Chapter 11 Worry is the enemy of health

Worry is like a drop of water that is constantly dripping down, and the continuous dripping process often stirs up people's inner turmoil, drives people crazy, and even commits suicide. One night many years ago, a neighbor rang my doorbell and told me and my family to vaccinate against smallpox.He is one of thousands of volunteers throughout New York City.Many people were horrified when they learned of this, and went to stand in long lines for hours, waiting to be vaccinated.Almost all hospitals, fire brigades, and large factories have vaccination stations, and about 2,000 doctors and nurses are working day and night to vaccinate people.Why is it so lively?This is because 8 out of 8 million people in New York City got smallpox, and 2 of them died—that is, 2 out of 8 million people in New York died from smallpox.

I've lived in New York City for 37 years, and I haven't had a single person ring my doorbell to warn me of mental depression.However, the damage caused by this disease in the past 37 years is at least 10,000 times greater than that of smallpox. Nobody ever rings my doorbell and warns me that one in 10 people living in this world is going to have a mental breakdown, and most of these breakdowns are caused by worry and emotional conflict .So, writing this chapter now is equivalent to ringing your doorbell and warning you. Dr. Ulysses Currier, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, said: "Businessmen who don't know how to resist worry will pay the price of a short life." In fact, not only businessmen, but even housewives, Veterinarians and masons are no exception.

Several years ago, while on vacation, I drove through Texas and New Mexico with Dr. Gerber.Dr. Gerber was the medical director of the Santa Fe Railroad at the time, and his formal title was attending physician at the Gulf-Colorado-Santa Fe Union Hospital.When we were talking about the effect of worry on people, he said: "70% of the people who come to the doctor will get better if they can eliminate their fear and worry. Think sick. Their sickness is like you have a tooth decay, sometimes a hundred times worse. The sickness is like nervous dyspepsia, certain stomach ulcers, heart disease, insomnia, headaches, and Certain kinds of paralysis, etc., are equally severe."

Dr. Gober said: "The above diseases are all true, I am not talking nonsense, because I have had stomach ulcers for 12 years myself." "But these diseases are avoidable. Fear makes you worry, worry makes you tense, and it affects the nerves in your stomach, which makes the gastric juices in your stomach abnormal. And so you get gastric ulcers." Dr. Joseph Montan once wrote a book called "Nervous Stomach Trouble", which also expounds the same truth.He said: "Sometimes stomach ulcers are caused not by what you eat, but by worry." "Stomach ulcer symptoms usually flare up or go away depending on how emotionally stressful you are," says Dr. Alfarisu of the Mayo Clinic.

His theory was confirmed after a study of 15,000 patients with stomach problems at the Mayo Clinic.Studies have found that 4 out of every 5 people suffer from stomach problems not due to physiological reasons.Fear, worry, resentment, extreme selfishness, and inability to adapt to reality are the root causes of their stomach problems and stomach ulcers... stomach ulcers can kill you. I have written several times recently with Dr. Harold Harbein of the Mayo Clinic.In a paper he presented at the annual meeting of the National Association of Physicians in Industry, he said he studied 176 business executives with an average age of 44.3 years.He reported that more than one-third of the people suffered from one of the following three diseases-heart disease, peptic ulcers and high blood pressure-as a result of too much stress.Think about it, more than 1/3 of the people in charge of industry and commerce suffer from these diseases!And they are all under 45 years old, which shows what a high price to pay for success!

For that matter, they're not even trying to be successful, you know who with stomach ulcers and heart disease can be successful in their careers?What good is it to him personally if he gains the whole world if he loses his health?Even though he owns the whole world, he can only sleep in one bed at a time and only eat three meals a day.In this regard, even a person who digs a ditch can do this, and even sleeps more peacefully and eats more deliciously than a high-ranking company executive.I'd rather be a rented farmer in Alabama, entertaining myself with a banjo on my lap, than run a railroad before I'm 45, or a tobacco company to ruin their own health.

Speaking of cigarettes, one thing comes to mind.One of the world's most famous cigarette makers recently died of a heart attack while trying to relax in the Canadian woods.He personally owned several million dollars in property, but passed away at the age of 61.He exchanged his precious life for several years for the so-called "business success". In my opinion, the "cigarette king" with a multi-million dollar fortune is not half as successful as my father.My father was a farmer in Missouri who lived to the age of 89 despite being penniless. The famous Mayo brothers declared that more than half of the hospital beds are occupied by people with neurological diseases.But when their nerves were examined even with the most minute microscopes and the most modern scientific methods, most of them were found to be perfectly healthy.Their "nervous disease" is not because of any abnormality in the nerve itself, but because they show pessimism, irritability, anxiety, worry, fear, frustration, depression, etc. in their emotions.

Plato once said: "The biggest mistake doctors make is that they only treat the body of the patient, but not their mind. But the spirit and the body are one and cannot be treated separately." It took 2,300 years for the medical sciences to realize this truth.A branch of psychophysiological medicine that we have only just begun to develop deals with treating mental as well as physical ailments at the same time.Now is an opportune time to do this, as medicine has largely eradicated bacteria that cause diseases such as smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, and others that have killed millions of people Infectious diseases and other terrible diseases.However, medicine has been unable to treat mental and physical ailments that are not caused by germs but by emotional anxiety, fear, hatred, irritability, and despair.The catastrophes of this emotional disease are increasing and becoming more common with astonishing rapidity.

Doctors estimate that one in 20 Americans living today has suffered from a mental illness at some point in time.One in six young Americans enlisted during World War II was unable to serve because of insanity. What is the cause of these people's insanity?I'm afraid no one knows the exact answer.In most cases, however, it is most likely due to fear and worry.Most anxious and restless people have difficulty adapting to the real world, so that they are cut off from the people and the environment around them. He shrinks himself into his dream world to eliminate all his worries.As I was writing this chapter, I happened to have a book on my desk, The Elimination of Worry and Disease by Dr. Edward Podolski.The following are the titles of the chapters in this book:

1. The fatal effect of worry on the heart 2. Worry can lead to high blood pressure 3. Rheumatism may be caused by worry 4. To protect your stomach, please worry less 5. How Worry Can Give You a Cold 6. Worry and the Thyroid 7. Worried Diabetics Another good book on worrying is Finding Your Own Worry by Dr. Carl Minger.Dr. Mingle doesn't tell you how to avoid worry in this book, but he tells you some terrible truths, so that you can see how we hurt our body through emotions such as anxiety, irritability, hatred, regret, rebellion and fear. Physical and mental health. Worry can make even the hardiest of people sick.The famous General Grant discovered this in the last days of the American Civil War.The story goes like this:

Grant led the Union Army to besiege Richmond for nine months, and General Lee's disheveled and starving army was finally defeated.Once, several corps under General Li deserted.The rest prayed in their tents—crying and seeing visions.Seeing that the war was coming to an end, Lee's men set fire to Richmond's cotton and tobacco warehouses, set fire to the arsenal, and fled the city in the blazing night.Grant led the army to pursue the victory, attacking the southern allied forces from the left and right sides and the rear, and sent light cavalry to intercept from the front, demolished the railway line, and seized the vehicles transporting supplies to the southern allied forces. At this time, General Grant, who was half blind due to a severe headache, could not keep up with the team, so he had to stop in front of a farmhouse.He wrote in his memoirs: "I spent the night there, soaking my feet in cold water with mustard, and sticking mustard ointment on the wrists of both hands and the back of my neck, hoping to be fine the next morning. recovery." The next morning, he really recovered.But what made him recover was not some mustard ointment, but a cavalryman who brought back General Lee's letter of surrender. "When the sergeant came to me," Grant wrote, "I still had a terrible headache, but as soon as I read the contents of the letter, I soon recovered." Apparently, General Grant was sick with worry, nervousness, and emotional distress.Once he regained his emotional self-confidence and thought about his accomplishments and victories, he immediately got better. Seventy years later, President Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Moresault, found that worry made him dizzy.He wrote in his diary: In order to raise the price of wheat, President Roosevelt ordered to buy 4.4 million bushels of wheat in one day, which made him feel very worried.He said: "Before this matter came to nothing, I was dizzy. When I got home, I only slept for less than two hours after dinner." If we want to see what worry does to people, we don't need to go to a library or a hospital to find out.Just looking out the window of the house where we're sitting right now, we might be able to see, in a house on another street, a man with a nervous breakdown from worry; in another house, a man with diabetes from worry— As stocks fell, the sugar levels in his blood and urine rose. When the famous French philosopher Montan was elected as the mayor of his hometown, he said to the citizens: "I am willing to use my hands to deal with your affairs, but I don't want to take them to my liver and lungs. " But one of my neighbors insisted on getting the stock market in his blood, and it nearly killed him. If we want to remember what worry does to a person, we needn't look at our neighbor's house, but at the room in which we're sitting, whose previous occupant went to his grave because of excessive worry.Worry can put you in a wheelchair with rheumatism or arthritis.Dr. Russell Sigil of Cornell University School of Medicine is a world-renowned authority on the treatment of arthritis. He listed the following 4 conditions that are most likely to cause arthritis: 1. Marriage breakdown. 2. Financial misfortunes and difficulties. 3. Loneliness and anxiety. 4. Chronic anger. Of course, the above emotional conditions are not the only causes of arthritis.But the most "common causes" of arthritis are the points listed by Dr. Sikkiel. To give an example, a friend of mine suffered a great loss during the economic downturn.As a result, the gas company refused to supply him with gas, the bank confiscated his mortgaged house, and his wife suddenly suffered from arthritis-although after treatment and nutrition, his wife's arthritis did not go away until their economic conditions improved. get well. Worry can even give you tooth decay.Dr. William McGoniger once said in a speech of the National Dental Association: "Unpleasant emotions due to factors such as anxiety and fear may affect the calcium balance in a person's body, thus making the teeth prone to decay. Dr. McGoniger also mentioned that one of his patients had excellent teeth, but then his wife had some kind of sudden illness and he became concerned.Within 3 weeks of her being in the hospital, he suddenly had 9 cavities - all brought on by anxiety. Have you ever seen a person's thyroid overreact?I have seen it.I can tell you that they tremble, shudder, and look like they're terrified—and that's pretty much what they are.The function of the thyroid gland is to regulate the physiological balance. Once it is abnormal, the heartbeat will speed up, and the whole body will be excited like a big furnace with all the dampers open. If there is no operation or treatment, it is likely to die. Most likely "burn him dry". Not long ago, I traveled to Philadelphia with a friend who was suffering from this disease.We are going to visit Dr. Bram, a renowned specialist who has been treating this disease for 38 years.On the wall of his waiting room, hung a large wooden board with his advice to patients written on it.I copied this on the back of an envelope: What lifts you most is healthy faith, sleep, music, and laughter. — have faith in God, — learn to sleep soundly, — love good music, — look at life on the funny side, and health and happiness will be yours. The first question he asked my friend was, "What's wrong with you emotionally that caused you to be like this?" He warned my friend that if he continued to worry like this, he was likely to develop other complications, Heart disease, stomach ulcers, or diabetes, to name a few.The famous doctor said: "All these diseases are related to each other, and they are even close relatives." When I went to interview actress Manle Auburn, she told me that she would never worry, because worry would destroy her beauty—the main asset on the screen. She told me: "When I first started thinking about going into film, I was apprehensive and scared. Because I just came back from India and I didn't know anyone in London and I wanted to get a job there. I went to I found several studios, but no one would accept me. The little money I had was gradually used up, and for two weeks I could only live on biscuits and plain water. So at that time I Not only worried but also very hungry and I said to myself, 'Maybe you're a fool, maybe you'll never make it to the movies. At the end of the day, you have no experience and you've never acted. Except for a pretty face Besides, what else do you have?" "I looked in the mirror. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I suddenly realized the bad effect of worry on my appearance. I saw the wrinkles caused by worry, and I saw my anxious expression. So I said to myself Say, 'You must stop worrying now, no more. You can give others only your looks, and worrying will ruin it.'” Nothing ages a woman faster and ruins her looks more than worry.Worry can make us look bad, make our teeth clench, make wrinkles appear on our face, make us look sad all day long, make our hair gray, and even make our hair fall out.Worry can also make the skin on your face blotchy, sore and acne-prone. Heart disease is now the number one killer in the United States.During World War II, more than 300,000 people died on the battlefield, but at the same time, heart disease killed 2 million people, and 1 million of them were caused by worry and excessive stress. caused.It is also because of heart disease that Dr. Ulysses Corell said: "A businessman who does not know how to resist worry will pay the price of a short life." The Chinese and the Negroes in the American South seldom suffer from this worry-induced heart disease, because they act with composure.Doctors die of heart disease 20 times more than farmers.This result occurs because doctors lead very stressful lives. William James said: "God may forgive our sins, but our nervous system does not." Here is a startling and unbelievable fact: more people die by suicide each year than in any other common Infectious diseases kill more people. why?Most of the answers are "because of worry". In ancient times, when some cruel generals tortured their captives, they would tie them up and place them under a bag that dripped water constantly... dripping... day and night.In the end, the constant dripping of water on the head became like the sound of hammers knocking, which caused people to lose their minds.This method of torture has been used by the Inquisition in Spain and the concentration camps in Germany under Hitler. Worry is like a drop of water that keeps dripping down, and that worry that keeps dripping down often makes people lose their minds and commit suicide. When I was a country kid in Missouri, it would have terrified me to hear a preacher describe the fires of hell on Sundays, but he never mentioned the physical pain we suffer from worry.For example, if you worry for a long time, you will one day suffer from the most painful disease: angina. Once this attack occurs, it will make you scream in pain.Compared with your scream, Dante's "Inferno" sounds like "Dolls in the Land of Toys".At that point, you'll be saying to yourself, "Oh, God! Oh, God! If I ever get better, I'll never worry about anything—never." (If you think I said It is too exaggerated, then you might as well ask your family doctor.) do you love lifeDo you want to be healthy and live a long life?Here's how you can do it.I quote again Dr. Ulysses Corell: "Amidst the chaos of the modern city, only those who can maintain inner peace do not become neurotic." Can you maintain a sense of inner peace amidst the chaos of the modern city? If you're a normal human being, the answer should be "Yes. Absolutely." Most of us are actually a lot stronger than we think we are.We may possess many inner strengths that we have never discovered, as Thoreau wrote in his immortal masterpiece: "I know of nothing more inspiring than a man's ability to make up his mind to improve his life . . . if A person who works hard towards his ideal with full confidence and is determined to live the life he wants to live will surely achieve unexpected success.” I fully believe that many readers of this book have Olga Janney's willpower and inner strength.She lives in Idaho, and even in the most dire of circumstances, she finds that she can stop worrying.I firmly believe that you and I can do the same, if we apply some very old truths presented in this book. Here is the story written by Olga Janney: "Eight and a half years ago, the doctor announced that I would die soon, a slow and painful death from cancer. Even the most famous doctors in the country, the Mayo Brothers, confirmed this diagnosis. There is no cure for me, and death is very fast It will be upon me. But I am still young, and I do not want to die yet. In desperation, I called my doctor and told him the despair in my heart. He stopped me a little impatiently and said:' What's the matter, Olga? Don't you have the will to fight? If you keep crying like this, you're going to die. Yes, you've got the worst. Okay! Face it, don't worry, and then Think of a way.' At this moment, I made a vow, so determined that my nails dug into my flesh, and my back felt chills——I told myself: 'I won't worry anymore, I won't cry anymore, if there's anything I need to think about, it's that I must win! I must stay alive!' "In the absence of radium irradiation, I could only use X-rays for 10 minutes a day for 30 consecutive days. Although I was skinny, like a rock on the side of a desolate mountain, although my feet were heavy Like lead, I don't worry, and I don't cry once. I smile—yes, I do make myself smile. "I'm certainly not so stupid as to believe that just smiling can cure cancer. But I do believe that a happy state of mind helps the body fight the disease. In short, I have experienced a cancer cure firsthand. Over the past few years, I've never been as healthy as I am now, thanks to this challenging and combative line: 'Face the facts, stop worrying, and figure out what to do.'”