns to quiet these fears, but the victim of "hypos" returns again and again for examination, and perhaps finally reaches the point of imparting, instead of obtaining, information, like the patient in a recent anecdote from the Youth's Companion: