Work never hurt anyone, but harassing preoccupation with problems which no amount of thought will solve drives many thousands to early graves.  Anger exhausts itself in a few minutes, fatigue in a few hours, and real overwork with a week’s rest, but worry grows ever worse.  Ponder Meredith’s lines: 

  “I will endure; I will not strive to peep
  Behind the barrier of the days to come.”

“Look on the bright side!” said an optimist to a melancholy friend.

“But there is no bright side.”

“Then polish up the dull one!” was the sound advice tendered.

Learn to forget!

One cannot open a periodical without being exhorted to train one’s memory for a variety of reasons.  The neuropath needs a system of forgetfulness.  Lethe is often a greater friend than Mnemosyne.

To brood on disappointments, failures and griefs only wastes energy, sours temper, and upsets the general health.  Resolve beforehand that when unhappy ideas arise you will not dwell on them, but turn your thoughts to pleasant trifles; take up a humorous book, or take a turn in the fresh air, and you will soon acquire the habit of laughing instead of whining at Fate.

To sum up:  Go slow!  Your neurons have been exhausted in your foolish attempt to “live this day as if thy last” in a wrong sense; feverish activity and unnecessary work must be abandoned to enable the nerves to recuperate.

When the doctor says “rest”, he means “rest”, not change your bustle from work to what you are pleased to regard as play.

So much is absolute rest recognized as the foundation of treatment, that severe cases undergo the “Weir-Mitchell Treatment”.  The patient is utterly secluded; letters, reading, talking, smoking and visits from friends are forbidden.  He is put to bed, not allowed even to sit up, sees no one save nurse and doctor, is massaged, treated electrically, grossly overfed, fattened up, and freed from every care.

In leaving his habitual circle, the patient escapes the too-attentive care of his relatives, and the incessant questions about his complaint with which they overwhelm him.  The results of this regime with semi-insane wrecks are marvellous.  It is a very drastic but very successful “rest-cure”, and while it cannot be undergone at home, neurasthenics will benefit by following its principles as far as they can in their own homes.

High-frequency or static electricity sometimes works wonders in the hands of a specialist, but the electric batteries, medical coils, finger-rings and body-belts so persistently advertised are useless.

When the patient has in some measure recuperated, he may try the following exercises in mental concentration.  Vittoz claims good results from them, but they must be done quite seriously.

    1.  Walk a few steps with the definite idea that you are putting forward
    right and left feet alternately.  Go on by easy stages until you
    concentrate on the movement of the whole body.