Chapter 4

Members of our profession discovered not very long ago that at an advanced age the peasants of Bulgaria are a wonderfully preserved people both mentally and physically. Foolishly a great number of the profession immediately jumped to the conclusion that buttermilk alone did the miracle for these people. The drinking of buttermilk became such a fad that some of the largest of our physicians' supply houses began and are still making "buttermilk tablets." And physicians, many of them, are credulous enough to prescribe them. They might just as well prescribe chalk. While buttermilk tablets are harmless, they are of no benefit whatever. How easily fooled people--physicians included--may be! Bulgarian peasants are strong and rugged and live to a great age not because they drink buttermilk, but because they live on milk and fruits and vegetables and stay out of doors. Buttermilk is a good healthful drink, but it is only a minor reason for the health and strength of the Bulgarian peasant. Now, really, could you think of anything more absurd than to prescribe buttermilk or buttermilk tablets as the fountain of youth when the patient is breaking all the laws of health, as most buttermilk laymen and physicians are doing? It seems almost impossible that people--physicians in particular--should for a moment believe such things. But they do. Barnum said there was a "sucker" born every minute, and this certainly seems to be true.

No, there is no royal road to health. The buttermilk-tablet route will not take you there. If you will live out of doors as Bulgarian peasants do, and if you will eat as they do,--as man is expected to eat,--you will live just as long as they do, and you will get a great deal more out of life and be much more helpful to others. When the "time" comes round for your next buttermilk tablet, do not take it. Instead, do as those peasants do--leave off eating meat and take a two-hour walk in the sunshine. Then when nine o'clock comes, like the Bulgarian, go to bed and stay there until morning.

If the person afflicted with "nerves" expects to get well and stay well, he must go to bed at an early hour and get eight or nine hours of sleep not only some nights but every night in the week. When one begins dieting and taking outdoor exercise he should go to bed regularly at an early hour even though he has not been sleeping well. No matter how many sleepless nights he has experienced before beginning this regime, he should retire early just the same, because, sooner or later, sleep will come and the relaxed body is resting even if the individual does not sleep. Now I have been through all this lying awake at night, so I know from experience that it is best to go to bed early and at a regular hour. If you can, you should sleep nine hours. Nervous people need more sleep than others. Sleep is a better restorer of nerves than anything else we can try. I do not believe that ten or even eleven hours' sleep would be harmful to a nervous adult, because very often I have seen such a person benefited by it.

Children should have all the sleep they want up to ten or twelve hours. But after a child has wakened in the morning he should be permitted to get up. It is not good for him to lie in bed after he wishes to rise, for nature is calling him to get up and exercise.

The nervous individual not only should exercise systematically out of doors but he should play some game. You remember when we were children how much we loved to play? Well, to give up play when we grow up is all nonsense. And just because people quit playing is the reason they have wrinkles and frowns. Did you ever notice how often people laugh when at play? There is something about play that compels one to laugh. And what all people need, nervous people and others as well, is to get into the habit of laughing more.

And it is not hard to find something to play. I like to play at basket ball with a child, and I can enjoy tossing a ball for an hour if the child will stick to the game that long. Playing basket ball in the open air on a sunshiny day is one of the very finest exercises in the world.

If you are suffering from "nerves" and are able to be out of doors at all,--I mean if you are well enough to be out, and at least nine out of ten sufferers are,--get a basket ball and get some one to play with you. If at first you are poor at catching the ball you will with practice improve. Gradually toss the ball a little higher and a little higher until you have difficulty in catching it. Any woman or girl can stand this sort of open air exercise. If the weather is cold, no matter; wrap up and play anyway. But enter into the game with spirit. Playing the regular game of basket ball is too violent exercise for the nervous person. The victim of "nerves" should always keep in mind that it is mild outdoor exercise that will do him good.

Tennis is too violent an exercise for people who have had nervous trouble. Anyway, there is no use in one's doing anything that will make his heart beat like a trip-hammer. A women can toss a basket ball and laugh and get rosy cheeks and grow younger and prettier as easily as when playing tennis.

Golf is also good exercise, but a large number of people who work for a living and suffer from "nerves" would have little chance for exercise if golf were all that could be offered them. Furthermore golf is practically only a summer game, and an individual belonging to the pre-nervous class needs outdoor exercise every day in the year. But golf is excellent exercise, and there is nothing better if one has the time to give to it and has access to links.

Bicycling is splendid exercise for nervous people, but automobiles are so numerous that it is now considered almost dangerous to ride a wheel on any of our main traveled roads.

Mountain climbing, I believe, is not to be recommended for most people suffering from "nerves." I have known such people to go to Colorado and spend some time climbing mountains, and then come back much worse than when they went away. My advice to the nervous person who goes to the mountains is to be out of doors all the time he can, but to take things easy. It would be better for such a person to walk about slowly on the level ground through some of the towns or along the foothills.

Let leisure be your watchword in a hill country. I know I injured my nerves out in Colorado one summer because I was ill advised. Mountain air is good for you, but the mountains will do you more good if you simply look at them. If you think you must go to the top, take a burro. You will find that the burro will give you a lesson in how to do things in a leisurely way. Do not get out of patience with him and whip him. Remember that the burro is smarter than you are in regard to the business of mountain climbing. He has never had a nervous breakdown, and if you will let him have his own way he never will have. It will do you good to let him have his way; he affords a tremendous lesson in patience. Patience, that's just what we need, and we need it badly.

Walking slowly in the open air for two or three hours is the best exercise for man. Fortunately, like the water we drink, it is free to the poor as well as the rich.

For the nervous man who is able to do it, I know of nothing better to build up muscles and keep the liver and other internal organs in good shape than sawing wood. Don't scorn this sort of exercise because you have been told that the ex-Kaiser is taking it. That is not to be laid up against the wood or the exercise, for, quite fortunately, the wood does not care who saws it.

Get some wood, then, and a buck saw, and saw wood for your own benefit. You can do this morning and evening. Wood sawing brings into play every muscle in the body, and the exercise is just enough to make a man comfortably tired without doing him harm.

Many people who go to sanitariums for a cure pay from fifty to seventy-five dollars per week for the privilege of sawing wood, and you can take this exercise just as well and at considerably less expense at home, sawing your own wood instead of that of the sanitarium.

Another splendid diversion for a man with "nerves," if he can have it, is a small workshop where he can make just any old thing out of boards and nails. If one is apt in this line, he can make things that will interest children. This sort of work requires a certain kind of concentration that is most excellent for the nervous sufferer. This suggestion would of course apply to a woman, too, if she cared to try such an experiment. Sewing, and especially fine needlework, is very trying to a woman's nerves, and if she has broken down under that kind of work she should quit it and do something else. If she has to make her living in that way, she of all people should observe the outdoor rules as well as rules for dieting.

I am sure nervous people profit by frequenting all possible outdoor games. If a number of people afflicted with "nerves" could get together and take daily walks and at the same time determine that their conversation should always have a humorous slant, it would help all of them wonderfully.

Riding in an automobile is beneficial if the machine is driven slowly and the patient is kept out of doors from three to four hours. But the fast driving that is generally done is bad for these people. They come back from a ride worse than when they started.

It may be set down as a general rule that any form of outdoor exercise or play is good for the nervous person if it is not violent.

Nervous people should, if possible, take a vacation once a year and get into new surroundings. I am certain, however, that it does not make any difference where one lives. A man is just as likely to have a breakdown in one part of the world as another. While on these vacations he should stick to his rules just as rigidly as when he is at home.

I have had letters from people in Canada and from others in Florida who have suffered nervous breakdowns. In California some go to pieces. I have had many letters from people living there who have broken down. People also break down in Colorado and in New York; in fact, in every state in the Union. Climate does not seem to make any difference so far as this trouble is concerned, with the exception that in high altitudes I have observed nervous people are inclined to be more restless than elsewhere. Some years ago I went up Pike's Peak, to the Summit House. I went to bed and spent the night there, but I do not say I slept, for in reality I slept only about half an hour. I was not at all sick at the stomach, as so many are who climb up there; I had prevented this by eating a very light breakfast and chewing my food to a cream. But I was extremely nervous. I have found a great many other nervous people who do not feel quite right when in a high altitude. As a general rule, sea level is as good a place as a nervous individual can find to live. But people break down there, too. The diet, you see, is the big thing. And when I say "diet" I mean the way food is eaten and the amount eaten quite as much as I do the kind of food eaten.

And once more let me say, systematic outdoor exercise also counts, and you can't keep fit if you exercise only one, two, or three days a week. Some people who take long walks in the country on Sunday think that will suffice. But it will not. You must have exercise every day and must have some play along with it. Gymnasium work is of very little value as compared to outdoor exercise.

In the summertime, gardening is a splendid form of exercise. And so is the care of a small flock of chickens, which is possible for those living in the smaller towns. It is always better, when taking outdoor exercise, to have something definite to do. When walking it is a good plan, if you can, to have some definite place to go. And if you have an agreeable companion to keep up a rapid-fire talk, that will help also. All these things are mentally stimulating.

Then, if possible, sleep the year round on a sleeping porch. If you don't possess a porch, then, have all the windows in your sleeping room wide open day and night.

If for a time you have to take physic, it is best to take some hot mineral water half an hour before breakfast. But adhering to dieting and exercise, and eating enough apples, usually overcomes constipation.

Now, there are some things about which a person must use his own good judgment. For instance, if you have any bad teeth you should at once go to a good dentist and have them attended to. Nobody with bad teeth can have good health.

Again, if your tonsils have become mere pus sacs you will have to go to a good nose and throat specialist and have them removed before you can expect to have good health. This, however, applies to all people, whether nervous or not.

The same thing is true with regard to your eyes. If you are suffering from eye strain because you need glasses, you cannot hope to get well of "nerves" until your eyes are properly fitted to glasses by some reliable eye specialist. These are things that each individual must discover and do for himself. He should consult a dentist, an oculist, an aurist, or other specialist according to his particular need.

V. EFFECT OF RIGHT LIVING ON WORRY AND UNHAPPINESS

"Neither melancholy nor any other affection of the mind can hurt bodies governed with temperance and regularity."

--CORNARO

A very sad thing about some nervous people is the fact that in their lives there are domestic or other troubles which no physician can overcome. Some of them live in depressing surroundings, but for all these there is hope. There is no doubt that if we can restore the brain to a perfectly normal, healthful state the human being can bear more suffering than when the brain is affected. Perhaps when speaking of the spirit we had better call it that, rather than the brain, for that mysterious something we call spirit does make its home in the brain of man. This has been proven scientifically. So then, in this life the temple of the spirit, or soul, does affect the mind. And when I say this life, I take the opportunity to say here that I not only believe in the immortality of the soul, but now, at 45, I am as certain of it as I am of my own existence. But for some reason--although as yet no one understands why it should do so--when this temple in which the spirit dwells is out of condition, it affects the soul or spirit. So, you see, if we can make the physical man or woman well, we most certainly can help the spirit that dwells within the body.

And so I recommend dieting, temperance in eating, and the careful chewing of food to all those sufferers who unfortunately live in depressing surroundings and cannot get away from them. When referring to the many pitiful letters I have received from poor human beings thus situated, I realize that I am treading on sacred ground. Such things are written, of course, to a physician in confidence and the confidence must therefore be forever sacred. I have not only had letters from these unfortunate people, but have repeatedly come in contact with many of them in their every day life. I know well what added suffering such conditions bring to them.

I know of nothing in this world more pitiful than a noble, high-spirited, ambitious woman, pure and clean of heart, who marries a man and becomes the mother of his children and is then condemned to live the life of a mere animal. And all too frequently the opposite also obtains. Sometimes a man of high, pure purpose finds that he has chosen as the mother of his children a coarse, sensual woman. Now why in the world were these two people attracted to each other? This is one of life's biggest puzzles to those who have thought much along this line. In many instances extreme youth is the reason given. While youth is mating time, it also is the time of bad judgment. Thousands of young people have made this dreadful mistake simply because they married too young. On the other hand, youth is not altogether to blame. When people, young or old, are courting, each individual endeavors to appear at his or her best before the other. Without being actually aware of it, under such circumstances both man and woman are doing all that lies in their power to deceive one another.

If people would do their courting in everyday clothes, and if the girl would go about her housework while the man looked on, or better still, if he helped her with it for one or two years, they would undoubtedly become better acquainted.

But, after all, except, perhaps, in unusual cases, there is absolutely nothing by which people know that they are going to be properly mated. If a man with a tendency to neurasthenia breaks down and is tied to a nagging wife, that is usually the last straw in the way of his recovery.

This is just as true of the woman who breaks down and has a nagging husband. There are, I regret to say, thousands of such cases all over the country. On the other hand I have had a man come to me and say that he was willing to do anything on earth to aid his wife, but he could not get her to diet or even to make a serious attempt to get well. I am always tremendously sorry for such a man because he has a mighty heavy burden to bear. Such a wife should try to get well as much for the man's sake as for her own. She should understand that she is needlessly torturing the one best friend she has on earth.

A woman of this kind should remember that, no matter how much she may suffer, she is hopelessly selfish if she will not do all in her power to diet and to obey other necessary rules that will enable her to get rid of the malady. Sometimes when a physician puts this before her kindly but firmly it results in her making a beginning and by and by getting well. I have seen this happen many times. And I wish to say right here that while I believe I was born with some natural tact, yet if I had not gone through all this horrible suffering myself I should not, I know, be able to say the things that would induce these people to do that which it is their duty to do.

And here is one big difficulty I have always had to contend with. Some of these people have tried so many so-called nonsense cures--eating buttermilk tablets, for instance--and have had no benefit from them, that they are unwilling to try the one and only thing that will cure them--the thing that will cure them as sure as the sun shines. I wonder why it is that since the time of Christ people are always looking for a sensational or miraculous cure. Our life and everything pertaining to it is miracle enough, if we only had the sense to see it.

The woman or the man with "nerves" is not going to get well eating buttermilk tablets or taking patent dope while lying on a couch and shut in a house. You must bestir yourself. You must get out of doors, and above all, you must eat right. Today thousands of these people are languishing in hospitals and sanitariums, and most of them will come out only to go back again and again. The institutional treatment is good for the beginning of the cure, but if an individual with "nerves" is going to get well and stay well he must change his lifelong habits.

And I want to say again, that any person, man or woman, in the midst of depressing conditions can triumph over them if he will eat as he should and live as he should. There is something about the human soul, if it is pure and fine, and if proper attention is given to right living, that will enable a person to meet great sorrow and triumph over it. In fact, no amount of sorrow can defeat a person who keeps his heart and body right.

And I would have you all realize that there is something far more to us than mere bones and veins and nerves. I know the terrible tendency of the one with "nerves" to get angry. But lay fast hold of yourself. Fight anger as you would poison, because in reality it is poison to your nerves. Anger will hurt you; it will hurt anybody. But no matter how hard you find it at first, get control of your temper. If you succeed in doing this in a year you will have won one of the greatest victories man can win in this world. I would rather meet a so-called plain man who has perfect control over his physical and mental faculties, and sit and talk quietly with him, than to meet the Prime Minister of England or the President of the United States if either lacked this control. For I say to you that no matter what others may say, the true measure of success does not rest in the position you occupy but in your having complete control of yourself.

If you are to gain this control it means that each day you are confronted by a mighty big task, but if finally successful, you will have accomplished the greatest thing a man can do in this life. Now, here is something for you to take hold of, you who all these years have believed that your life ambition has been thwarted. But your ambition, let me tell you, has not been thwarted. Perhaps you have not done just what you wanted to do. But it's quite possible that you had no business trying to do that special thing anyway. Most of us, I find, can be greatly mistaken about what we think we want to do. At any rate, we can never be happy unless we gain entire control of ourselves.

This is something the person afflicted with "nerves" most certainly can do, and he can use this terrible "thing" as I myself and thousands of others have used it as a ladder to climb to the sunlit peaks where worry and clouds and storms cannot trouble. And, after all, no matter who we are, no matter how poor or how rich we are, and no matter where we live, life holds about the same general possibilities for all of us. I mean by this that life affords to all the same opportunities for real happiness.

I know very well that there are those who will be quite unwilling to grant this, but it is as true as the life we live. Many people in this old world still hold the notion that those who roll in wealth are the happy ones. But I say to you this notion is all wrong, and from knowledge gained through experience I know that in their hearts many of these wealthy people are dissatisfied and not one whit happier than you are. The most restless people, the most unhappy people, and the most thoroughly dissatisfied people that I have ever met have been people who had everything that riches could give them.

Andrew Carnegie said he had noticed that after a man had accumulated a million dollars smiles were seldom seen on his face. I cannot understand why people insist on going through life making themselves and all those they really love miserable just because they do not happen to have riches.

And a great many high-strung sensitive men are utterly cast down because they have failed to acquire wealth by the time they are forty-five or fifty years of age.

I wish I could make all such poor, afflicted people see what goes to make up happiness and learn the only way to be happy. In order to get well the thing we have to do is to follow nature's simple rules--rules our Creator gave to us. We must get control not only of our appetites but of all such passions as anger, hate, and envy, which poison our bodies. And let us also cast suspicion out of our minds. This is a good rule to observe: Never suspect folks. It is useless, anyway, for by and by what they are or what they do is always bound to come to the surface.

By gaining perfect control over yourself--and most certainly to do so is worth every effort you may make--you will also gain patience, and that is, I think, one of the crowning virtues. Sometimes I think it the greatest of all virtues. Certainly it stands very high in the perfecting of character.