Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid ThemMusgrove, Charles David
Science
Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them
Musgrove, Charles David
Mental health
To be efficient, exercise must be steady and regular. A long tramp or
a violent burst of tennis or some other game once a week can never
make up for days of comparative inaction. More than that, it is almost
dangerous. The waste products have meanwhile accumulated to such an
extent that, if they are suddenly stirred up, they are apt to produce
a severe headache or a bilious attack. People are often puzzled and
discouraged when after a long walk on a Saturday afternoon they feel so
done up as to be unfit for anything for the next twenty hours.
The exercise should be daily, so that the waste matter is eliminated
regularly. To realise the difference between this method and the one we
have just been discussing, notice the effect of dusting a room once a
week compared with doing it each day. It is the difference between an
almost imperceptible quantity of dust and a cloud that fills the room
and threatens to choke you.
[Sidenote: Violent exercise and cramp.]
There is one result of irregular exercise that needs to be referred to
here. It is cramp. This painful complaint is due to a deposit of waste
matter in some muscle, which it causes to contract violently owing
to the local irritation set up. It is liable to occur after hard or
prolonged exercise of any sort, especially in those who only take it
now and then. Sometimes, however, it is found in those who never take
part in games, as in elderly people, for instance. In this case it is
often due to the habit of walking beyond the ordinary pace. There are
some temperaments which never allow their possessors to walk quietly,
even though age or some infirmity demands it, and such persons are very
liable to wake up at night suffering from cramp.
The treatment is to avoid too violent exercise or to walk in a more
leisurely fashion, as the case may be. When it has come on, the remedy
is to rub the affected part vigorously, or put it into hot water if
such is available.
[Sidenote: Outdoor exercise.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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