FACTS ABOUT SLEEP

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 111, 3 February 1934, Page 15

FACTS ABOUT SLEEP

Scientific Investigation Scientists are now investigating sleep, says a writer in an American journal. They set wakeful watchers at the bedsides of slumbering subjects to find out how long and how quietly they rest. They have little machines which they attach to the bedsprings to record the slightest movement made by the sleeper. With a camera that records every change of position, they check up on people who claim they “sleep like a log” and those who say they “didn’t sleep a wink.” Some surprising facts about sleep have been brought out by these studies. The investigators tell us that people easily learn to sleep in a lighted room. They say that there is no such thing as an ideal sleeping posture. (Good news to one who loves to curl up!) They say that the healthiest sleepers are those who toss about and change position 40 or 50 times during a night’s rest. In this way each set of muscles is relaxed and every part of the body thoroughly rested in turn. Hence restlessness is not an indication of poor sleep. But there are conditions which cause you to wake up in the morning feeling cross and unrefreshed —such things as noise, heavy bed covers, a poor mattress, excessive warmth or cold.