TRUTH ABOUT WORRY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3352, 20 December 1926, Page 7

TRUTH ABOUT WORRY.

(By Professor D. Fraser Harris, M.D., D.Sc., F.H.S., Edm.) The brain is the organ of the mind without which ire could not Lvi!'c any sensa tio.irs, emotion’.**’, or desires 3 we not think, remember, or have kind of conscious experience. ■■V'o do not say that tlie brain secretes like the liver secretes bile, we do say that without a brain mind could not influence the body, Bud that is what it does when it is ■worried. ■ Before examining the physiology of r worry Jet us see what we believe is happening when 1 make a simple, voluntary, muscular movement. First, there is in my mind an intention, say, to raise the arm, This is a purely mental state, for I can have the intention without its being translated immediately into the appropriate movement. But when I deem it suitable I will raise my arm, and up it' goes. fbe mental state called the volition is followed by a state of brain activity, thi» physical counterpart of the volition. Then there is an outpouring of nerve-impulses from the brain to the muscular fibres, and, last, a group of muscles is made to shorten. Wc do not know how an active i- >: mind cr indin e an active stale of brain; >• bur as u> ledge goes, theie n. a great between the immaterial brain, ;i there undoubtedly is an interaction between these two different orders of ex is fence. Now what is worry? Clearly it is a complex state largely of a disagreeable emotional order. It is, of course, not a pure emotion, for ideas arc involved in it, hut it belongs more to emotion than to intellect, it is, at least, a sense that things are going wront, and that at the moment we are powerless to put them right. We have all experienced the tonic effects of joy; the heart beats more strongly, the blood-pressure rises, the digestion is improved the skin becomes clearer, the eye brighter, the tread firmer, the voice more resonant. Now when worry, a depressing emotion, takes possession of the mind, an opposite state of matters prevails. The impulses in the nerves are not only less intense, but appear actually to be of a depressant nature, for the heart-beat is enfeebled, the blood-pressure reduced, tlie digestion impaired, and the tone of the muscles diminished. Long continued worry may bring on tru.s melancholia and paralysis of the will, which may ultimately lead to suicide. The temperament described as ‘‘thick-skinned” is not a bad possession in this troublous world. Worries arc not altogether avoidable. Financial worries, for instance, are perhaps the must potent in disturbing the brain, and in this connection it is significant that the tax-gatherers have for centuries not inappropriately been classed with the sinners! But. joking apart, it is possible to be too sensitive to criticism, too con scientious about duty,'and too easily distressed by the unfavorable opinion of our fellows. We should remember : ‘ All llesh is gross.”