WORRY KILLS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3990, 29 August 1929, Page 4

WORRY KILLS.

(By Dr. Frederick Graves)

“Worry kills more people every day and I am afraid there is no cure for it,” said a coroner at an inquest a day or two ago. “It is the easiest thing in the world to tell a person not to worry,” “but it is often the hardest thing in the world to obey the injunction.” That is true, for worry is one of the tilings none of us can hope entirely to avoid. But worry is a tardy relative, and worrying - depends so much on the temperament and outlook of a person. There are optimistic and cheerful souls to whom serious trouble seems easily borne and worries appear to glide over them like water from a duck’s back, while there are nervous people who make a trouble of every trivial thing. To fight, worry one must have within one’s nature and disposition the will to conquer. It is no use meeting troubles half way, there are always some more waiting round the corner that are unavoidable.

The train of physical evils that result from serious and continued worrying is almost endless. One broods and frets and lowers the system and its powers of resistance. Loss of vitality makes itself felt in every organ and the read ion is manifested in the nervous, digestive, and secretory systems, so that there is loss of appetite and sleep, wasting and debility, with increasing depr essio n. Prolonged and very great worry may mean flabby heart, fibrous liver and kidneys, with thickened arteries and premature senility. The peculiar depression of the sympathetic nerve ganglia means that the ductless glands are disorganised; this in its turn means less resistance, and a chronic condition of “the blues.” YVe are more likely to worry — apart from the temperamental and fretful worrying type —when we are run down, tired, or ill. But much unnecessary worrying - is the result of systematic poisoning from the toxins of food. Auto-intoxication, where the system becomes drugged by its own waste products, is one of the'great causes. Many a worrying person, to whom every pin-prick is a misery and every slight trouble a staggering blow, has been cured by laying his ease before a wise and sympathetic doctor, and having.his deranged internal apparatus put in order.

Unsuitable food, imperfect digestion, insufficient sleep or exercise or fresh air will often bring on troubles that seem hopeless. Eyestrain is sometimes at the bottom of a worrying - habit. Aud there are other physical defects that play their evil parts.

Sometimes it is a glandular deficiency —ail inactive or too active thyroid —and, although doctors for a long time looked very much askance at gland therapy, they have of late years had to recognise that it is a real thing, and not a. quack remedy. Administration of certain mixtures to glands of extracts will do astounding - things to a person sometimes, for wo know that our’ individual disposition depends very largely on tlie efficient working of these queen - endorine bodies, aud that on their actions our natures largely balance —whether we are heroes or cravens, sluggards, clods, or geniuses.

We may never be able to abolish trouble —perhaps life would not be worth anything if we could, since all appreciation, joy, ease, and so on depend on earthly contact. But the day may come when science will be able to abolish worrying and make us that we can endure with-a calm and philosophic stoicism whatever trials beset us.