NERVE STRAIN AND WORK

Manawatu Times, Issue 6848, 1 March 1929, Page 11

NERVE STRAIN AND WORK

‘‘ If you give a girl too much to do she’ll break down; if you give a boy too much to do he won’t do it.” The growing belief in the advantage _ of haste has brought the conscientious worker, who is compelled by temperament or training to be thorough, to a point where nervous exhaustion has far-reaching physical results, writes H. A.Y. in the Auckland “Star.”. There is so much of the girl in many men that the above quotation does not truthfully apply to them. The “nervous” man ,like the hypnotised man who has no control over his revolving fists, reaches a stage when it is easier to go on than to stop, even when he feels the work is “getting him down,” and very often he shows it. The medical adviser consulted by such a patient can counsel adjustment of work or suggest a continued drawing upon strength and courage (of which there is nearly always a surprising reserve) in the hope that Nature will build as fast as destruction occurs. The overanxious worker may be tremulous, hesitant and obviously distressed, yet the influence of another mind may induce a calmness and mental restfulness and mental restfulness without any reduction of labour.

The cause of nervous breakdown as to be found within the patient, for psychoanalyists are agreed that work alone does hot produce it. The soldiers ’-collective wisdom during the war evolved “Why worry?”: and “Are we downhearted? Nol” and was based unconsciously on the fact that anxiety coming from within marred effort and led to nothing good. The hand workex 1 who hurries himself can watch himself from the distance of his inner self and put a check on his hasty movements, but the brain worker has less control over his mental processes, and a raeing mind may gallop a lengthy or a circular course until confusion of thought and mental instability render him unfit for his particular duty. Sir F. Treeves once said, “May God protect me from the brilliant surgeon, ’ ’ for even then surgeons who were quick were praised, rather than those who were thorough. In every walk of life the gems of hurry breeds destruction, destruction of mental and physical health, of peace and tranquil thought, and restful sleep. Neurotics who live habitually at full tension may do splendid work, fighting all the time with such of Nature’s warnings as may come to them, but they nevertheless persist, and may need neither check or encouragement. The anxious neurotic (to quote an expert) is troubled unnecessarily, has a rapid pulse, is annoyed by headache, palpitation, sweating, indigestion, and numberless fears. There is no possibility of sound work or work easily and happily done, whilst so burdened. Should a breakdown occur in- either -type, the overstraining or the over-anxious, it will leave an indelible impression on the character, if not on the body; the patient no longer trusts himself, and remains ever watchful of himself and of the regard of others. Hundreds of faces may. be noted in a walk or ride through the city, faces in which there are folds in the brow, puckered lines between the eyes, contracting muscles around the mouth and clamped and rigid jaws. Young, mid-dlo-aged and old, bearing the outward signs of strain, which, however, may bo quite absent from the faces of those who impose a further strain by assuming cheerfulness. Of these some are referred to in the newspapers after suicide: “Yesterday he seemed quite his usual self,” or “He has always seemed in the best of spirits.” The harm has been done by ’th’ worm i’ tho bud’ the hidden anxiety wrecking a nervous temperament. Nobody says a word about a remedy. The hurried work continues, the mental hospital fills, the mad race goes on tho neurotie takes his chance with the rest, but what a mistake it is to continue, educationally and otherwise, to manufacture neurotics out of our youthful material. To end on a cheerful note: “In all this galloperavorin’ ’urry,” says Mr ’Arris, “thero aint no time ter taste wat yer drinks, an’ yer niem’ry gets so flustered yer dursen’t tell a lie.”

"It was an extraordinary thing,” said I>r. Marshall MacDonald, of Dunedin, addressing the Trained Masseurs’ Conference, in Wellington, on mental hygiene as applied to massage, "that in New Zealand, a country with a good climate, good and plentiful food supplies, and a fine national spirit, functional nervous disease is so common, and is on the increase. In your work, therefore, you can spread, not only the doctrine of good health, but also of mental health. Unfortunately medical training in New Zealand is behind in this respect.”