Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-11-21
THE REMEDY FOR OYERWORK
VIGOROUS PHYSICAL EXERCISE
RELIEVES MENTAL STRAIN.

Men Who Make Plenty of Muscular
Exertion Never Suffer from Brain
Fag-RooseveIt Cited as an E%-
ampIe-clogged Bodies Mean Col
lapse.
The following article is by G. Elliot
Flint, author of Power and Health
Through Progressive Service: DO
we work too hard? 1t is said that
we do. What antidote is advised?
Rest Muscular rest? Assuredly.
The muscles are oyerworked? BY no
means; the modern high-pressure liv-
ing overworks the nervous centres,
particularly the brain. Why, then,
when it is the brain that is tagged,
do we advise rest cure, which is more
a muscle than a brain rest? Per
haps because of our own proneness
to look at things specifically.
"Frenzied finance" exacts high
tax. So, too, does more sober busl-
ness when pursued to the exclusion
of all else, as it frequently is. Final
ly, when the overworked nerves and
brain border on collapse, the medical
circle is unanimous in advising the
patient to rest. But can he rest!
That is, can he rest his brain? Forced
to remain at home, with little OF
nothing to do, he thinks and worries
more about his business than ne
would were he actually in his ONCE.
And, even could he rest mentally, the
Improvement in his health thus
brought about would be but temper
arv: for. as we shall see presently,
the morbid condition would repeat IL
self soon after former habits were
resumed.
Obviously, before finding the best
cure for mental overwork, we must
examine into the physical and mental
condition of a man suffering from II.
Brain workers generally take little
exercise. Whence it results that
while their brains become hard ana
enduring, their muscles grow fia0Dy,
their eliminating and circulatory Or
gans sluggish and their digestions
feeble. Now, it is known that when
the brain is actively exerted, there is
considerable waste of nervous sub
stance, among the products being the
alkaline phosphates Cripple phos-
phate OF ammonia and magnesla.)
These products, of course, like all
other waste substance, must be
quickly co. rid of. SO, when we say
that a man is suffering from mental
oyerwork, we see that his brain may
not really have overworked; simply
his skin, liver, kidneys and other
eIiminators have not done their share
in expelling the poisonous products
of the nervous organs. In fact, as re
CARDS the mans whole physique, he
has not worked hard enough. The
physiological division of labor has
been forced out of equilibrium. The
remedy, then, for mental overwork
would seem to be gentle physical ex-
ercise, gradually becoming more Wig
orous. Such course will, by stimu-
lating the circulation, the digestion,
and particularly the organs of elm
ination, enable the system to throw
off the accumulation of waste poisons
ons causing its lowered condition.
And such a course, if persisted in,
will not only cure a case of mental
overwork permanently, it will do far
more-it will allow the brain to per
form with perfect impunity a much
larger share of work than was be-
fore possible, by making the system
capable of caring for more waste.
Thus is explained the enormous
amount of work of which some men
are capable. Such men use their
muscles as we'll as their brains-not
for their living, but for their lives.
1t is the civilized mode to let our
bodies go clogged, then blame our
hard-worked brains for our collapse.
But 1 know from personal expert
ence and from observation that a
man may do the severest kind Of
brain work by day, and even well
into the night, but so long as he, in
vigorous physical work daily, the
brain strain will not make him a vic
tim of what is popularity called over
work. Nay, more, man who &C
composites half-hour's real physical
labor-that labor, of course, proper
toned to his strength-even three
times a week, will know as little of
brain flag as the infant that sleeps no
more profoundly than will he. Does
the reader wish a living example?
Let him look at the distinguished
one of Theodore Roosevelt. From a
frail boyhood he grew to be vigor-
Gus man; and now, as chief executive
of might nation-I had almost said
1.-THE mightiest'-men stand aghast
at the immense deal of work he not
only accomplishes, but thrives on
How does he do it? He clears his
brain and his system generally by
flushing it daily with hardt exercise;
he boxes, wrestles, hunts, rides And
recently, when this man of men
wanted rest from mental labors
made more arduous by worry, he did
not go into the country to vegetate-
rest" he camped out with cowboys
and hunted grizzlies, subjecting his
body to the most bruising fatigue and |
roughsng it in the fullest sense of the |
terrA The papers ridiculed 'Roose-
velt's rest" but, in my poor opinion, |
his was the right idea for regaining
health.
However strange it may seem, the
best remedy for oyerwork is more
work-of different kind. It is I'M
deniable that physical work is the /
best antidote for mental work: so. if /
we would be happy, brainy and
healthy, let us work, not with only
part of ourselves, but with our
whole selves Certainly we shall be .
able to work harder and longer with .
our brains if we will now and then (
give our muscles a chance. A little .
trouble? Yes, very little; End think
uh Of q r-iro LII.