ENJOYING NOT SLEEPING.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17633, 9 December 1922, Page 2

ENJOYING NOT SLEEPING.

(By a Physician.)

No idea is more firmly rooted in the average person's mind than that insomnia is fraught with the most disastrous effects. For this reason most of us are afraid of lying awake, and this very dread makes the habit of sleep one which is iomparatively easily lost. Once lost, it is difficult to regain. Much of this dread is due to the fact that we do not sufficiently differentiate between deprivation of sleep and contracting the habit of sleeplessness. Deprivation of sleep due to physica" pain, toxoemias, or infections, or the necessity for staying on duty, causes great exhaustion. But in such cases sleep usually comes before the danger is reached. Another way in which we may be deprived of our sleep is by activity oi he mind, as when we lie awake planling the solution of some problem far uto the night. Real constructive thinking undoubt jdly causes a certain amount of bodil.i avtigue, but old non-constructive .noughts which run through the mind tt will—worries over health, business tad sorrows—consume but little energy. The fagged-out feeling which follows on a sleepless night is due not so much to the loss of sleep as to the .vorrying and tossing about —in other, words, the emotional disturbance. If the patient can avoid feeling sorry for himself and keep his body still and relaxed, the elimination of fatigue products and repair of tissues will go on almost as well as during sleep. Most patients who suffer from ner vous insomnia are subconsciously enjoying their sleeplessness. Somehow, in ways unknown to the conscious mind, it brings pleasure to a part of their personality, and this in spite of the fact that their conscious desire for sleep is quite gmuine. Many of them are intensely interested in their insomnia and count the exact number of hours they lie awake. Once they cease to focus their attention on sleep the insomnia goes away. It has been said, "Don't look for sleep; it flies away like a pigeon when one pursues it." When folk cease to care whether they sleep or not,