Outwitting Our Nerves: A Primer of PsychotherapyJackson, Josephine A. (Josephine Agnes)
Science
Outwitting Our Nerves: A Primer of Psychotherapy
Jackson, Josephine A. (Josephine Agnes)
Nervous system -- Diseases; Psychoanalysis; Therapeutics, Suggestive
=A Sliding Scale.= If all this be true, real fatigue can only be the
result of recent effort. If one is still alive, the results of earlier
effort must long since have disappeared. The tissue-cells retain not
the slightest trace of its effects. Fatigue cannot possibly last,
because it either kills us or cures itself. Up to a certain point, far
beyond our usual high-water mark, the more a person does the more he
can do. As Professor James has pointed out, the rate of repair
increases with the rate of combustion. Under unusual stress, the rate
of the whole machine is increased: the heart-pump speeds up,
respirations deepen and quicken, the blood flows faster, the endless
chain of filling and emptying buckets hurries the interchange of
oxygen and carbon dioxid, until the extreme capacity is reached and
the organism refuses to do more without a period of rest.
The whole arrangement illustrates the wonderful provisions of Nature.
Although each individual is continuously manufacturing enough
carbonic-acid gas to kill himself in a very few minutes, he need not
be alarmed for fear that he may forget to expel his own poisons.
Nobody can hold his breath for more than a few minutes. The naughty
baby sometimes tries, but when he begins to get black in the face, he
takes a breath in spite of himself. The presence of carbonic-acid gas
in the circulation automatically regulates breathing, and the greater
the amount of gas the deeper the breath. The faster we burn the faster
we blow. As with breathing, so with all the rest of elimination and
repair. The body dares not get behind.
="Second Wind."= A city man frequently sets out on a mountain tramp
without any muscular preparation for the trip. He walks ten or fifteen
miles when his average is not over one or two. Sometimes after a few
hours he feels himself exhausted, but a glorious view opens out before
him and he goes on with new zest. He has merely increased his rate of
repair and drawn on a new stock of energy. That night he is tired, and
the next day he is likely to be stiff and sore. There is a little
fatigue left in him, but it takes only a day or two for the body to be
wholly refreshed, especially if he hastens the process by another good
walk. Up to a certain point, far beyond our usual limit, the more we
do, the more we can do.
One day after a long walk my little daughter said that she could go no
farther and waited to be carried. But she soon spied a dog on ahead
and ran off after him with new zest. She followed the dog back and
forth, running more than a mile before she reached home, and then in
the exuberance of her spirits, ran around the house three times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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