=Avoid the Rest-Cure.= It is a healthful sign that the rest-cure is fast going out of style.  Wherever it has helped a nervous patient, the real curative agent has been the personality of the doctor and the patient’s faith in him.  The whole theory was based on ignorance of the cause of nerves.  People suffering from “nervous exhaustion” are likely to be just as “tired” after a month in bed as they were before.  Why not?  Physical fatigue is quickly remedied, and what can rest do after that?  What possible effect can rest have on the fatigue of a discouraged instinct?  Since the best releaser of energy is enthusiasm, don’t try to get that by lying around in bed or playing checkers at a health resort.

SUMMARY

If you are chronically and perpetually fatigued, or if you tire more easily than the other people you know, consult a competent physician and let him look you over.  If he tells you that you have neither tuberculosis, heart trouble, Bright’s disease, nor any other demonstrable disease, that you are physically fit and “merely nervous,” give yourself a good shake and commit the following paragraphs to memory.

     A CATECHISM FOR THE WEARY ONE

     WHAT?

     Q. What is fatigue?

     A. It is a chemical condition resulting from effort that is very
     recent.

     Q. What else creates fatigue?

     A. Worry, fear, resentment, discontent, and other depressing
     emotions.

     Q. What magnifies fatigue?

     A. Attention to the feeling.

     Q. What makes us weary long after the cause is removed?

     A. Habit.

     WHY?

     Q. Why do many people believe themselves over-worked?

     A. Because of the power of suggestion.

     Q. Why do they take the suggestion?

     A. Because it serves their need and expresses their inner feelings.

     Q. Why are they willing to choose such an uncomfortable mode of
     expression?

     A. Because they don’t know what they are doing, and the
     subconscious is very insistent.

     WHO?

     Q. Who gets up tired every morning?

     A. The neurotic.

     Q. Who fancies his brain so exhausted that a little concentration
     is impossible?

     A. The neurotic.

     Q. Who still believes himself exhausted as the result of work that
     is now ancient history?

     A. The neurotic.

     Q. Who lays all his woes to overwork?

     A. The neurotic.

     Q. Who complains of fatigue before he has well begun?

     A. The neurotic.

     Q. Who may drop his fatigue as soon as he “gets the idea?”

     A. The neurotic.

     HOW?

     Q. How can he get the idea?