Your Waking Life
Why am I writing a on preventing fatigue in a book onpreventing worry？ That is simple： because fatigue often producesworry， or， at least， it makes you susceptible to worry. Any medicalstudent will tell you that fatigue lowers physical resistance to thecommon cold and hundreds of other diseases and any psychiatristwill tell you that fatigue also lowers your resistance to the emotionsof fear and worry. So preventing fatigue tends to prevent worry.
Did I say “tends to prevent worry”？ That is putting it mildly.
Dr. Edmund Jacobson goes much further. Dr. Jacobson haswritten two books on relaxation： Progressive Relaxation andYou Must Relax； and as director of the University of ChicagoLaboratory for Clinical Physiology， he has spent years conductinginvestigations in using relaxation as a method in medical practice.
He declares that any nervous or emotional state “fails to existin the presence of complete relaxation”. That is another way ofsaying： You cannot continue to worry if you relax.
So， to prevent fatigue and worry， the first rule is： Rest often.
Rest before you get tired.
Why is that so important？ Because fatigue accumulates withastonishing rapidity. The United States Army has discovered byrepeated tests that even young men—men toughened by years ofArmy trainingcan march better， and hold up longer， if they throwdown their packs and rest ten minutes out of every hour. So theArmy forces them to do just that. Your heart is just as smart as the U.S. Army. Your heart pumps enough blood through your bodyevery day to fill a railway tank car. It exerts enough energy everytwenty-four hours to shovel twenty tons of coal on to a platformthree feet high. It does this incredible amount of work for fifty，seventy， or maybe ninety years. How can it stand it？ Dr. Walter B.
Cannon， of the Harvard Medical School， explains it. He says： “Mostpeople have the idea that the heart is working all the time. As amatter of fact， there is a definite rest period after each contraction.
When beating at a moderate rate of seventy pulses per minute， theheart is actually working only nine hours out of the twenty-four. Inthe aggregate its rest periods total a full fifteen hours per day.”
During World War II， Winston Churchill， in his late sixties andearly seventies， was able to work sixteen hours a day， year afteryear， directing the war efforts of the British Empire. A phenomenalrecord. His secret？ He worked in bed each morning until eleveno’clock， reading papers， dictating orders， making telephone calls，and holding important conferences. After lunch he went to bedonce more and slept for an hour. In the evening he went to bedonce more and slept for two hours before having dinner at eight.
He didn’t cure fatigue. He didn’t have to cure it. He prevented it.
Because he rested frequently， he was able to work on， fresh andfit， until long past midnight.
The original John D. Rockefeller made two extraordinaryrecords. He accumulated the greatest fortune the world had everseen up to that time and he also lived to be ninety-eight. How didhe do it？ The chief reason， of course， was because he had inheriteda tendency to live long. Another reason was his habit of taking ahalf-hour nap in his office every noon. He would lie down on hisoffice couch—and not even the President of the United States couldget John D. on the phone while he was having his snooze！
In his excellent book， Why Be Tired， Daniel W. Josselyn observes：
“Rest is not a matter of doing absolutely nothing. Rest is repair.”
There is so much repair power in a short period of rest that evena five-minute nap will help to forestall fatigue！ Connie Mack，the grand old man of baseball， told me that if he doesn’t take anafternoon nap before a game， he is all tuckered out at around thefifth inning. But if he does go to sleep， if for only five minutes， hecan last throughout an entire double-header without feeling tired.
When I asked Eleanor Roosevelt how she was able to carrysuch an exhausting schedule during the twelve years she was inthe White House， she said that before meeting a crowd or makinga speech， she would often sit in a chair or davenport， close hereyes， and relax for twenty minutes.