Books: Nerves and Common Sense
A >>
Annie Payson Call >> Nerves and Common Sense
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12
At the very most it can only take two minutes to go through the
whole exercise and be ready to repeat it.
That will mean six minutes for the three successive times.
Six minutes can easily be made up by the renewed vigor that comes
from the long breath and change of attitude. Stopping for the
exercise three times a day will only take eighteen--or at the most
twenty-minutes out of the day's work and it will put much more than
that into the work in new power.
Third--We must remember that we need not sew in a badly cramped
position. Of course the, exercises will help us out of the
habitually cramped attitude, but we cannot expect them to help us so
much unless we make an effort while sewing to be as little cramped
as possible.
The exercises give us a new standard of erectness, and that new
standard will make us sensitive to the wrong attitude.
We will constantly notice when our chests get cramped and settled
down on our stomachs and by expanding them and lifting them, even as
we sew, the healthy attitude will get to be second nature.
Fourth--We must sew with our hands and our arms, not with our
spines, the backs of our necks, or our legs. The unnecessary strain
she puts into her sewing makes a woman more tired than anything
else. To avoid this she must get sensitive to the strain, and every
time she perceives it drop it; consciously, with a decided use of
her will, until she has established the habit of working without
strain. The gentle raising of the head to the erect position after
the breathing exercise will let out a great deal of strain, and so
make us more sensitive to its return when we begin to sew, and the
more sensitive we get to it the sooner we can drop it.
I think I hear a woman say, "I have neither the time nor the
strength to attend to all this." My answer is, such exercise will
save time and strength in the end.
CHAPTER XXIII
_Do not Hurry_
HOW can any one do anything well while in a constant state of rush?
How can any one see anything clearly while in a constant state of
rush? How can any one expect to keep healthy and strong while in a
constant state of rush?
But most of my readers may say, "I am not in a constant state of
rush--I only hurry now and then when I need to hurry."
The answer to that is "Prove it, prove it." Study yourself a little,
and see whether you find yourself chronically in a hurry or not.
If you will observe yourself carefully with a desire to find the
hurry tendency, and to find it thoroughly, in order to eliminate it,
you will be surprised to see how much of it there is in you.
The trouble is that all our standards are low, and to raise our
standards we must drop that which interferes with the most wholesome
way of living.
As we get rid of all the grosser forms of hurry we find in ourselves
other hurry habits that are finer and more subtle, and gradually our
standards of quiet, deliberate ways get higher; we become more
sensitive to hurry, and a hurried way of doing things grows more and
more disagreeable to us.
Watch the women coming out of a factory in the dinner hour or at six
o'clock. They are almost tumbling over each other in their hurry to
get away. They are putting on their jackets, pushing in their
hatpins, and running along as if their dinner were running away from
them.
Something akin to that same attitude of rush we can see in any large
city when the clerks come out of the shops, for their luncheon hour,
or when the work of the day is over.
If we were to calculate in round numbers the amount of time saved by
this rush to get away from the shop, we should find three minutes,
probably the maximum--and if we balance that against the loss to
body and mind which is incurred, we should find the three minutes'
gain quite overweighted by the loss of many hours, perhaps days,
because of the illness which must be the result of such habitual
contraction.
It is safe to predict when we see a woman rushing away from factory
or shop that she is not going to "let up" on that rate of speed
until she is back again at work. Indeed, having once started brain
and body with such an exaggerated impetus, it is not possible to
quiet down without a direct and decided use of the will, and how is
that decided action to be taken if the brain is so befogged with the
habit of hurry that it knows no better standard?
One of the girls from a large factory came rushing up to the kind,
motherly head of the boarding house the other day saying:--
"It is abominable that I should be kept waiting so long for my
dinner. I have had my first course and here I have been waiting
twenty minutes for my dessert."
The woman addressed looked up quietly to the clock and saw that it
was ten minutes past twelve.
" What time did you come in?" she said. "At twelve o'clock."
"And you have had your first course?"
"Yes."
"And waited twenty minutes for your dessert?"
"Yes!" (snappishly).
"How can that be when you came in at twelve o'clock, and it is now
only ten minutes past?"
Of course there was nothing to say in answer, but whether the girl
took it to heart and so raised her standard of quiet one little bit,
I do not know.
One can deposit a fearful amount of strain in the brain with only a
few moments' impatience.
I use the word "fearful" advisedly, for when the strain is once
deposited it is not easily removed, especially when every day and
every moment of every day is adding to the strain.
The strain of hurry makes contractions in brain and body with which
it is impossible to work freely and easily or to accomplish as much
as might be done without such contractions.
The strain of hurry befogs the brain so that it is impossible for it
to expand to an unprejudiced point of view.
The strain of hurry so contracts the whole nervous and muscular
systems that the body can take neither the nourishment of food nor
of fresh air as it should.
There are many women who work for a living, and women who do not
work for a living, who feel hurried from morning until they go to
bed at night, and they must, perforce, hurry to sleep and hurry
awake.
Often the day seems so full, and one is so pressed for time that it
is impossible to get in all there is to do, and yet a little quiet
thinking will show that the important things can be easily put into
two thirds of the day, and the remaining third is free for rest, or
play, or both.
Then again, there is real delight in quietly fitting one thing in
after another when the day must be full, and the result at the end
of the day is only healthy fatigue from which a good night's rest
will refresh us entirely.
There is one thing that is very evident--a feeling of hurry retards
our work, it does not hasten it, and the more quietly we can do what
is before us, the more quickly and vigorously we do it.
The first necessity is to find ourselves out--to find out for a fact
when we do hurry, and how we hurry, and how we have the sense of
hurry with us all the time. Having willingly, and gladly, found
ourselves out, the remedy is straight before us.
Nature is on the side of leisure and will come to our aid with
higher standards of quiet, the possibilities of which are always in
every one's brain, if we only look to find them.
To sit five minutes quietly taking long breaths to get a sense of
leisure every day will be of very great help--and then when we find
ourselves hurrying, let us stop and recall the best quiet we
know--that need only take a few seconds, and the gain is sure to
follow.
_Festina lente_ (hasten slowly) should be in the back of our brains
all day and every day.
"'T is haste makes waste, the sage avers,
And instances are far too plenty;
Whene'er the hasty impulse stirs,
Put on the brake, Festina Lente."
CHAPTER XXIV
_The Care of an Invalid_
TO take really good care of one who is ill requires not only
knowledge but intelligent patience and immeasurable tact.
A little knowledge will go a great way, and we do not need to be
trained nurses in order to help our friends to bear their illnesses
patiently and quietly and to adjust things about them so that they
are enabled to get well faster because of the care we give them.
Sometimes if we have only fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen
minutes at night to be with a sick friend, we can so arrange things
for the day and for the night that we will have left behind us a
directly curative influence because our invalid feels cared for in
the best way, and has confidence enough to follow the suggestions we
have given.
More depends upon the spirit with which we approach an invalid than
anything else.
A trained nurse who has graduated at the head of her class and has
executive ability, who knows exactly what to do and when to do it,
may yet bring such a spirit of self-importance and bustle that
everything she does for the invalid's ease, comfort, and
recuperation is counteracted by the unrestful "professional" spirit
with which the work is done.
On the other hand, a woman who has only a slight knowledge of
nursing can bring so restful and unobtrusive an atmosphere with her
that the invalid gains from her very presence.
Overwhelming kindness is not only tiresome and often annoying, but a
serious drag on one who is ill.
People who are so busy doing kindnesses seldom consult the invalid's
preferences at all. They are too full of their own selfish
kindliness and self-importance.
I remember a woman who was suffering intensely from neuralgia in her
face. A friend, proud of the idea of caring for her and giving up
her own pleasure to stay in the darkened room and keep the
sufferer's face bathed in hot water, made such a rustling back and
forth with her skirts in getting the water that the strain of the
constant noise and movement not only counteracted any relief that
might have come from the heat, but it increased the pain and made
the nervous condition of the patient much worse.
So it is with a hundred and one little "kindnesses" that people try
to do for others when they are ill.
They talk to amuse them when the invalids would give all in their
power to have a little quiet.
They sit like lumps and say nothing when a little light, easy
chatting might divert the invalid's attention and so start up a
gentle circulation which would tend directly toward health.
Or, they talk and are entertaining for a while in a very helpful
way, but not knowing when to stop, finally make the patient so tired
that they undo all the good of the first fifteen minutes.
They flood the room with light, "to make it look pleasant," when the
invalid longs for the rest of a darkened room; or they draw the
shades when the patient longs for the cheerfulness of sunlight.
They fuss and move about to do this or that and the other "kindness"
when the sick person longs for absolute quiet.
They shower attentions when the first thing that is desired is to be
let alone. One secret of the whole trouble in this oppressive care
of the sick is that this sort of caretaker is interested more to
please herself and feel the satisfaction of her own benefactions
than she is to really please the friend for whom she is caring.
Another trouble is common ignorance. Some women would gladly
sacrifice anything to help a friend to get well; they would give
their time and their strength gladly and count it as nothing, but
they do not know how to care for the sick. Often such people are
sadly discouraged because they see that they are only bringing
discomfort where, with all their hearts, they desire to bring
comfort. The first necessity in the right care for the sick is to be
quiet and cheerful. The next is to aim, without disturbing the
invalid, to get as true an idea as possible of the condition
necessary to help the patient to get well. The third is to bring
about those conditions with the least possible amount of friction.
Find out what the invalid likes and how she likes it by observation
and not by questions.
Sometimes, of course, a question must be asked. If we receive a
snappish answer, let us not resent it, but blame the illness and be
grateful if, along with the snappishness, we find out what suits our
patient best.
If we see her increasing her pain by contracting and giving all her
attention to complaining, we cannot help her by telling her that
that sort of thing is not going to make her well. But we can soothe
her in a way that will enable her to see it for herself.
Often the right suggestion, no matter how good it is, will only
annoy the patient and send her farther on in the wrong path; but if
given in some gentle roundabout way, so that she feels that she has
discovered for herself what you have been trying to tell her, it
will work wonders toward her recovery.
If you want to care for the sick in a way that will truly help them
toward recovery, you must observe and study,--study and observe, and
never resent their irritability.
See that they have the right amount of air; that they have the right
nourishment at the right intervals. Let them have things their own
way, and done in their own way so far as is possible without
interfering with what is necessary to their health.
Remember that there are times when it is better to risk deferring
recovery a little rather than force upon an invalid what is not
wanted, especially when it is evident that resistance will be
harmful.
Quiet, cheerfulness, light, air, nourishment, orderly surroundings,
and to be let judiciously alone; those are the conditions which the
amateur nurse must further, according to her own judgment and, her
knowledge of the friend she is nursing.
For this purpose she must, as I have said, study and observe, and
observe and study.
I do not mean necessarily to do all this when she is "off duty," but
to so concentrate when she is attending to the wants of her friend
that every moment and every thought will be used to the best gain of
the patient herself, and not toward our ideas of her best gain.
A little careful effort of this kind will open a new and interesting
vista to the nurse as well as the patient.
CHAPTER XXV
_The Habit of Illness_
IT is surprising how many invalids there are who have got well and
do not know it! When you feel ill and days drag on with one ill
feeling following another, it is not a pleasant thing to be told
that you are quite well. Who could be expected to believe it? I
should like to know how many men and women there are who will read
this article, who are well and do not know it; and how many of such
men and women will take the hint I want to give them and turn
honestly toward finding themselves out in a way that will enable
them to discover and acknowledge the truth?
Nerves form habits. They actually form habits in themselves. If a
woman has had an organic trouble which has caused certain forms of
nervous discomfort, when the organic trouble is cured the nerves are
apt to go on for a time with the same uncomfortable feelings because
during the period of illness they had formed the habit of such
discomfort. Then is the time when the will must be used to overcome
such habits. The trouble is that when the doctor tells these victims
of nervous habit that they are really well they will not believe
him. "How can I be well," they say, "when I suffer just as I did
while I was ill?" If then the doctor is fortunate enough to convince
them of the fact that it is only the nervous habit formed from their
illness which causes them to suffer, and that they can rouse their
wills to overcome intelligently this habit, then they can be well in
a few weeks when they might have been apparently ill for many
months--or perhaps even years.
Nerves form the habit of being tired. A woman can get very much
overfatigued at one time and have the impression of the fatigue so
strongly on her nerves that the next time she is only a little tired
she will believe she is very tired, and so her life will go until
the habit of being tired has been formed in her nerves and she
believes that she is tired all the time--whereas if the truth were
known she might easily feel rested all the time.
It is often very difficult to overcome the habit which the nerves
form as a result of an attack of nervous prostration. It is equally
hard to convince any one getting out of such an illness that the
habit of his nerves tries to make him believe he cannot do a little
more every day--when he really can, and would be better for it. Many
cases of nervous prostration which last for years might be cured in
as many months if the truth about nerve habits were recognized and
acted upon.
Nerves can form bad habits and they can form good habits, but of all
the bad habits formed by nerves perhaps the very worst is the habit
of being ill. These bad habits of illness engender an unwillingness
to let go of them. They seem so real. "I do not want to suffer like
this," I hear an invalid say; "if it were merely a habit don't you
think I would throw it off in a minute?"
I knew a young physician who had made somewhat of a local reputation
in the care of nerves, and a man living in a far-distant country,
who had been for some time a chronic invalid, happened by accident
to hear of him. My friend was surprised to receive a letter from
this man, offering to pay him the full amount of all fees he would
earn in one month and as much more as he might ask if he would spend
that time in the house with him and attempt his cure.
Always interested in new phases of nerves, and having no serious
case on hand himself at the time, he assented and went with great
interest on this long journey to, as he hoped, cure one man. When he
arrived he found his patient most charming. He listened attentively
to the account of his years of illness, inquired of others in the
house with him, and then went to bed and to sleep. In the morning he
woke with a sense of unexplained depression. In searching about for
the cause he went over his interviews of the day before and found a
doubt in his mind which he would hardly acknowledge; but by the end
of the next day he said to himself: "What a fool I was to come so
far without a more complete knowledge of what I was coming to! This
man has been well for years and does not know it. It is the old
habit of his illness that is on him; the illness itself must have
left him ten years ago."
The next day--the first thing after breakfast--he took a long walk
in order to make up his mind what to do, and finally decided that he
had engaged to stay one month and must keep to his promise. It would
not do to tell the invalid the truth--the poor man would not believe
it. He was self-willed and self-centered, and his pains and
discomforts, which came simply from old habits of illness, were as
real to him as if they had been genuine. Several physicians had
emphasized his belief that he was ill. One doctor--so my friend was
told--who saw clearly the truth of the case, ventured to hint at it
and was at once discharged. My friend knew all these difficulties
and, when he made up his mind that the only right thing for him to
do was to stay, he found himself intensely interested in trying to
approach his patient with so much delicacy that he could finally
convince him of the truth; and I am happy to say that his efforts
were to a great degree successful. The patient was awakened to the
fact that, if he tried, he could be a well man. He never got so far
as to see that he really was a well man who was allowing old habits
to keep him ill; but he got enough of a new and healthy point of
view to improve greatly and to feel a hearty sense of gratitude
toward the man who had enlightened him. The long habit of illness
had dulled his brain too much for him to appreciate the whole truth
about himself.
The only way that such an invalid's brain can be enlightened is by
going to work very gently and leading him to the light--never by
combating. This young physician whom I mention was successful only
through making friends with his patient and leading him gradually to
appear to discover for himself the fact which all the time the
physician was really telling him. The only way to help others is to
help them to help themselves, and this is especially the truth with
nerves.
If you, my friend, are so fortunate as to find out that your illness
is more a habit of illness than illness itself, do not expect to
break the habit at once. Go about it slowly and with common sense. A
habit can be broken sooner than it can be formed, but even then it
cannot be broken immediately. First recognize that your
uncomfortable feelings whether of eyes, nose, stomach, back of neck,
top of head, or whatever it may be, are mere habits, and then go
about gradually but steadily ignoring them. When once you find that
your own healthy self can assert itself and realize that you are
stronger than your habits, these habits of illness will weaken and
finally disappear altogether.
The moment an illness gets hold of one, the illness has the floor,
so to speak, and the temptation is to consider it the master of the
situation--and yielding to this temptation is the most effectual way
of beginning to establish the habits which the illness has started,
and makes it more difficult to know when one is well. On the other
hand it is clearly possible to yield completely to an illness and
let Nature take its course, and at the same time to take a mental
attitude of wholesomeness toward it which will deprive the illness
of much of its power. Nature always tends toward health; so we have
the working of natural law entirely on our side. If the attitude of
a man's mind is healthy, when he gets well he is well. He is not
bothered long with the habits of his illness, for he has never
allowed them to gain any hold upon him. He has neutralized the
effect of the wouldbe habits in the beginning so that they could not
get a firm hold. We can counteract bad habits with good ones any
time that we want to if we only go to work in the right way and are
intelligently persistent.
It would be funny if it were not sad to hear a man say, "Well, you
know I had such and such an illness years ago and I never really
recovered from the effects of it," and to know at the same time that
he had kept himself in the effects of it, or rather the habits of
his nerves had kept him there, and he had been either ignorant or
unwilling to use his will to throw off those habits and gain the
habits of health which were ready and waiting.
People who cheerfully turn their hearts and minds toward health have
so much, so very much, in their favor.
Of course, there are laws of health to be learned and carefully
followed in the work of throwing off habits of illness. We must
rest; take food that is nourishing, exercise, plenty of sleep and
fresh air--yet always with the sense that the illness is only
something to get rid of, and our own healthy attitude toward the
illness is of the greatest importance.
Sometimes a man can go right ahead with his work, allow an illness
to run its course, and get well without interrupting his work in the
least, because of his strong aim toward health which keeps his
illness subordinate. But this is not often the case. An illness,
even though it be treated as subordinate, must be respected more or
less according to its nature. But when that is done normally no bad
habits will be left behind.
I know a young girl who was ill with strained nerves that showed
themselves in weak eyes and a contracted stomach. She is well
now--entirely well--but whenever she gets a little tired the old
habits of eyes and stomach assert themselves, and she holds firmly
on to them, whereas each time of getting overtired might be an
opportunity to break up these evil habits by a right amount of rest
and a healthy amount of ignoring.
This matter of habit is a very painful thing when it is supported by
inherited tendencies. If a young person overdoes and gets pulled
down with fatigue the fatigue expresses itself in the weakest part
of his body. It may be in the stomach and consequently appear as
indigestion; it may be in the head and so bring about severe
headaches, and it may be in both stomach and head.
If it is known that such tendencies are inherited the first thought
that almost inevitably comes to the mind is: "My father always had
headaches and my grandfather, too. Of course, I must expect them now
for the rest of my life." That thought interpreted rightly is: "My
grandfather formed the headache habit, my father inherited the habit
and clinched it--now, of course, I must expect to inherit it, and I
will do my best to see if I cannot hold on to the habit as well as
they did--even better, because I can add my own hold to that which I
have inherited from both my ancestors."
Now, of course, a habit of illness, whether it be of the head,
stomach, or of both, is much more difficult to discard when it is
inherited than when it is first acquired in a personal illness of
our own; but, because it is difficult, it is none the less possible
to discard it, and when the work has been accomplished the strength
gained from the steady, intelligent effort fully compensates for the
difficulty of the task.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12