" Spectator" Conference for Personal Problems

Health—I.

(The SPECTATOR Conference offers to readers a service of advice on personal problems in which they would like impartial kelp. The Editor has appointed a committee, the members of • tvhielz are thernselve§ engaged...in the practical work of life; in One way or another they have met, and are meeting, a great variety of problems in their own experience: They do not wish to be regarded as authorities ; but they give their good will and their knowledge to all questions whichi are referred-'to them. Readers' inquiries are dealt with in strict confidence ; they are seen only by members of the Conference, and they are answered by private correspondence. Letters should be addressed to the Conference On Personal Problems, c/o the SPECTATOR, 13 York Street, Covent Garden, W.C. 2.]

Distress can make us ill. illness can reinforce our distress. When we try to grapple with the situations of life, and at the same time we are suffering from bodily exhaustion, fatigue, headaches or more serious maladies, we are apt to feel a double discouragement. If one problem were away, the other would be so much easier to handle. As it is, they add difficulty to difficulty.

The interaction of distress and disease is the gravest of all " vicious circles." There is probably no neurosis without a Corresponding bad condition of the body. It becomes more clear with all psychological research that there is no physical ailment which does not owe something to our mental condi- tion. Pain itself is psyehological. Experiments in hypnosis and suggestion show that sometimes, even in the most morbid physical conditions, pain can be absent. We need not ascribe the immediate cause of disease to the soul, but we can often prove that disease has been made more severe by the mood in which it has been met.

' Moreover, when an individual has become discouraged in facing the problems of his life, we can always trace a " flight into illness." Illness excuses him from further efforts. He can now produce a convincing reason for his failures. If he had been healthy, things would have been different ; but too much cannot be expected from a sick man. Euripides makes Medea, in despair at the blow which Jason has given to her prestige, " lie down, and take no food, and give her body over to her pains." This type of reaction is too frequent to need many examples. Everyone has encountered its in his own behaviour, in his temptations, or, at the least, in the behaviour of some of his acquaintances.

The ways in which a bad physical condition can be made more severe are multifarious : and, if they were quite con- scious, we might call them very cunning. Let me give two striking instances. People with inferior digestive tracts often become air-swallowers." The swallowing of air is presumably designed to relieve the bad condition. It acts in precisely the contrary way, keeping up a perpetual strain on the digestive organs and leaving them with no chance of recovery. An even plainer case can be taken from the comnion methods Of meeting insomnia. If we looked impar- tially at these methods, they would seem to us obviously deSigned to keep us awake. We keep changing our postures in bed. We exercise our minds by counting sheep. Some people woo sleep by getting out of bed and walking up and down the room. Others have even been known to make themselves cups of tea,' or to eat meals, during the course of the night.

Of course, these rituals may succeed from time to time. After we have kept ourselves awake sufficiently by going through the incidents of the day or by working out a few mathematical problems, we'may give ourselves license to drop off to sleep. If some insomniacs gave up their long-tested devices for keeping awake, they might be deeply puzzled what to do without them and stay sleepless still longer out of despair.' In all cases of nervous insomnia we should ask ourselves what reason the patient can have for wishing to feel tired the, next day. Fatigue can offer a very powerful justifi- cation for shelving difficulties or for demanding unusual consideration.

The approach to helping a -psychic condition from the physical side can rarely be made by dealing with a single

symptom. It is astonishing to realize how deeply body and soul are 'interwoven. The state of a man's health is a work which has taken him years of preparation. Innumerable activities have entered into it—the way he breathed, the food he ate, his bodily habits, his carriage and his postures, the emotions he has encouraged and those he has inhibited. AM these, and htindreds more, entered into the Greek concept of diaita. We haVe borrowed the word as our English diet, but we have sadly restricted it in meaning. The physician's real task is to deal with the whole " style of living"" of his patient ; all the ways in which he puts his organism to inappropriate uses or creates unnecessary strains.

The complexity of the problem may be seen by considering how useless most panaceas are for affecting the Whole " style of living." It is probably true that every bad condition of body or soul is accompanied by' mistakes of breathing. Deep breathing exercises may help to remedy these miStakea. They will not necessarily improve the whole conditkin. There are idiosyncrasies of eating or of feeling which *they Will leave untouched. A man may be suffering from lack of physical exercise. Provided the other miatakes of his style of Hiring- " are not corrected, he may just as easily over-exert himself as improve his heziltli by artificially conquering his inertia.

The problem would seem insoluble except for one fact. How insoluble it can seem we know from those people Who try a score of remedies—drugs, exercise, fasting, Chriatian Science, auto-suggestion, electric therapy—and find no improvement from any of them. The fact which helps Lis

towards a solution is this aggravating factors by which our "styles of living " can torment our' bodies have alwayi a common basis. We make the same nailadaptation in many different ways, and it is possible to find the correlation betWeen them. Relieve the central error and our organisms

adjust themselves into a better functioning. "

Health is an ideal : and perfect health is an ideal which no one can attain. There is ne absolute standard Of health. Every organism has its own limits of functioning, its own " normal " condition ; and it is the competence of the indi- vidual body, with its own limits and peculiaritieS, which we wish to procure. One correspondent wrote to tell us that he had becoine, after years of striving, " ninety-five per cent. healthy:" He told us nothing of his preVious condition; or of the ailinents froni Which he had suffered ; but he asked' us how he could acquire the missing five per cent. Of his' health. It was obvious that he had set himself a standard of absolute health, and was meanwhile neglecting his own personal and relative health—his best adaptation to his own individual organism.

The first rule of health is to recognize how far we are responsible for our own bodily condition. We should give some attention to our general " style of living " ; our breathing and eating, the emotional situations in which we place ourselves, the exercise we take, the times at which we sleep and wake, the rate at which we work, the habits of body we allow ourselves, our typical postures and gestures, our reactions to other people, our homes and how we manage them, how we arrange our leisure and what are our aims in life. In all of them we may find need for correction ; and the corrections we make will contribute to the general condition both_ of body and soul. .

The health at which we aim should be a health sufficient to allow us peace of mind, and the greatest possible chance to fulfil our value in the lives of our fellows. The search for absolute health may be disastrous. To some people germs are more terrible than dragons, and a headache or a cold is a persecution of the Devil. Until we can take an easier and more realistic view of health, we shall suffer from a sense of injury or despair at every small ailment. We shall be unable, moreover, to secure that appropriate health which is one of our greatest ,assets in life.

ALAN PORTER.

[The article in our next issue will continue the subject of Health and offer some practical suggestions.]