Why We Sufler From The Blues

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 720, 20 July 1929, Page 18

Why We Sufler From The Blues

w ,_ ‘ 11‘: "blues" whirh have «732‘ a been the inspimtiou for a, ‘6 many weary songs and ‘1 tr have helped to amass ‘ 4“ 1‘ song-writers’ fortunes, :he kg; 3.0 “ups and downs” and "down in the dumps" wlxivh all or us have felt many times when the world seems dreary and wrong. have at last been "seen" by the "psychological eye."

Likewise, the other extreme. our happiness. periods of high elation when all the world is sunshine. when we feel that we could conquer it with but one well—put. confident grasp, has been perceived by the surveying eye or a. psychiatrist. “'e generally lay our particular state to something that has happened «writes Geo. Beck. junr., in the San Francisco “Chronicle"). Ever since such and such a thing happened yesterday, everything has gone wrong, we say, or ever since such and such a. thing happened a. couple of days ago, 1 have been sitting on top ot the world. Rex B. Hersey, research associate of the University of Pennsylvania, has a dinerent and definite theory regarding our moods, or emotional changes. And this theory must arrest attention in View of the fact that it comes from a unique. thorough. comprehensive survey and study of seventeen "average" men, which continued night and day, practically, for a period of a year. . _

Like the swinging of a. pendulum, the rise and fall 0: the tide or the sun rising in the morning. soaring across the heavens and setting at night, in just such procedure and with such regularity are our moods visited upon us. according to Professor Hersey. And he sets forth the hypothesis that we do not merely have daily ups sud downs 0t mood. There occur also periodic changes in our average emotional states. springing possibly from corresponding changes in our I total organic capacity for integration

and response—cycles which extend over longer periods of time than merely from day to day. Our moods do not just come and go without a time-table, says Professor Hersey. Our emotions, he sets forth, like the sun when it rises, are calm and cool. at a. distance from our com sciousness; then they blaze forth close to us, just as the sun beams on high. giving us intense energy: then they subside again, like the setting sun at the close of day, leaving us restful, indifferent, lazy. This figuration is the day of our emotions, a cycle which may stretch over a. period of three weeks in some individuals, or to a period of nine weeks in others. Furthermore, he says. nothing that might happen to us will ofitset this cycle from its regular course. The most it varies is a. week. At least he found this to be the case in his study or the seventeen men. Setting forth the proposition that we do judge the world by the particular mood we are in. that our emotions are irrelatlve to external causes and that we react simply according to our emotional state. with the exception, of course, of severe shocks, Professor Hersey tells of his study. , 7

“The Pennsylvania Railroad invited me to make a study of the industrial behaviour, the extra-plant relationships, the inner thoughts, feelings and emotions of as many of their men as could be thoroughly studied. with a. view to determining the relation of those factors to the happiness and efficiency of the men at work. The study, it was agreed, to serve a. scientific purpose. should extend over a long period, a year, it the men would co—operate that long. “Alter thirteen weeks," Professor Hersey continued. “it seemed best to give the men a. little rest. If you go to a man early in the morning and ask him about everything that has transpired since you last saw him and then come around again about 11

o’clock to find if there is any change in his emotional state, and again about two o’clock, and later just before it is time to go home. that sort of. questioning has to be handled carefully if. the proper relationship between you is to be preserved. In other words, I did not want to become a nuisance. I wanted to observe them as much as possible and let them tell their story rather than always be asking questions. “The first question might be: Did those men tell the truth? I know they did. You cannot live with a person day in and day out and have him talk confidentially to you without his laying bare his true feeling and situation. particularly if one has any .skill in drawing him out." As the study continued and weeks passed, Professor Hersey made a graphic chart of each man’s individual emotions. Lines representing the men’s emotional trends throughout the weeks were drawn on the chart and as regularly, periodically, as the rising and falling of the tide the men’s moods were seen to rise and fall. “A study of the chart, man by man, showed that these periodic changes nearly always ran within one Week of the Worker's own average. In other words, if my cycle is five' weeks, I may have a six weeks’ cycle or a four weeks" cycle. If it is a seven weeks’ cycle. it may be at one time a six weeks’ cycle or an eight weeks’ cycle. But almost never, in spite of all buffets of misfortune, troubles at home, in spite of unusual success or great. pleasure, does this periodicity depart more than one week, either way, from its normal one. "That fact astounded me. I could not realise that here in this complex civilisation of ours, composed as it is of complex human beings. there could be a. sort of law and order moving as smoothly and certainly through all our tangled emotional lives. “I have studied myself and kept a chart of my own emotional trends, and my cycle is as regular as a. pendulum. “\Vhy does this cycle Occur? I am frank to admit that as yet I have not been able to detect thoroughly what is the cause. There seems to be some relationship existing between energyspending and energy-building mechanisms, involving metabolic activity, ductless-gland functioning and the autonomic nervous equilibrium.

I ““‘hat should we do about it? On ‘the one hand. we may feel that we should do everything to eliminate the icycle. lam afraid that such an ambition cannot be realised until the cause of the periodical changes is discovered at least. We must accept the fact of periodic changes as a fundamental law of our nature. If we do, we should then study ourselves and also those with whom We are in ‘constant contact. We should endeavour to foretell our own general changes and arrange both work and play to our best advantage. . . _

“Finally, the realisation, inherent in the cycle, that both blue and exultant moods often lie within us and are merely a passing phase of life, unjustified by external relationships. may remove the sting of our deepest depression and the arrogance of our most insolent elation.” 7 7 _V