Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-02-25
THE WORK CURE
BY H. Addington Bruce
v1OUR doctor has prescribed for you
: " work q rannedV for the

JOUR doctor has prescribed for you the
Y work cure as a remedy for the nerv-
BUSINESS that sent you to him. In
effect he has told you:
what you need more than anything else
is occupation of mind. Your idleness has
given you opportunity to think too much
about yourself.
"Get busy at something. Then you will
find it easy enough to sleep, your digestion
will no longer trouble you, you will be free
from the aches and pains of which you COM
plain"
Well, you have acted on this advice. You
have found something to do, and you are
doing it. But you cannot see that you are
any better, though considerable time has
passed since you set to work.
You are beginning. to feel that the doctor
has made a mistake, that your disease is
not simply matter of thinking too much
about yourself. Possibly you are right, and
the doctor has Numbered.
Also, on the other hand, it is entirely
possible that the reason the work cure is
not curing you is that you are not working
in the right spirit.
Are you really working, or are you only
going through the motions of work? By
that 1 mean, is your heart SO much in the
work you have chosen that you apply your
self to it with real diligence?
Certainly, if you are not interested in
what you are doing, your mind will con-
tinue to turn to all sorts of things, includ-
ing the things to which it should pay least
attention, your bodily sensations.
Besides which, if interest in the work is
absent, you are certain to find that work
uncommonly fatiguing. This alone would
be enough to explain your failure to derive
any real benefit from the work cure.
Or you may be making the mistake of
working with the thought forever present
in your mind
II am doing this to make me well.''
Clearly, to keep such a thought continu-
ously before one is to remain as self
conferred as ever. Under the impulse of this
thought there will be a constant and sedu-
lous observation of ones symptoms to de-
termine whether improvement actually is
evident
But nervous symptoms never abate while
the minds eye is held firmly fixed on them
Let the mind, however, turn from the pur-
pose of the work to the work itself, then
there will be an ignoring of symptoms,
whereupon the desired improvement will
come Of it's own accord.
Finally, it may be that you have I'M
Willingly adopted working methods calcu-
lated in themselves to make you not less
nervous, but more nervous.
You may have given yourself too long a
working day, you may be working too hur-
riedly, you may be working with such fever
ish intensity that you do not let down in the
slightest SO long as you are at work.
Under such conditions it would not be sur
prising to find the work cure failing you.
1t is not good even for the non-nervous
to overwork. Hurry is itself a breeder of
nervousness. So is neglect to relax at inter-
walls during the hours of work, giving both
the body and the mind brief periods of rest
Accordingly, before you rush back to your
doctor to tell him that he must devise some
other treatment for you, take stock of your
attitude toward your work and of your
methods Of work. Herein may be ample
explanation of the non-appearance of the
good results you had hoped to obtain.
Copyright, 1922, by The Associated News
papers)