How to Crowd worry out of your mind
I shall never forget one night when Mariom J Douglas was student in one of my classes. But here is the real story as he told it to the class. He told us how tragedy had struck at his home not once but twice. The first time he had lost his five-year-old daughter a child he adored. He and his wife thought why could not endure the first loss but as he said, “Ten months later God gave us another little girl — -and she died in five days”
This double bereavement was almost too much to bear. “I could not take it”, this father told us, “I could not sleep I could not eat. I could not rest or release. My nerves were utterly shaken and my confidence gone”. At last, he went to doctors one recommended a trip. He fine both but their remedy helped. He said, “My body felt as if were encased in a wise and the jaws of the wise were being frown tighter and tighter”. The tension of grief –if you have ever been paralysed by sorrow you know what he meant
But thank God I had one child left-a four-year-old son. He gave me the solution to my problem one afternoon as I said around feeling sorry for myself, he asked, “Daddy will you build a boat; in fact, I was in no mood to do anything. But my son is a persistent little fellow? I had to give in
“Building that toy took about three hours. By the time it was finished I realised that those three hours spent building that boat where the first hours of mental relaxation and peace that I had in months!!!
That discovery jarred me out of my lethargy and caused me to do a bit of thinking-the first real thinking I had done in months. I realised that that is difficult to worry while you are busy doing something that requires planning and thinking. In my case building the boat had knocked worry out of the ring. So, I resolved to keep busy
The following night I went from room to room in the house compiling a list of jobs that ought to be done. Scores of items needed to be repaired: book cases stair steps storm windows shades knobs locks. Astonishing as it seems in the course of two weeks, I had a list of 242 items that needed attention
During the last two years I have completed most of them. Besides I have filled my life with stimulating activities Two nights per week I attend adult education classes in NY. I have gone in for cubic activities in my hometown and I am now chairman of the school board. I attend score of meetings. I help collect money for the Red Cross and other activities. I am so busy now that I have no time for worry
Charles Kettering was in the same fix when he started out to invent a self starter for automobiles. Mr Kettering was until his retirement vice president of GM in charge of world-famous General Motors Research Cooperation. But in those days, he was so poor that he had to use the hayloft of a barn as a laboratory. To buy groceries he had to use 15k dollars that his wife had made by giving piano lessons; later had to borrow 5k dollars on his life insurance. I asked his wife if she was not worried at a time like that. “yes “she replied, “I was so worried I could not sleep but Mr Kettering was not. He was too absorbed in his work to worry
The great scientist Pasteur spoke of the peace that is found in libraries and laboratories. Why is peace found thereabouts the men in libraries and laboratories are usually too absorbed in their tasks to worry about themselves. Research men rarely have nervous breakdowns. They have not time for such luxuries
Why does such a simple thing as a keeping busy help to drive out anxiety? because of the law one of the most fundamental laws ever revealed by psychology and that law is that it is utterly impossible for any human mind no matter how brilliant to think of more than one thing at any given time. You don’t quite believe it? Very well then let’s try an experiment
Suppose you lean back right now close your eyes and try at the same instant to think of the statue of liberty and of what you plan to do tomorrow morning
You found out did not you that you could focus on either thought in turn but never on both simultaneously? Well, the same thing is true in field of emotions. We cannot be pepped up and enthusiastic about doing something exciting and feel dragged down by worry at the very same time. One kind of emotions drives out the other. And it was that simple discovery that enabled Army psychiatrists to perform such muscles during second world war
When men came out of battle so shaken by the experience that they were called “psychoneurotic” army doctors prescribed “keep me busy” as a cure
Occupational therapy is term used by psychiatry when work is prescribed as though it were a medicine. It is not new. The old Greek Physicians were advocating it 500 yrs. before Christ was born
The Quakes were using it in Philapahdepia in Ben Frankians time. A man who visited a Quaker Sanatorium a 1774 was shocked to see that the patients who were mentally ill were busy spinning flax. He thought these poor unfortunates were being exploited –until the Quakers explained that they found their patients actually improved when they did a little work, it was soothing to the nerves
Any psychiatrist well tells you that work keeping busy is one of the best anaesthetics even known for sick nerves Henry W long fellow found that out for himself when he lost his young wife. His wife had been melting some sealing wax at the candle one day when her clothes caught on fire. Long fellow heard her cries and tried to reach her in time but she died from the burns. For a while long fellow was so tortured by the memory of that dreadful experience that he nearly went insane; but fortunately for him his three small children needed his attention. Inspite of his own grief long fellow undertook to be father and mother of his children. He took them for walks told them stories played games with them and immortalised their companionship in his poem. The Children Hour. He also translated Dante and all these duties combined kept him so busy yam je forget himself combined kept him so busy that he forget himself entirely and regained his peace of mind
