[pg 46]

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CHAPTER IX

ADVICE TO NEUROPATHS

"Great temperance, open air,

Easy labour, little care."

The above quotation epitomizes the cure for neurasthenia, for as Huxley said:

"Our life, fortune, and happiness depend on our knowing something of the rules of a game far more complicated than chess, which has been played since Creation; every man, woman, and child of us being one of the players in a game of our own. The board is the world, the pieces the phenomena of the universe, while the rules of the game are the laws of nature. Though our opponent is hidden, we know his play is fair, just and patient, but we also know to our sorrow that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the slightest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid with that overflowing generosity with which the strong show their delight in strength. The one who plays badly is checkmated; without haste, but without remorse. Ignorance is visited as sharply as willful disobedience; incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime."

In many cases some real trouble is the best medicine for a neurasthenic, for though disaster may crush him, it is more likely to act as a spur, by diverting his thoughts from his woes, and making him fight instead of fret.

[pg 47]

Since such blessings in disguise cannot be booked to order, first see a doctor. Though little be physically wrong, the sense of comfort and relief from fear, which a clear idea of what is wrong brings, goes a long way towards cure by giving the patient hope and confidence.

Having seen the doctor, assist him by carrying out the following advice as far as real limitations...not lazy inclinations...permit. Do not say after reading this chapter, "I know all that"; you have to do "all that", for medicine alone, whether patent or prescribed, is useless.

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Go for a long sea voyage, if possible.

If not, get a long holiday in a quiet farmhouse, or, better still, get to the country for good, be it in never so humble a capacity, for a healthy cowman is happier than a neurasthenic clerk. The rural worker has no theatres, but he can walk miles without meeting another; he has woods to roam in, hills to climb, trees to muse under: he has ample light and air, and his is a far happier lot than that of a vainglorious but miserable, sedentary machine in a great city.

The rural districts around Braemar, the Channel Islands, Cromer, Deal, Droitwich, Scarborough, and Weston-super-Mare are, in general, suitable holiday resorts for neuropaths.

Avoid alcohol, tea, coffee, much meat, all excitement, anger, and worry. Take tickets only for comedy at the theatre, and leave lectures, social gatherings, and dances alone.

Nerve starvation needs generous feeding with easily digested food. Drink milk in gradually increasing amounts up to half a gallon per day. If more food is needed, add eggs, custard, fruit, spinach, chicken, or fish, but do not forgo any milk. Avoid starchy foods and sweets.

[pg 48]

Eat only what you can digest, and digest all you eat. Chew every mouthful a hundred times. This is one of the few sensible food fads.

Drink water copiously between meals, and take no liquid (save the milk) with them. Keep the bowels open.

If you must "occupy your mind", take up some very simple, quiet hobby. Gardening, fretwork, photography, and gymnastics are not necessarily quiet hobbies. Chess, billiards, and contortions with gymnastic apparatus are not to be recommended.

If you must read, peruse only humorous novels. Never study, and leave exciting fiction and medical work alone. Symptoms are the most misleading things in a most misleading world.

After your evening meal, take a quiet walk, go to bed and sleep. You should occasionally spend from Saturday midday to Monday morning in bed, with blinds drawn, living on milk, seeing nobody, and doing nothing. The deepest degradation of the Sabbath is to fill it with odd jobs that have accumulated through the week.

Do not get out of bed too early in the morning, but rise in time to eat your breakfast slowly, attend to the toilet, and catch the car without haste. If your occupation is an indoor one, rise an hour earlier, and walk or cycle quietly to work.

Take a warm bath followed by a cold douche [shower] on rising. If no warm after-glow follows, use tepid water. Keep your body warm; your head cool.

Be continent. Nerve tone and sexual delights are not compatible. Matrimony, while a convenient cloak, is no excuse for lust.

Try suggestion for fears and impulses (see Chapter XVIII), for it is useless to try to "reason them out", though it is useful for a brief period each day to try deliberately to turn the mind away from the obsession, [pg 49] by singing or whistling, gradually prolonging the attempts.

Rest, to prevent the manufacture of more waste products, the elimination of those present, and the generation of nerve-strength from nourishing food are the things that cure. Chapters XIX and XX deal with the drug treatment.

Do not Worry. Whatever your trouble is, it is useless to

"Look before and after, and sigh for what is not"

for the future cannot be rushed nor the past cured. All patients reply promptly that they "can't help" worrying, when in truth they do not try.

Work never hurt anyone, but harassing preoccupation with problems that no amount of thought will solve drives many thousands to early graves. Anger exhausts itself in a few minutes, fatigue in a few hours, and real overwork with a week's rest, but worry grows ever worse. Ponder Meredith's lines:

"I will endure; I will not strive to peep

Behind the barrier of the days to come."

"Look on the bright side!" said an optimist to a melancholy friend.

"But there is no bright side."

"Then polish up the dull one!" was the sound advice tendered.

Learn to forget!

One cannot open a magazine these days without being exhorted to train one's memory for a variety of reasons. The neuropath actually needs a system of forgetfulness. Lethe is often a greater friend than Mnemosyne.

To brood on disappointments, failures and griefs [pg 50] only wastes energy, sours temper, and upsets the general health. Resolve beforehand that when unhappy ideas arise you will not dwell on them, but turn your thoughts to pleasant trifles; take up a humorous book, or take a turn in the fresh air, and you will soon acquire the habit of laughing instead of whining at Fate.

To sum up: Go slow! Your neurons have been exhausted in your foolish attempt to "live this day as if thy last" in a wrong sense; feverish activity and unnecessary work must be abandoned to enable the nerves to recuperate.

When the doctor says "rest", he means "rest", not change your bustle from work to what you are pleased to regard as play.

So much is absolute rest recognized as the foundation of treatment, that severe cases undergo the "Weir-Mitchell Treatment". The patient is utterly secluded; letters, reading, talking, smoking , and visits from friends are forbidden. He is put to bed, not allowed even to sit up, sees no one save nurse and doctor, is massaged, treated electrically, grossly overfed, fattened up, and freed from every care.

In leaving his habitual circle, the patient escapes the too-attentive care of his relatives, and the incessant questions about his complaint with which they overwhelm him. The results of this régime with semi-insane wrecks are marvellous. It is a very drastic but very successful "rest cure", and while it cannot be undergone at home, neurasthenics will benefit by following its principles as far as they can in their own homes.

High-frequency or static electricity sometimes works wonders in the hands of a specialist, but the electric batteries, medical coils, finger-rings and body-belts so persistently advertised are useless.

When the patient has in some measure recuperated, [pg 51] he may try the following exercises in mental concentration. Vittoz claims good results from them, but they must be done quite seriously.

1. Walk a few steps with the definite idea that you are putting forward right and left feet alternately. Go on by easy stages until you concentrate on the movement of the whole body.

2. Take any object in your hand, and note its exact form, weight, color, etc.

3. Look in a shop window while you count ten, and as you walk on, try to recall all the objects therein exhibited.

4. Accustom yourself to defining the sounds you hear, and concentrating on a special one, as that of a passing tram, or a ticking watch.

5. Make a rapid examination several times daily of your feelings and thoughts, and try to express them definitely.

6. Concentrate on the mental reproduction of a regular curve: a figure 8 placed on its side.

7. Listen to a metronome, and, a friend having stopped it, mentally repeat the ticking to time.

8. Whenever you handle anything, try to retain the impression of that object and its properties for several minutes, to the exclusion of other ideas.

9. Concentrate on ideas of calm, and of energy controlled.

10. Place three objects on a sheet of white paper. Remove them one by one, at the same time effacing the impression of each one as it is removed, until the mind, like the paper, is blank.

11. Efface two of the objects, and retain the impression of one only.

12. Replace the impressions in your mind, but not the objects on the paper, one by one.

The object of these exercises is to get your wandering [pg 52] mind daily a little more under control; do not exhaust yourself.

After some months of treatment, ask yourself -

Am I able to walk ten miles with ease? When introduced to a stranger of either sex or any age, to converse agreeably, profitably and without embarrassment? to entertain visitors so that all enjoy themselves? to read essays or poetry with as much pleasure as a novel? to listen to a lecture, and be able afterwards to rehearse the main points? to be good company for myself on a rainy day? to submit to insult, injustice or petulance with dignity and patience, and to answer them wisely and calmly? When you are able to answer, "Yes!" to these queries, your nerves are sound.