RECAPITULATORY

And found no end in wandering mazes lost.

_Paradise Lost_.





We have reviewed the various phases of worry and the elements out of which
worry is assembled. It has been seen that exaggerated self-consciousness
blocks effort through fear of criticism, ridicule or comment. The insistent
habit of mind in the worrier has been found to permeate the content of
thought, and unfavorably to influence action. The fact has been pointed
out that the obsession to do the right thing may be carried so far as to
produce querulous doubt and chronic indecision--hence worry.

It has been pointed out that over-anxiety on the score of health
(hypochondria) aggravates existing symptoms, and itself develops symptoms;
that these symptoms in turn increase the solicitude which gave them birth.
Attention has been called to the influence of over-anxious and fretful
days in precluding the restful state of mind that favors sleep, and to the
influence of the loss of sleep upon the anxieties of the following day; in
other words, worry prevents sleep, and inability to sleep adds to worry.

We have seen that doubts of fitness lead to unfitness, and that the worry
of such doubts, combined with futile regrets for the past and forebodings
for the future, hamper the mind which should be cleared for present action.