How To Put The Subconscious Mind To Work
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I believe it is now recognized by all reputable neurologists that the chief causes of most diseases, functional and organic, are overstrain, wrong diet, lack of relaxation and insufficient rest. Therefore, the importance of regular, unbroken rest, is most apparent. We cannot disobey the laws of life and expect God to keep us well, any more than we can disobey the laws and God and expect him to heal us while these laws are not being lived up to.

It must therefore be plain that, no matter what your sickness has been, or what your condition may be, if you are tired, overworked, or overstrained, God cannot keep you well unless you have rest. You must not offer the excuse to yourself, "this has to be done," or, "I cannot get along without doing it," or, "it is impossible to do otherwise." Such excuses only travel in a circle, and presently you will find that you are headed again for the sick bench.

The foregoing injunction applies to the student who is overstraining his mental faculties, to the housewife, to the business man as well as to the athlete, who is overstraining nerves and muscle.

Another chief cause, the dietician will tell us, is overeating, or improper eating.

There is no doubt but that rest is a great factor in all systematic rest cures which for a long while were almost the fashion with neurologists. Many of their patients were, however, allowed to go to extremes with their stereotyped regimen and thus were often unsuccessful, because of overeating and lack of exercise.

It is necessary to have plenty of rest, but this should be combined with a well rounded out, organized routine of exercise, fresh air, right eating and right thinking.

To aid one's right thinking, he should spend at least twenty minutes a day (more would be better) in reading literature along the lines projected in this series. The reading will help induce relaxation, both in mind and body and stimulate brain cells to functional activity for mental energy and physical strength.

One should see to it that he has enough sleep for his physical requirements. No set rule can be laid down, the number of hours to be devoted to sleep cannot be stated for all individuals. Some people require more sleep than others. Let not foolish ignorance dictate whether you shall sleep five hours or ten hours. Take the number of hours your own particular constitution requires.

If your sickness has been caused by wrong environment, untoward conditions, overwork, or faulty vibrations, you must not return to the old surroundings, if these surroundings seem to "get on your nerves." Again, excuses to the effect that you cannot change, etc., are no excuses at all before the judgment bar of health.

Bernarr MacFadden, the widely known physical culturist, surely has had enough experience for his words to carry weight. He says:

Nothing will avail unless you get sufficient sleep to keep up your vitality and energy. Going to bed late is one of the greatest American vices. Thousands who would not think of drinking or dissipating in any other way will dissipate in this manner. Don't lose sleep even to read poetry, philosophy or religious books. It is dissipation. Get to bed. And sleep in the fresh air. If you can possibly arrange it, sleep outdoors. Fix up a couch on the roof, on the balcony, or anywhere you can, so long as it is out of the house. Try it. Do it not only for the benefit, but for the pleasure of it. You will enjoy it as you never enjoyed sleep before. And it will give you vitality.

After you have overworked, you must rest. If you don't get rest, the undertaker may get you.

And finally we have the indirect help towards the cure by the suggestive removal of pain. We have no right to say that it is a pure advantage for the treatment of the disease if the pain is centrally inhibited. Pain surely has its great bio- logical significance and is in itself to a certain degree helpful towards the cure, inasmuch as it indicates clearly the seat and character of the trouble and warns against the misuse of the damaged organ which needs rest and protection.

To annihilate pain may mean to remove the warning signal and thus to increase the chance for an injury. If we had no pain, our body would be much more rapidly destroyed in the struggle for existence. But that does not contradict the other fact that pain is exhausting and that the fight against the pain decreases the resistance of the organism. As soon as the disease is well recognized through the medium of pain and the correct treatment is inaugurated, not only the subjective comfort of the patient but the objective interest of his cure makes a removal of pain most desirable.

A quotation from a book that has attracted the attention of two continents, "Power Through Repose," by Annie Payson Call, is well worth pondering by a person who really wants to help nature to help himself to be well.

"I do not understand why I have this peculiar sort of asthma every Sunday afternoon,"' a lady said to me. She was in the habit of hearing, Sunday morning, a preacher, exceedingly interesting, but with a very rapid utterance, and whose mind traveled so fast that the words embodying his thoughts often tumbled over one another. She listened with all her nerves, as well as with those needed, held her breath when he stumbled, to assist him in finding his verbal legs, reflected every action with twice the force the preacher himself gave,--and then wondered why, on Sunday afternoon, and at no other time, she had this nervous catching of the breath.

She saw as soon as her attention was drawn to the general principles of Nature, how she had disobeyed this one, and why she had trouble on Sunday afternoon. This case is very amusing, even laughable, but it is a fair example of many similar nervous attacks, greater or less; and how easy it is to see that a whole series of these, day after day, doing their work unconsciously to the victim, will sooner or later bring some form of nervous prostration.

The same attitudes and the same effects often attend listening to music. It is a common experience to be completely fagged after two hours of delightful music. There is no exaggeration in saying that we should be rested after a good concert, if it is not too long. And yet so upside- down are we in our ways of living, and, through the mis- takes of our ancestors, so accustomed have we become to disobeying nature's laws, that the general impression seems to be that music cannot be fully enjoyed without a strained attitude of mind and body; whereas, in reality, it is much more exquisitely appreciated and enjoyed in Nature's way.

If the nerves are perfectly free, they will catch the rhythm of the music, and so be helped back to the true rhythm of Nature, they will respond to the harmony and melody with all the vibratory power that God gave them, and how can the result be anything else than rest and refreshment,-- unless having allowed them to vibrate in one direction too long, we have disobeyed a law in another way.

Our bodies cannot by any possibility be free, so long as they are strained by our personal effort. So long as our nervous force is misdirected in personal strain, we can no more give full and responsive attention to the music, than a piano can sound the harmonies of a sonata if some one is drawing his hands at the same time backwards and forwards over the strings. But, alas! a contracted personality is so much the order of the day that many of us carry the chronic contractions of years constantly with us, and can no more free ourselves for a concert at a day's or a week's notice, than we can gain freedom to receive all the grand universal truths that are so steadily helpful. It is only by daily patience and thought and care that we can cease to be an obstruction to the best power for giving and receiving.

Adequate and proper nourishment, scrupulous care for its sense organs, due attention to rest after fatigue, and especially long hours of undisturbed sleep are essential conditions in the intelligent and sympathetic rearing of children. The interferences with sufficient sleep are to a high degree responsible for the later disturbances of the mental life. It must not be forgotten that nothing but rest and sleep can make complete restitution for the decomposition of the brain molecules caused by active exertion. Physical exercise is certainly not such restitution. In the best case it brings a certain rest to some brain centers by engaging other brain parts.

However, the child needs sleep, fresh air and healthful food more than anything else, if his mind is active. Regular and careful examination of the sense organs and unhindered breathing through the nose are most important. Even a slight defect in hearing may become the cause of under-development of the faculty of attention.

"There is no other influence which builds up the injured central nervous system as safely as sound natural sleep."--Hugo Munsterberg.

Many people have become insane, have made physical wrecks of their God-given tabernacles, because of too much work and overstrain--if you are one of these, get rest.

With many people, sickness is due to overwork. When this is the case, it is obvious that the patient must have rest. But sickness very seldom comes from overwork per se. We are probably safe in saying, never from overwork, if the ptient gets enough sleep. It is more likely to be a case of too much nerve or energy expended in performing the given work along with worry, anxiety or negative thinking, in connection with the tasks at hand. Or, again, dissipation might have caused the sickness. As a rule rest does not necessarily mean suspension from all work, but more rest mixed with the work one is doing. Illustrative of this theme Annie Payson Call presents an interesting case in point:

"I am so tired I must give up work," said a young woman with a very strained and tearful face; and it seemed to her a desperate state, for she was dependent upon work for her bread and butter. If she gave up work she gave up bread and butter, and that meant starvation. When she was asked why she did not keep at work and learn to do it without getting so tired, that seemed to her absurd, and she would have laughed if laughing had been possible.

" 'I tell you the work has tired me so that I cannot stand it, and you ask me to go back and get rest out of it when I am ready to die of fatigue. Why don't you ask me to burn myself on a piece of ice, or freeze myself with a red-hot poker?'

" 'But,' the answer was, 'it is not the work that tires you at all, it is the way you do it;'" and, after a little soothing talk which quieted the overexcited nerves, she began to feel a dawning intelligence, which showed her that, after all, there might be life in the work which she had come' to look upon as nothing but slow and painful death. She came to understand that she might do her work as if she were working very lazily, going from one thing to another with a feeling as near to entire indifference as she could cultivate, and, at the same time, do it well.

She was shown by illustrations how she might walk across the room and take a book off the table as if her life depended upon it, racing and pushing over the floor, grabbing the book and clutching it until she got back to her seat, or, how she might move with exaggerated laziness, take the book up loosely, and drag herself back again. This illustration represents two extremes, and one, in itself, is as bad as the other; but, when the habit has been one of unnecessary strain and effort, the lazy way, practiced for a time, will not only be very restful, but will eventually lead to movement which is quick as well.

For the young woman who felt she had come to the end of her powers, it was work or die; therefore, when she had become rested enough to see and understand at all, she welcomed the idea that it was not her work that tired her but the way in which she did it, and she listened eagerly to the directions that should teach her to do it with less fatigue, and, as an experiment, offered to go back and try the "lazy way" for a week. At the end of a week she reported that the "lazy way" had rested her remarkably, but she did not do her work so well.

Then she had to learn that she could keep more quietly and steadily concentrated upon her work, doing it accurately and well, without in the least interfering with the "lazy way." Indeed, the better concentrated we are, the more easily and restfully we can work, for concentration does not mean straining every nerve and muscle toward our work,--it means dropping everything that interferes, and strained nerves and muscles constitute a very bondage of interference.

The young woman went back to her work for another week's experiment, and this time returned with a smiling face, better color, and a new and more quiet life in her eyes. She had made the 'lazy way" work, and found a better power of concentration at the same time. She knew it was only a beginning, but she felt secure now in the certain knowledge that it was not her work that had been killing her, but the way in which she had done it; and she felt confident of her power to do it restfully and, at the same time, better than before. Moreover, in addition to practicing the new way of working, she planned to get regular exercise in the open air, even if it had to come in the evening, and to eat only nourishing food. She has been at work now for several years, and, at last accounts, was still busy, with no temptation to stop because of over- fatigue.

The more you are rushed, the more work you have to do, the more careful should you be in your eating, exercising, sleeping, relaxing, breathing and in the organization of your time.

The more work you have to do, the better reason you should take care of your body as religiously as the violinist does of his instrument. Wholesome care of the body and mind is necessary if you are to do the largest amount of work. Indifference and neglect mean steady decay for body and soul.

And the more work we have to do, the more careful should we be in properly preparing our minds before retiring, by charging the subconscious mind for rest, strength, efficiency and power in work.

But above everything else you should never attempt to fall asleep with mind or body in a state of complete fatigue. First practice the silence a few moments and then as you drop off to sleep you will partake of a refreshing invigoration that will cause your state of exhaustion slowly but surely to disappear.

Civilization Is Abnormal In this complex age in which we are living, man has been taken abruptly from his natural surroundings of the open (abruptly when the great length of time he had led a free life is considered) into offices, apartment houses, street cars, railway trains, books, ledgers, newspapers and periodicals. Since the invention of printing other inventions have followed so rapidly upon the heels of one another that we have fallen into the habit of using our eyes in a way which involves a tremendous amount of strain. We have not had time enough to evolve from the open, rugged life of our ancestors to a cooped up existence in pigeon holes of apartment houses for our eyes to become adjusted to small print, electric lights, long hours in the school room and a thousand" and one eye strains which man encounters day by day.

Hence we are constantly bringing a strain upon our eyes unconsciously, overworking these priceless organs when we are unaware of it. Many of the leading scientists believe that eye strain is the cause of neurasthenia which often includes insomnia, irritability, weariness, mental confusion, nervous dyspepsia, vertigo, car-sickness and sea sickness, restlessness, bad temper, inability to sit quietly even for a few moments, facial twitchings of school children, nervous prostration, cholera, epilepsy and some forms of insanity--all of which undermine the vitality of the nervous system.

Eye strain even reacts upon the moral nature and if not relieved may result in perverted disposition. Thus we see that our character may be warped because of eye strain. This is easily understood when we recognize how irritable a person may become when he is overworked and jaded. Over tax the eyes habitually and there follows unconsciously a reaction upon the moral attitude of the individual, resulting in an abnormality of character.

When the mental therapeutist reaches the charitable and common sense mental plane of understanding that the physical affects the mental, to the same degree that the mental affects the physical and is willing to pay the price of good health in eating right and sleeping right and breathing right, and exercising right, we shall have made a great stride forward. We shall, moreover, have reached that happy medium where the power of mind over the body will achieve its maximum in- fluence free from the taunts and criticisms of the man in the street who fancies "There is no matter --All is Mind--Sit down--Do nothing—Enjoy yourself.''

After your healing you should be sure that you add to your daily exercises the exercising of the eyes, and that you take plenty of rest following the overstraining of the eyes.

It is as much of a sin against the natural laws of life as it is a sin against nature to overeat, overwork, under-exercise and under-relax.

Dr. Eisley cites an extreme case of a man who suffered excruciating headaches culminating "in loss of consciousness, convulsions, frothing at the mouth, and wounding of the tongue, after which he would fall into a profound sleep, often lasting for several hours, from which he could not be aroused." Dr. Eisley corrected his eyestrain, and when he saw him eight years later, found that the headaches and convulsions had entirely ceased since the treatment of his eyes.

The human eye has evolved under conditions that called for distant vision. Primitive man used his eyes preponderantly for objects remote or coarse. With the discovery of writing and printing all this suddenly changed. It is one of the fundamental principles of evolution that new conditions call for new adaptions, and the beginning of writing and printing is still very recent, when considered from the standpoint of adaptive requirements.

Some of man's organic diseases arise from the strain upon the organs that have not yet adapted themselves to the upright position, and yet man has been a biped very many times longer than he has been a reading and writing animal. With the change from rural to urban life the conditions requiring near vision again made rapid strides, with accompanying additional eyestrain, and the eye has not had time to adjust itself evolutionally to the new situation. In other words, an eye adapted chiefly to distant sight, with only short periods, if any, of near vision, is suddenly called upon to reverse its habits.-- Charles E. Swift.

Diet, hygiene, rest, exercise, sleep, are as important relatively as right thinking. It is true that we attend to them habitually and with little thought, but the forming of the habit of right living requires attention just as does right thinking.

One cannot expect to sleep in a closed room and be filled with the same degree of health and energy as when one sleeps in a well ventilated room. One cannot neglect cleanliness of the skin and have it perform its excretory functions as well as when it is kept clean and glowing with health. One cannot expect to neglect the daily functions of the body, and be filled with the same joyous health and energy as when prompt attention is given to nature's calls. One must not blame "providence" for disfiguring layers of blubber when one eats a preponderance of fats and sugars. In other words, if the body is treated intelligently it will return dividends in health and comfort, a hundred fold.--"Emmanuelism--The Christ Science," by Thomas Parker Boyd.