It is a true saying that worry, not work, kills. People can get through an amazing amount of work if they do it in a quiet and methodical manner.

One morning two men were walking along a road in the direction of a railway station. One of them was going at a steady pace, with a look of contentment about him, as if he were enjoying the walk. The other was hurrying along with quick, nervous steps, occasionally looking at his watch and breaking into a short run, while his strained expression and panting breath formed a marked contrast to the easy deportment of his friend.

They both caught the train, but while one was cool and collected and felt invigorated for his work when he reached the terminus, the other was hot and flurried, and this gave him a bad start for the day. Moreover, each of them transacted his business in much the same way as he had walked to the station, one doing it quietly and methodically, while the other spent his time in rushing from one thing to another, taking his lunch in the fewest possible minutes, and constantly worrying himself and everyone else into the bargain.

The singular part of it was that the quiet, steady-going man got through more work in the day than his friend did, and years later, when they had reached middle age, was as fit as ever for his business, whereas the other man was broken down by overwork, as he called it.

In the last chapter we considered the question of physical and mental fatigue resulting from work. We purposely omitted the element of worry, which does more harm than all the other conditions of work put together. For worry does more than tire the mind—it demoralises it.

In a certain war two companies of men had to march an equal distance in order to meet at a particular spot. The one arrived in perfect order, and with few signs of exhaustion, although the march had been an arduous one. The other company reached the place utterly done up and disorganised. It was all a question of leadership: the captain of the first company had known his way and kept his men in good order, while the captain of the second company had never been sure of himself, and had harassed his subordinates with a constant succession of orders and counter-orders, until they had hardly known whether they were on their heads or their heels. That was why they arrived looking completely demoralised.

Now worry has precisely the same effect on the mind as a bad leader has upon his men. For the mind is not a vague mystery “somewhere inside the head,” as it is generally supposed to be. The brain is a matter of tissue and blood, the same as any other part of the body. We may not know quite so much about it, but that does not affect the question. The workings of the mind are as definite and practical as the movements of the fingers. The brain cells have, stretching out from them, a number of minute filaments. We know that the tips of these filaments move about and touch their neighbours. And according to the manner in which they move, different trains of thought are set up. The intricate network is constantly changing its form, as the filaments link up together various parts of the brain tissue.

It is, in fact, the counterpart of a telephone system, which has wires and exchanges and call offices extending all over the country. From these offices telephone callers are put into communication with each other, and there is a never-ending linking-up and switching-off taking place, and the harmony of the systems depends on the efficiency of the operators. Fill one of the exchanges with a lot of fussy, ill-trained people, who would lose their heads, and the whole system would be disorganised in a very short time.

Each man possesses his own telephone system inside his head, and the working of it depends entirely on himself. If he fidgets and fumes and gets excited over what he is doing, he worries the brain filaments until they begin to act all ways except the right one. And not only do they fail to carry out their purpose, but the bother and flurry through which they pass tire them out as no amount of steady work could ever do. Like the men of the second company, they get to the end of their day’s work fagged and exhausted.

If this goes on long, for days and months and years in succession, the strain becomes too great, and they either refuse to work at all or they get completely out of hand. And, whichever they do, it means that the man who owns them suffers from a breakdown. And it was the worry, not the work, which caused it.

Some people have a born knack of worrying. The mental agony through which they pass when taking a railway journey is almost incredible. They worry as to whether they will get to the station in time, and if their luggage will arrive safely at its destination, and a hundred other things as well.

We once heard a lady say—almost boastfully, she seemed proud of the fact—that she never slept a wink all night if she was a penny out in her household accounts. She did not say what happened if she was a halfpenny out. We can only presume, therefore, that in that case she slept for half the night.

With worries of this sort we have no sympathy. They can be overcome by an effort of will, and those who give way to them had better realise that they are not only bothering the people around them, but endangering their own nervous systems as well. For worry leads to worry. A mind that is addicted to them will always tend to distort things, making mountains out of molehills. Objects invariably loom larger in a fog.

And of all troubles in this life there are none so hard to bear as imaginary ones. Many of us prefer to meet a burglar rather than a ghost. The troubles we dread rarely come. Yet the strain of thinking about them tends to precipitate other disasters. The man who is always on the look-out for orange peel is very liable to run his head against a lamp-post. If after that he is always thinking of lamp-posts, he is almost certain to slip on a piece of orange peel. And people who are constantly worrying about the future, and all the ills that it may bring with it, are inviting troubles, for they are frittering their energies instead of applying them to their work.

Worry is a potent factor in causing neurasthenia, and once that has come about the system is deprived of its resisting power and laid open to disease. And neurasthenics are singularly prone to forebodings. The state of the nervous system alters the circulation in the body to such an extent that it is apt to cause the feeling of illness, if not illness itself. Such people are liable to feel chilly or burning hot, even though their temperatures may be normal. Yet because of their sensations they feel certain that they are going to be ill, and the dread of this still further aggravates their nervous condition.

While worry brings on neurasthenia, the latter adds to worry. The whole process is like a snowball rolling down a hill, increasing in size as it does so. All the more reason, therefore, why we should take every precaution to arrest it at the outset, by considering in what way worry can be prevented.

This can never be done by running away from responsibilities or difficulties of any sort. Such as they may be, we must face them. There are many people to-day, as in the ancient time, who sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly away and be at rest. Even if they got the wings, it is doubtful if they would be much better off. In all probability they would find that they had gone farther only to fare worse.

Neither can worry be got rid of by sitting down and trying to make up our minds that we will not give way to it. The seasick man might as well command the waves to be still. We have little direct control over the nervous system, but we have a vast amount of influence over the movements of the body, which reacts in such a pronounced manner on the mind.

The man who walks and talks hurriedly or jerkily tends to think in like fashion. Those whose minds are in a fume and a fidget usually show it by fussing about and behave generally in a restless manner. Let them force themselves to walk quietly and deliberately, and they will be surprised to find how quickly their minds follow suit and settle down into a steadier groove. And if they take care to speak in the same deliberate fashion at the same time, the good effect will be heightened. The movement of the limbs and of the lips react on the mind to a surprising extent.

If any should doubt what we have said as to the close connection between the body and the mind, let them try an experiment which was advocated many years ago by a celebrated psychologist. It consists in reading a comic book with the features contracted into a stern frown, and following this up by reading a pathetic one with the face relaxed into a broad grin. The result will convince them as to the truth of our previous statements.

Sometimes a man is worried to death on account of some event he is anticipating, a reply to some letter he has sent, or the news of some appointment he is in for. Often under such circumstances he will pace up and down like a caged beast, until the nervous tension almost makes him ill. Try as he may, he cannot sit still. But he can do something equally efficacious, he can engage in some other occupation, keeping his hands and mind employed, instead of glancing continually at the clock or looking for the postman.

And sometimes people are beset by business until they scarcely know where to turn. Then it may be that they become so agitated that they can do nothing to further the matter in hand. A man once consulted a doctor as to an experience that had befallen him on the previous evening. “At teatime,” he said, “I found myself becoming anxious and worried as to the amount of work in front of me. And the harder I tried to get on with it the more obstinately my brain refused to act, and by bedtime I had got everything into a hopeless muddle.”

The doctor told him that curiously enough he himself had had a similar experience the same evening, and just about the same time.

“And what did you do?” the patient inquired, and was much astonished when the medical man replied, “Went out, had a couple of games of billiards, then came back and finished it all comfortably in a couple of hours.”

When a man finds that his work is worrying him unduly, or when he is so overwhelmed by it that he cannot keep his mental equilibrium, the best thing he can do is to stop it for a time and have a rest or a change of some sort, even if it is only for a few minutes. It will facilitate the work in the long run, and will save the nervous system from an amount of wear and tear which may take days or weeks to put right again.

Unpunctuality and untidiness are responsible for a great amount of unnecessary worry. The man who is habitually late in the mornings is apt to find his work accumulate to such an extent that by the time he ought to be finishing his day’s work he feels it has become a heavy burden upon his shoulders. And people who keep their desks in an untidy condition lose a vast amount of time, and harass themselves by having to search for things they should have been able to put their fingers on at once.

Above all, let a man avoid stimulating his flagging brain by means of alcohol, or soothing it by the aid of drugs. Tobacco, however, is—in the writer’s opinion at least—a boon to people of a worrying disposition. If used to excess, especially in the form of cigarettes, it may sap the nervous system, and lead to more worry than it is likely to prevent. Taken in moderation, and in its healthiest form, that of a pipe, it often proves of great benefit to tired nerves.

It is of the utmost importance for people who are subject to worry to pay every attention to the way in which they spend their leisure time. It is even more important in their case than in that of people who work too hard.

The effect of overwork is to cause fatigue. The mind has been kept too long in a certain groove, until it has become wearied from sheer exhaustion. Certain parts of the brain or the body are tired out for the time being. Such persons need recreation pure and simple. A pleasant game or a light novel is the best remedy for their fatigue, taking the mind out of the groove in which it has been confined.

The effect of worry, on the other hand, is to produce a state of restlessness, both of mind and body. The nervous system is in an irritable condition, and requires something that will steady it down. A game may only add excitement to the restlessness. The brain is acting in an irregular, discursive manner, and needs some method of treatment which will reduce it to order. And this can best be obtained by means of a quiet hobby. The overworked man is like a horse that has been plodding along all day in the shafts with a heavy weight behind it; a little freedom, perhaps a gallop round a field, will do it more good than anything else. The over-worried man is like a horse that has been plunging aimlessly around, excited and irritable: an hour’s hard work between the shafts is what it needs.

Therefore, while the fatigued man requires recreation, the worried one will do better with some hobby that needs a certain amount of concentration. The form of hobby best suited to him depends on his tastes and capabilities. A celebrated physician once told me that when he found himself becoming worried he could quiet his mind most speedily by mathematical problems. They would do him far more good than any game or other form of recreation.

Many people, however, might find this too great a strain, for it is possible to be worried and tired at the same time, as we all know. Yet there are many hobbies which demand a certain amount of concentration without making too great a call on the mental faculties.

They may take up books on travel, for instance, and there is no more fascinating form of reading. Let them select some particular country, and read all they can find about it, its inhabitants and customs, until they are authorities on that subject. Or they may go in for history, studying some particular period, and read all the manuals and historical novels dealing with it. Continuity is a great point in any hobby; it makes it not only more interesting, but there is the pleasure of knowing it is always there, waiting for them, without their having to consider what to take up next.

Or they may dip into such subjects as astronomy, botany or a host of others. And these will do more than refresh the mind at the time. People of a worrying disposition are always restless and fidgety on a railway journey, but those who take an interest in such things as geology, flora and fauna will find plenty to occupy their minds with as they go along. Even railway embankments may be made a cinematograph of delight to the man who has studied land formations. And anyone who is interested in architecture need never fear the tedium of having to spend an hour or two in a strange town waiting for the next train.

Those who have a taste for poetry may consider themselves fortunate, for there is something in the harmony of words that has a specially beneficial effect on the worried mind. The rhythm, either of blank verse or rhyme, is excellently adapted for reducing the aimless wandering of an overwrought mind to a regular, steady running. Especially is this the case if people take the trouble to learn it by heart. For this acts as a kind of mental mastication, and the poetry is consequently absorbed and becomes a part of their very being. Then they are laying up for themselves a store of treasures which they may enjoy at any moment. People who worry are always liable to be irritable when alone, and need something to counteract their moody tendencies.

A man of this type was so subject to irritability of this sort when he was dressing in the mornings that he invariably started the day badly. And a day that begins in this way is like a choir that starts on a wrong note, it is a difficult matter to get back to the right one again. This man, owing to his unfortunate habit, found it almost impossible to recover a harmonious frame of mind, until at last he hit upon the secret. He had become enamoured of the writings of a certain poet, and had begun to learn whole passages by heart. After that he found himself repeating these to himself when he got up in the morning, and it is no exaggeration to say that it altered his life. It gave him a good send-off for the day, and saved him from many a mistake and many a worry.

A hobby which combines hand and eye and brain is of great service to a flurried mind. Engineers, carpenters and all who are engaged in like occupations unconsciously acquire an orderly, methodical way of thinking.

As to what form of manual work people take up their individual tastes will decide, just as much as in the kind of reading they indulge in. If they have a faculty for art, they can take up painting or music. And when I say music, I mean practising it properly, not simply sitting down to the piano to improvise or wander from piece to piece. It is the steady practice which does the brain good.

Or they may prefer carpentry or wood carving, or preparing microscopic slides, than which there is no more absorbing hobby. There are scores of others, too, equally interesting.

Nothing, however trivial, is beneath our notice, if it will in any way mitigate this deadly habit of worrying, which has such a detrimental influence on the nervous system, and so often is responsible both for the starting-point and the climax of a breakdown.