如何停止焦虑开始新生活-23

We spend a third of our lives sleeping-yet nobody knows what sleep really is. We know itis a habit and a state of rest in which nature knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, but wedon't know how many hours of sleep each individual requires. We don't even know if wehave to sleep at all!Fantastic? Well, during the First World War, Paul Kern, a Hungarian soldier, was shotthrough the frontal lobe of his brain. He recovered from the wound, but curiouslyenough, couldn't fall asleep. No matter what the doctors did-and they tried all kinds ofsedatives and narcotics, even hypnotism-Paul Kern couldn't be put to sleep or evenmade to feel drowsy.The doctors said he wouldn't live long. But he fooled them. He got a job, and went onliving in the best of health for years. He would lie down and close his eyes and rest, buthe got no sleep whatever. His case was a medical mystery that upset many of ourbeliefs about sleep.Some people require far more sleep than others. Toscanini needs only five hours a night,but Calvin Coolidge needed more than twice that much. Coolidge slept eleven hours outof every twenty-four. In other words, Toscanini has been sleeping away approximatelyone-fifth of his life, while Coolidge slept away almost half of his life.Worrying about insomnia will hurt you far more than insomnia. For example, one of mystudents-Ira Sandner, of 173 Overpeck Avenue, Ridgefield Park, New Jersey-was drivennearly to suicide by chronic insomnia."I actually thought I was going insane," Ira Sandner told me. "The trouble was, in thebeginning, that I was too sound a sleeper. I wouldn't wake up when the alarm clockwent off, and the result was that I was getting to work late in the morning. I worriedabout it-and, in fact, my boss warned me that I would have to get to work on time. Iknew that if I kept on oversleeping, I would lose my job."I told my friends about it, and one of them suggested I concentrate hard on the alarmclock before I went to sleep. That started the insomnia! The tick-tick-tick of thatblasted alarm clock became an obsession. It kept me awake, tossing, all night long!When morning came, I was almost ill. I was ill from fatigue and worry. This kept on foreight weeks. I can't put into words the tortures I suffered. I was convinced I was goinginsane. Sometimes I paced the floor for hours at a time, and I honestly consideredjumping out of the window and ending the whole thing!"At last I went to a doctor I had known all my life. He said: 'Ira, I can't help you. No onecan help you, because you have brought this thing on yourself. Go to bed at night, and ifyou can't fall asleep, forget all about it. Just say to yourself: "I don't care a hang if Idon't go to sleep. It's all right with me if I lie awake till morning." Keep your eyes closedand say: "As long as I just lie still and don't worry about it, I'll be getting rest, anyway." '"I did that," says Sandner, "and in two weeks' time I was dropping off to sleep. In lessthan one month, I was sleeping eight hours, and my nerves were back to normal."It wasn't insomnia that was killing Ira Sandner; it was his worry about it.Dr. Nathaniel Kleitman, professor at the University of Chicago, has done more researchwork on sleep than has any other living man. He is the world's expert on sleep. Hedeclares that he has never known anyone to die from insomnia. To be sure, a man mightworry about insomnia until he lowered his vitality and was swept away by germs. But itwas the worry that did the damage, not the insomnia itself.Dr. Kleitman also says that the people who worry about insomnia usually sleep far morethan they realise. The man who swears "I never slept a wink last night" may have sleptfor hours without knowing it. For example, one of the most profound thinkers of thenineteenth century, Herbert Spencer, was an old bachelor, lived in a boarding house,and bored everyone with his talk about his insomnia. He even put "stoppings" in his earsto keep out the noise and quiet his nerves. Sometimes he took opium to induce sleep.One night he and Professor Sayce of Oxford shared the same room at a hotel. The nextmorning Spencer declared he hadn't slept a wink all night. In reality, it was ProfessorSayce who hadn't slept a wink. He had been kept awake all night by Spencer's snoring.The first requisite for a good night's sleep is a feeling of security. We need to feel thatsome power greater than ourselves will take care of us until morning. Dr. ThomasHyslop, of the Great West Riding Asylum, stressed that point in an address before theBritish Medical Association. He said: "One of the best sleep-producing agents which myyears of practice have revealed to me-is prayer. I say this purely as a medical man. Theexercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded as the mostadequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.""Let God-and let go."Jeanette MacDonald told me that when she was depressed and worried and haddifficulty in going to sleep, she could always get "a feeling of security" by repeatingPsalm XXII: "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down ingreen pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. ..."But if you are not religious, and have to do things the hard way, then learn to relax byphysical measures. Dr. David Harold Fink, who wrote Release from Nervous Tension, saysthat the best way to do this is to talk to your body. According to Dr. Fink, words are thekey to all kinds of hypnosis; and when you consistently can't sleep, it is because youhave talked yourself into a case of insomnia. The way to undo this is to dehypnotiseyourself-and you can do it by saying to the muscles of your body: "Let go, let go-loosenup and relax." We already know that the mind and nerves can't relax while the musclesare tense-so if we want to go to sleep, we start with the muscles. Dr. Fink recommendsandit works out in practice-that we put a pillow under the knees to ease the tension onthe legs, and that we tuck small pillows under the arms for the very same reason. Then,by telling the jaw to relax, the eyes, the arms, and the legs, we finally drop off to sleepbefore we know what has hit us. I've tried it-I know. If you have trouble sleeping, gethold of Dr. Fink's book, Release from Nervous Tension, which I have mentioned earlier Itis the only book I know of that is both lively reading and a cure for insomnia.One of the best cures for insomnia is making yourself physically tired by gardening,swimming, tennis, golf, skiing, or by just plain physically exhausting work. That is whatTheodore Dreiser did. When he was a struggling young author, he was worried aboutinsomnia, so he got a job working as a section hand on the New York Central Railway;and after a day of driving spikes and shoveling gravel, he was so exhausted that he couldhardly stay awake long enough to eat.If we get tired enough, nature will force us to sleep even while we are walking. Toillustrate, when I was thirteen years old, my father shipped a car-load of fat hogs toSaint Joe, Missouri. Since he got two free railroad passes, he took me along with him.Up until that time, I had never been in a town of more than four thousand. When Ilanded in Saint Joe-a city of sixty thousand-I was agog with excitement. I sawskyscrapers six storeys high and-wonder of wonders-I saw a street-car. I can close myeyes now and still see and hear that street-car. After the most thrilling and exciting dayof my life, Father and I took a train back to Ravenwood, Missouri. Arriving there at twoo'clock in the morning, we had to walk four miles home to the farm. And here is thepoint of the story: I was so exhausted that I slept and dreamed as I walked. I have oftenslept while riding horseback. And I am alive to tell it!When men are completely exhausted they sleep right through the thunder and horrorand danger of war. Dr. Foster Kennedy, the famous neurologist, tells me that during theretreat of the Fifth British Army in 1918, he saw soldiers so exhausted that they fell onthe ground where they were and fell into a sleep as sound as a coma. They didn't evenwake up when he raised their eyelids with his fingers. And he says he noticed thatinvariably the pupils of the eyes were rolled upward in the sockets. "After that," says Dr.Kennedy, "when I had trouble sleeping, I would practice rolling up my eyeballs into thisposition, and I found that in a few seconds I would begin to yawn and feel sleepy. It wasan automatic reflex over which I had no control."No man ever committed suicide by refusing to sleep and no one ever will. Nature wouldforce a man to sleep in spite of all his will power. Nature will let us go without food orwater far longer than she will let us go without sleep.Speaking of suicide reminds me of a case that Dr. Henry C. Link describes in his book,The Rediscovery of Man. Dr. Link is vice-president of The Psychological Corporation andhe interviews many people who are worried and depressed. In his chapter "OnOvercoming Fears and Worries", he tells about a patient who wanted to commit suicide.Dr. Link knew arguing would only make the matter worse, so he said to this man: "If youare going to commit suicide anyway, you might at least do it in a heroic fashion. Runaround the block until you drop dead."He tried it, not once but several times, and each time felt better, in his mind if not inhis muscles. By the third night he had achieved what Dr. Link intended in the first placehewas so physically tired (and physically relaxed) that he slept like a log. Later hejoined an athletic club and began to compete in competitive sports. Soon he was feelingso good he wanted to live for ever!So, to keep from worrying about insomnia, here are five rules:1. If yon can't sleep, do what Samuel Untermyer did. Get up and work or read until youdo feel sleepy.2. Remember that no one was ever killed by lack of sleep. Worrying about insomniausually causes far more damage than sleeplessness.3. Try prayer-or repeat Psalm XXIII, as Jeanette MacDonald does.4. Relax your body. Read the book "Release from Nervous Tension."5. Exercise. Get yourself so physically tired you can't stay awake.~~~~Part Seven In A Nutshell -Six Ways To Prevent Fatigue And Worry And Keep Your EnergyAnd Spirits HighRULE 1: Rest before you get tired. RULE 2: Learn to relax at your work.RULE 3: If you are a housewife, protect your health and appearance by relaxing at homeRULE 4: Apply these four good working habitsa. Clear your desk of all papers except those relating to the immediate problem athand.b. Do things in the order of their importance.c. When you face a problem, solve it then and there if you have the facts necessary tomake a decision.d. Learn to organise, deputise, and supervise.RULE 5: To prevent worry and fatigue, put enthusiasm into your work.RULE 6: Remember, no one was ever killed by lack of sleep. It is worrying aboutinsomnia that does the damage-not the insomniaPart Eight -How To Find The Kind Of Work In Which You May Be Happy And SuccessfulChapter 29: The Major Decision Of Tour Life(This chapter is addressed to young men and women who haven't yet found the workthey want to do. If you are in that category, reading this chapter may have a profoundeffect upon the remainder of your life.)If you are under eighteen, you will probably soon be called upon to make the two mostimportant decisions of your life-decisions that will profoundly alter all the days of youryears: decisions that may have far-reaching effects upon your happiness, your income,your health; decisions that may make or break you.What are these two tremendous decisions?First: How are you going to make a living? Are you going to be a farmer, a mail carrier, achemist, a forest ranger, a stenographer, a horse dealer, a college professor, or are yougoing to run a hamburger stand ?Second: Whom are you going to select to be the father or mother of your children?Both of those great decisions are frequently gambles. "Every boy," says Harry EmersonFosdick in his book, The Power to See It Through, "every boy is a gambler when hechooses a vocation. He must stake his life on it."How can you reduce the gamble in selecting a vocation? Read on; we will tell you asbest we can. First, try, if possible, to find work that you enjoy. I once asked David M.Goodrich, Chairman of the Board, B. F. Goodrich Company-tyre manufacturers-what heconsidered the first requisite of success in business, and he replied: "Having a good timeat your work. If you enjoy what you are doing," he said, "you may work long hours, but itwon't seem like work at all. It will seem like play."Edison was a good example of that. Edison-the unschooled newsboy who grew up totransform the industrial life of America-Edison, the man who often ate and slept in hislaboratory and toiled there for eighteen hours a day. But it wasn't toil to him. "I neverdid a day's work in my life," he exclaimed. "It was all fun."No wonder he succeeded!I once heard Charles Schwab say much the same thing. He said: "A man can succeed atalmost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm."But how can you have enthusiasm for a job when you haven't the foggiest idea of whatyou want to do? "The greatest tragedy I know of," said Mrs. Edna Kerr, who once hiredthousands of employees for the Dupont Company, and is now assistant director ofindustrial relations for the American Home Products Company-"The greatest tragedy Iknow of," she told me, "is that so many young people never discover what they reallywant to do. I think no one else is so much to be pitied as the person who gets nothing atall out of his work but his pay." Mrs. Kerr reports that even college graduates come toher and say: "I have a B.A. degree from Dartmouth [or an M.A. from Cornell]. Have yousome kind of work I can do for your firm?" They don't know themselves what they areable to do, or even what they would like to do. Is it any wonder that so many men andwomen who start out in life with competent minds and rosy dreams end up at forty inutter frustration and even with a nervous breakdown? In fact, finding the rightoccupation is important even for your health. When Dr. Raymond Pearl, of JohnsHopkins, made a study, together with some insurance companies, to discover the factorsthat make for a long life, he placed "the right occupation" high on the list. He mighthave said, with Thomas Carlyle: "Blessed is the man who has found his work. Let him askno other blessedness."I recently spent an evening with Paul W. Boynton, employment supervisor for theSocony-Vacuum Oil Company. During the last twenty years he has interviewed more thanseventy-five thousand people looking for jobs, and he has written a book entitled 6Ways to Get a Job. I asked him: "What is the greatest mistake young people make todayin looking for work?" "They don't know what they want to do," he said. "It is perfectlyappalling to realise that a man will give more thought to buying a suit of clothes thatwill wear out in a few years than he will give to choosing the career on which his wholefuture depends-on which his whole future happiness and peace of mind are based!"And so what? What can you do about it? You can take advantage of a new professioncalled vocational guidance. It may help you-or harm you-depending on the ability andcharacter of the counselor you consult. This new profession isn't even within gunshot ofperfection yet. It hasn't even reached the Model T stage. But it has a great future. Howcan you make use of this science? By finding out where, in your community, you can getvocational tests and vocational advice.Such advice can only take the form of suggestions. You have to make the decisions.Remember that these counselors are far from infallible. They don't always agree withone another. They sometimes make ridiculous mistakes. For example, a vocationalguidancecounselor advised one of my students to become a writer solely because shehad a large vocabulary. How absurd! It isn't as simple as that. Good writing is the kindthat transfers your thoughts and emotions to the reader-and to do that, you don't needa large vocabulary, but you do need ideas, experience, convictions, examples andexcitement. The vocational counselor who advised this girl with a large vocabulary tobecome an author succeeded in doing only one thing: he turned an erstwhile happystenographer into a frustrated, would-be novelist.The point I am trying to make is that vocational-guidance experts, even as you and I,are not infallible. Perhaps you had better consult several of them-and then interprettheir findings in the sunlight of common sense.You may think it strange that I am including a chapter like this in a book devoted toworry. But it isn't strange at all, when you understand how many of our worries, regrets,and frustrations are spawned by work we despise. Ask your father about it-or yourneighbour or your boss. No less an intellectual giant than John Stuart Mill declared thatindustrial misfits are "among the heaviest losses of society". Yes, and among theunhappiest people on this earth are those same "industrial misfits" who hate their dailywork!Do you know the kind of man who "cracked up" in the Army? The man who wasmisplaced! I'm not talking about battle casualties, but about the men who cracked up inordinary service. Dr. William Menninger, one of our greatest living psychiatrists, was incharge of the Army's neuro-psychiatric division during the war, and he says: "We learnedmuch in the Army as to the importance of selection and of placement, of putting theright man in the right job. ... A conviction of the importance of the job at hand wasextremely important. Where a man had no interest, where he felt he was misplaced,where he thought he was not appreciated, where he believed his talents were beingmisused, invariably we found a potential if not an actual psychiatric casualty."Yes-and for the same reasons, a man may "crack up" in industry. If he despises hisbusiness, he can crack it up, too.Take, for example, the case of Phil Johnson. Phil Johnson's father owned a laundry, sohe gave his son a job, hoping the boy would work into the business. But Phil hated thelaundry, so he dawdled, loafed, did what he had to do and not a lick more. Some dayshe was "absent". His father was so hurt to think he had a shiftless, ambitionless son thathe was actually ashamed before his employees.One day Phil Johnson told his father he wanted to be a mechanic-work in a machineshop. What? Go back to overalls? The old man was shocked. But Phil had his way. Heworked in greasy dungarees. He did much harder work than was required at the laundry.He worked longer hours, and he whistled at his job! He took up engineering, learnedabout engines, puttered with machines-and when Philip Johnson died, in 1944, he waspresident of the Boeing Aircraft Company, and was making the Flying Fortresses thathelped to win the war! If he had stuck with the laundry, what would have happened tohim and the laundry-especially after his father's death? My guess is he would have ruinedthe business-cracked it up and run it into the ground.Even at the risk of starting family rows, I would like to say to young people: Don't feelcompelled to enter a business or trade just because your family wants you to do it!Don't enter a career unless you want to do it! However, consider carefully the advice ofyour parents. They have probably lived twice as long as you have. They have gained thekind of wisdom that comes only from much experience and the passing of many years.But, in the last analysis, you are the one who has to make the final decision. You arethe one who is going to be either happy or miserable at your work.Now, having said this, let me give you the following suggestions-some of them warningsaboutchoosing your work:1. Read and study the following five suggestions about selecting a vocational-guidancecounselor. These suggestions are right from the horse's mouth. They were made by oneof America's leading vocational-guidance experts, Professor Harry Dexter Kitson ofColumbia University.a. "Don't go to anyone who tells you that he has a magic system that will indicate your'vocational aptitude'. In this group are phrenologists, astrologers, 'character analysts',handwriting experts. Their 'systems' do not work."b. "Don't go to anyone who tells you that he can give you a test that will indicate whatoccupation you should choose. Such a person violates the principle that a vocationalcounselor must take into account the physical, social, and economic conditionssurrounding the counselee; and he should render his service in the light of theoccupational opportunities open to the counselee."c. "Seek a vocational counselor who has an adequate library of information aboutoccupations and uses it in the counseling process."d. "A thorough vocational-guidance service generally requires more than one interview."e. "Never accept vocational guidance by mail."2. Keep out of business and professions that are already jam-packed and overflowing!There are many thousands of different ways of making a living. But do young peopleknow this? Not unless they hire a swami to gaze into a crystal ball. The result? In oneschool, two-thirds of the boys confined their choices to five occupations-five out oftwenty thousand-and four-fifths of the girls did the same. Small wonder that a fewbusiness and professions are overcrowded-small wonder that insecurity, worry, and"anxiety neuroses" are rampant at times among the white-collar fraternity I Beware oftrying to elbow your way into such overcrowded fields as law, journalism, radio, motionpictures, and the "glamour occupations".3. Stay out of activities where the chances are only one out of ten of your being able tomake a living. As an example, take selling life insurance. Each year countless thousandsof men-frequently unemployed men-start out trying to sell life insurance withoutbothering to find out in advance what is likely to happen to them! Here is approximatelywhat does happen, according to Franklin L. Bettger, Real Estate Trust Building,Philadelphia. For twenty years Mr. Bettger was one of the outstandingly successfulinsurance salesmen in America. He declares that ninety per cent of the men who startselling life insurance get so heartsick and discouraged that they give it up within a year.Out of the ten who remain, one man will sell ninety per cent of the insurance sold bythe group of ten; and the other nine will sell only ten per cent. To put it another way: ifyou start selling life insurance, the chances are nine to one that you will fail and quitwithin twelve months, and the chances are only one in a hundred that you will make tenthousand a year out of it. Even if you remain at it, the chances are only one out of tenthat you will be able to do anything more than barely scratch out a living.4. Spend weeks-even months, if necessary-finding out all you can about an occupationbefore deciding to devote your life to it! How? By interviewing men and women whohave already spent ten, twenty, or forty years in that occupation.These interviews may have a profound effect on your future. I know that from my ownexperience. When I was in my early twenties, I sought the vocational advice of twoolder men. As I look back now, I can see that those two interviews were turning pointsin my career. In fact, it would be difficult for me even to imagine what my life wouldhave been like had I not had those two interviews.How can you get these vocational-guidance interviews? To illustrate, let's suppose thatyou are thinking about studying to be an architect. Before you make your decision, youought to spend weeks interviewing the architects in your city and in adjoining cities.You can get their names and addresses out of a classified telephone directory. You cancall at their offices either with or without an appointment. If you wish to make anappointment, write them something like this:Won't you please do me a little favour? I want your advice. I am eighteen years old, andI am thinking about studying to be an architect. Before I make up my mind, I would liketo ask your advice.If you are too busy to see me at your office, I would be most grateful if you would grantme the privilege of seeing you for half an hour at your home.Here is a list of questions I would like to ask you:a. If you had your life to live over, would you become an architect again?b. After you have sized me up, I want to ask you whether you think I have what it takesto succeed as an architect.c. Is the profession of architecture overcrowded?d. If I studied architecture for four years, would it be difficult for me to get a job? Whatkind of job would I have to take at first?e. If I had average ability, how much could I hope to earn during the first five years?f. What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an architect?g. If I were your son, would you advise me to become an architect?If you are timid, and hesitate to face a "big shot" alone, here are two suggestions thatwill help.