Chapter 5
It is important that the overwrought business or professional man realize the importance of undertaking no more than he can accomplish without fret and worry; the importance of taking proper vacations before he is tired out; the importance of learning to divert his mind, while he can still do so, into channels other than those connected with his business; above all, the importance of cultivating the faculty of relaxing, and of dismissing doubts, indecisions and fears. He must cultivate what my colleague Dr. Paul succinctly terms "the art of living with yourself as you are." If he would "last out" he must learn to proceed with single mind upon whatever work he undertakes, and with equal singleness of mind apply himself, out of hours, to other occupation or diversion, preferably in the open air. For the most effective work, as well as for peace of mind, it is essential that every thought of one's office be shut out by other interests when there is no actual business requiring attention. Mental relaxation is materially hampered by such persistent thoughts of one's place of business as those cited by Dr. Knapp:
"A striking instance of the sort was related to me by a friend remarkably free from any psychopathic taint. It often happens that he does scientific work in the evening at the Agassiz Museum. When he leaves for the night he puts out the gas and then stands and counts slowly up to a given number until his eyes are used to the darkness, in order that he may detect any spark of fire that may have started while he was at work. This is his invariable custom, but it sometimes happens that when he goes back home so strong a feeling of doubt comes over him lest he may that once have omitted to do this, that he is uncomfortable until he returns to the museum to make sure."
Among the predisposing causes for nervous breakdown none is more potent than the inability of the obsessive to adapt himself to change of plan, and to reconcile himself to criticism, opposition, and the various annoyances incident to his occupation.
In dealing with others the following suggestion of Marcus Aurelius may come in play:
"When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him, and neither wonder nor be angry." Again, in this connection the lines of Cowper are pertinent:
"The modest, sensible and well-bred man Will not affront me, and no other can."
Pope, also, who is said not always to have followed his own good counsel, contributes a verse which may serve a turn:
"At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offense, That always shows great pride, or little sense."
The practice of such commonplace philosophy (which, to be effective, should be ready for immediate use, not stored away for later reflection), together with training against faulty mental states studied in these pages, will go far toward relieving the mental perturbation that unfits for effective work, and contributes to "neurasthenia."
During an hour's delay, caused by the failure of another to keep an appointment, I formulated the following maxim:
"These are the annoyances incident to my business; to fret when they occur means that I cannot manage my business without friction."
This may not appeal to the reader, but for me it has proved as good an hour's work as I ever did. Since that time, on the occurrence of similar sources of provocation, I have found it necessary to go no farther than "These are the annoyances," to restore the needful balance. When we allow our gorge to rise at ordinary sources of discomfort, it implies that we are prepared only for our affairs to run with perfect smoothness. This represents the insistent idea carried to an absurdity.
At the risk of losing caste with the critical I cannot forbear sharing with the reader an inelegant maxim which has more than once prevented an access of rage upon the blunder of a subordinate: "If he had our brains he'd have our job."
Spinoza says: "The powerlessness of man to govern and restrain his emotions I call servitude. For a man who is controlled by his emotions is not his own master but is mastered by fortune, under whose power he is often compelled, though he sees the better, to follow the worse." The same philosopher in counselling self-restraint adds:
"The mind's power over the emotions consists, first, in the actual knowledge of the emotions." Again: "An emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it." The meaning of this dictum I first realized on experiencing the magical effect of the line of thought suggested by the delayed appointment.
* * * * *
Communion with Nature has a peculiarly soothing effect on tired and jangled nerves. My friend, Dr. Harold Williams, tells me that among his main reliances for tired and overwrought women are the _reading of children's books_, and _working in the garden_. Peterson thus advises his busy patient:
"A small farm in a simple community would be for you an asset of immeasurable value from the standpoint of health and spiritual rejuvenation. But true simplicity should be the rigorous order of that country life. A chateau by the sea, with a corps of gardeners, a retinue of servants, and yachts and automobiles, would prove a disastrous expedient.
"In that quiet retreat you should personally and tenderly learn to know each rosebud, shrub, vine, creeper, tree, rock, glade, dell, of your own estate. You should yourself design the planting, paths, roads, the flower-garden, the water-garden, the wood-garden, the fernery, the lily-pond, the wild-garden, and the kitchen garden."
Not everyone is so happily situated as to be able to follow this advice in its entirety, but many can make a modest effort in this direction: the kitchen-garden may appeal to some who have no appreciation for the wild flowers, and who scorn to cultivate such tastes.
One warning is, however, here in order: The cultivation of the garden or the field for utilitarian purposes is inevitably associated with the maxim, "Hoe out your row"--an excellent maxim for the idle and disorderly, but not to be taken too literally by the over-exacting and methodical business man who is trying to make the radical change in his view of life necessary to free his mind from the incubus of worry. Nor must the amateur husbandman scan with too anxious eye the weather map and the clouds. If he mind these warnings he may learn to say,--
"For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flower, Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew, The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew."
The over-conscientious individual may object that it is selfish to consider his own comfort when he has work to do for others. But expending too freely of our nervous energies, even in a good cause, is like giving to charity so much of our substance that we in turn are obliged to lean on others for support.
In properly conserving our own energy we may be lightening the ultimate burden of others. There is no place for selfishness in Haeckel's philosophy regarding the proper balance between duty to one's self and duty to others. Nor was selfishness a failing of the Quaker poet who idealized
"The flawless symmetry of man, The poise of heart and mind."
IX.
SLEEPLESSNESS
He shall enjoy the same tranquility in his sleep as when awake.
_Digby's Epicurus_, Maxim xl.
Sleeplessness is due, in the majority of cases, to a faulty habit of mind. The preparation for a sleepless night begins with the waking hours, is continued through the day, and reaches its maximum when we cease from the occupations which have in some degree diverted our attention from harassing thoughts, and retire, to struggle, in darkness and solitude, with the worries, doubts, regrets, and forebodings, which now assume gigantic and fantastic shapes.
He who would sleep at night must regulate his day, first, by not undertaking more than he can accomplish without undue stress, and, second, by carrying through what he does undertake, as far as he may, without the running accompaniment of undue solicitude, anxious doubts, and morbid fears discussed in the preceding sections. It is futile to expect that a fretful, impatient, and over-anxious frame of mind, continuing through the day and every day, will be suddenly replaced at night by the placid and comfortable mental state which shall insure a restful sleep.
Before proceeding, then, to the immediate measures for inducing sleep, let us consider the suitable preparatory measures.
The nervous breakdown which precludes sleep is oftener due to worry than to work. Nor should the sufferer jump too quickly to the conclusion that it is the loss of sleep rather than the worry that makes him wretched. It is astonishing how much sleep can be lost without harm, provided its loss is forgotten, and how much work can be carried on without extreme fatigue, provided it be undertaken with confidence and pursued without impatience. It is, however, essential that the work be varied and, at due intervals, broken. Trainers for athletic contests know that increasing practice without diversion defeats its end, and particularly insist upon cessation of violent effort directly before the final test. Why should we not treat our minds as well as our bodies?
The active and over-scrupulous business or professional man who allows no time for rest or recreation, who can confer no responsibility upon his subordinates, who cultivates no fad, and is impatient of every moment spent away from his occupation, is in danger of eventually "going stale," and having to spend a longer and less profitable vacation in a sanitarium than would have sufficed to avert the disaster. Nor will he find it easy to change his sleep-habit with the change of residence. It behooves him to change that habit while still at work, as a step toward averting breakdown.
It will harm few of us to take a bird's eye view of our affairs at stated intervals, and ask ourselves if the time has not arrived when it will be a saving of time and money as well as worry for us to delegate more of the details, and more even of the responsibilities, to others, concentrating our own energies upon such tasks as we are now peculiarly qualified to undertake. To the man determined to accomplish a lifetime of work before he rests, there is food for thought in the following anecdote:
When Pyrrhus was about to sail for Italy, Cineas, a wise and good man, asked him what were his intentions and expectations.
"To conquer Rome," said Pyrrhus.
"And what will you do next, my lord?"
"Next I will conquer Italy."
"And after that?"
"We will subdue Carthage, Macedonia, all Africa, and all Greece."
"And when we have conquered all we can, what shall we do?"
"Do? Why, then we will sit down and spend our time in peace and comfort."
"Ah, my lord," said the wise Cineas, "what prevents our being in peace and comfort now?"
The time to take a vacation is before one is exhausted. If one is discontented during his vacation, he should take it, none the less, as a matter of duty, not expecting to enjoy every moment of it, but contenting himself with the anticipation of greater pleasure in the resumption of his duties. He should cultivate an interest in out-door occupation or some study that carries him into the fields or woods. Aside from the time on shipboard, the worst possible vacation for the over-worked business or professional man is the trip to Europe, if spent in crowding into the shortest possible time the greatest possible amount of information on matters artistic, architectural, and historic.
No one can acquire the habit of sleep who has not learned the habit of concentration, of devoting himself single-minded to the matter in hand. If we practice devoting our minds, as we do our bodies, to one object at a time, we shall not only accomplish more, but with less exhaustion. Training in this direction will help us, on retiring, to view sleep as our present duty, and a sufficient duty, without taking the opportunity at that time to adjust (or to try to adjust) all our tangles, to review our past sources of discomfort, and to speculate upon the ills of the future.
A walk, a bath, a few gymnastic exercises, will often serve a useful purpose before retiring, but if they are undertaken in a fretful and impatient spirit, and are accompanied by doubts of their effectiveness, and the insistent thought that sleep will not follow these or any other procedure, they are likely to accomplish little.
The best immediate preparation for sleep is the confidence that one will sleep, and _indifference if one does not_. It is an aid in the adoption of this frame of mind to learn that many have for years slept only a few hours per night, without noticeable impairment of their health or comfort. Neither unbroken nor long-continued sleep, however desirable, is essential to longevity or efficiency. This is illustrated by the following examples:
Joseph A. Willard, for nearly half a century Clerk of the Court in Suffolk County, and a well-known figure on the streets of Boston, died in his eighty-eighth year. He was active and alert in the performance of his daily duties up to their discontinuance shortly before his death. He kept, meantime, records of the temperature, weather, and condition of the streets, at all hours of the night, and every night, for many years before the establishment of the weather bureau. So reliable were these records regarded by the courts that they were often appealed to in the trial of cases, and their accuracy never questioned by either party in the suit. I publish these facts by the permission of his son.
George T. Angell, the well-known humanitarian, than whom few, if any, have led a more busy life, when in his sixty-ninth year wrote as follows:
"For the benefit of those who do not [take narcotics, opiates, anæsthetics] I will say that I suppose there are very few in this country _who have slept less_ than I have; but I have never taken anything to stupefy, while thousands of good sleepers I have known have long since gone to the last sleep that knows no waking here. It was undoubtedly wise to change my professional life from court to office practice: but in other matters I was compelled to choose between living the life of a vegetable, or losing sleep; and I chose the latter."
Mr. Angell is now eighty-four, still actively engaged in affairs, and allows me to add that during the past six years he has gone for a week at a time with no sleep; for three months at a time he has not averaged more than two hours in twenty-four; he does not remember having ever had a good night's sleep. Mrs. Angell states that, with one exception, she has never known him to sleep through the night.
It is worth while to remember these experiences before resorting to drugs for sleeplessness.
I have somewhere seen it stated that a prominent divine attributed his happy and green old age to the fact that he slept a certain number of hours every night. Against this statement must be set the reflection that many another old gentleman can fairly attribute his comfort, in part at least, to an attitude of indifference toward the unessentials, among which I suspect must be included the question whether we average eight hours of sleep or materially less.
Let us now consider some of the faulty mental habits directly affecting sleep itself. First comes the compulsive thought that one must sleep _now_, and the impatient count of the wakeful hours supposed to be irrecoverably lost from the coveted number. This insistence in itself precludes sleep. The thought, "No matter if I don't sleep to-night; I will some other night," will work wonders in the direction of producing sleep to-night.
The continuance of any given position, completely relaxed, in bed, even without unconsciousness, is more restful than tossing about. The mere experiment of remaining immobile in a certain position as long as possible, and concentrating the mind on the thought, "I am getting sleepy, I am going to sleep," will oftener produce the desired result than watching the proverbial sheep follow one another over the wall. Training during the day in restraining nervous movements is an aid in acquiring the ability to do this.
This is a field in which self-suggestion is of definite value. Everyone appreciates the effect on sleep of the "state of mind" when he has passed a succession of sleepless hours followed by a sudden tendency to somnolence at the time for rising. The problem is to acquire the frame of mind without waiting for circumstances. To demonstrate the effect of faulty suggestion combined with restlessness on awaking in the night, try the following:
EXPERIMENT I.--Place yourself on the face and from this point turn rapidly in a complete circle backwards from right to left until you are again on the face. Pause several times and say to yourself rapidly "I cannot sleep in this position." The result of the experiment is practically uniform. The rapid movement and the suggestion prevent sleep.
To demonstrate the effect of bodily relaxation combined with correct suggestion, in promoting sleep try--
EXPERIMENT II.--Start in the same position as Experiment I. Traverse the same circle, prolonging each pause with body relaxed, and substituting at each pause the suggestion, "I can sleep in any position," repeated a number of times deliberately and as if you meant it. The restful pose and the suggestion generally induce sleep long before the circle is completed.
Next comes the compulsive thought that we cannot sleep until everything is "squared up" and all mental pictures completed. The story is told that a gentleman took a room in the hotel next another who was notoriously fussy. He remembered this fact after dropping one boot carelessly to the floor, and laid the other gently down. After a pause he heard a rap on the door and a querulous, "For heaven's sake, drop the other boot, or I can't get to sleep."
Many find themselves unable to sleep until the whole household is accounted for and the house locked up for the night, until certain news is received, and the like. The same tendency postpones sleep until all affairs are straightened out in the mind, as well as in reality. A little reflection shows how indefinite must be the postponement of sleep under such conditions.
No training is more important for the victim of compulsive tendencies than the practice of trusting something to chance and the morrow, and reconciling himself to the fact that at no time, in this world, will all things be finally adjusted to his satisfaction.
The habit of dismissing, at will, disagreeable thoughts is a difficult but not impossible acquisition. Arthur Benson in "The Thread of Gold" relates the following anecdotes:
"When Gladstone was asked, 'But don't you find you lie awake at night, thinking how you ought to act, and how you ought to have acted?' he answered, 'No, I don't; where would be the use of that?'"
"Canon Beadon [who lived to be over one hundred] said to a friend that the secret of long life in his own case was that he had never thought of anything unpleasant after ten o'clock at night."
The insistent desire to sleep in a certain bed, with a certain degree of light or darkness, heat or cold, air or absence of air, is detrimental. This is in line with the desire to eat certain foods only, at a certain table, and at a certain time. The man who loses his appetite if dinner is half an hour late is unable again to sleep if once waked up. This individual must say to himself, "Anyone can stand what he likes; it takes a philosopher to stand what he does not like," and try at being a philosopher instead of a sensitive plant.
Inability to sleep while certain noises are continued must be similarly combated. If one goes from place to place in search of the quiet spot for sleep, he may finally find _quiet itself_ oppressive, or worse yet, may be kept awake by hearing his own circulation, from which escape is out of the question. He who finds himself persistently out of joint with his surroundings will do well to ponder the language of the Chinese philosopher:
"The legs of the stork are long, the legs of the duck are short: you cannot make the legs of the stork short, neither can you make the legs of the duck long. Why worry?"
With regard to the character of sleep itself, the attitude of our mind in sleep is dominated, to a degree, at least, by its attitude in the waking hours. It is probable that during profound sleep the mind is inactive, and that dreams occur only during the transition-state from profound sleep to wakefulness. It is conceivable that in the ideal sleep there is only one such period, but ordinarily there occur many such periods during the night; for the uneasy sleeper the night may furnish a succession of such periods, with comparatively little undisturbed rest, hence his dreams seem to him continuous. The character of the pictures and suggestions of dreams, though in new combinations, are largely dependent on our daily experiences. Is it not, then, worth while to encourage, during our waking hours, as far as is consistent with our duties, such thoughts as are restful and useful, rather than those which serve no purpose but annoyance.
If we will, we can select our thoughts as we do our companions.
X.
OCCUPATION NEUROSIS
Be not ashamed, to be helped; for it is thy business to do thy duty like a soldier in the assault on a town. How, then, if being lame thou canst not mount up on the battlement alone, but with the help of another it is possible?
_Marcus Aurelius_.
The insistent and over-conscientious habit of mind plays so large a part in the so-called occupation neuroses that a brief discussion of their nature may here be in place.
The best-known form of this distressing malady is "writer's cramp." Upon this subject the proverbially dangerous little knowledge has been already acquired; a fuller knowledge may give comfort rather than alarm, and may even lead to the avoidance of this and allied nervous disorders.
The term "writer's cramp" has unduly emphasized a feature, namely, the cramp, which is neither the most common nor the most troublesome among the symptoms resulting from over-use of a part. In occupation neuroses, other than those produced by the use of the pen, pain, weakness, and numbness are at least equally prominent, and even in writer's cramp the "neuralgic" form is common.
The fact is generally realized that this type of disorder is particularly frequent among persons of nervous temperament. The reason is twofold, first, the resistance of such individuals is less than the average, second, the insistent habit of mind leads them to overdo. It is against the latter factor that our efforts may to advantage be directed.
I have in mind the case of a lady who complained of severe pain in the right arm with no apparent physical cause. The pain, at first appearing only when the arm was placed in a certain position, finally became almost constant. She denied excessive use of the arm, but her husband stated that she plied the needle to such an extent that it caused the family distress. This she indignantly denied, and fortified her position by the statement that she only took short stitches! Further inquiry elicited the acknowledgment that she did so because she could no longer take long ones. This is a fair example of an occupation neurosis.