DO PEOPLE SLEEP TOO LONG.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3141, 30 October 1922, Page 2

DO PEOPLE SLEEP TOO LONG.

(By a Doctor.) Patients sometimes come to me and ask how many hours' sleep they ought to have each night. Some "complain" of an inability to sleep after eight in the morning when they have gone to bed at ten the previous night, while others find they are unable to sleep for more than six hours, but think they ought to sleep longer in spite of the fact that they wake Up feeling quite fresh. This problem of sleep is one of the most vexed questions which our doctors have to solve. Sleep causes the whole energy of the bodv to be renewed. Best i« essential for'the nervoUfl system, which has to relax after a spell of activity to be acis necessary for the system to be active after a spell of inactivity. The brain must have rest, and even the heart goes through a certain form of relation between the heart beats. These facts must be borne in mind when one is asked to say if people sleep too much or too little. But at the same time one must also recollect that sleep is entirely a question of habit. We sleep at night, not because it is dark, but because we have been brought up to do so. ..When we were children we were put to bed when night was falling, and so Ave grew accustomed to sleeping at night. Habit therefore plays an extremely important part in the sleep problem. A man who has been accustomed to sleep for ten hours every night will feel desperately fatigued if he is unable to obtain more than eight, while this same period of eight hours is quite sufficient for a man who is not accustomed to sleep longer. T, however, believe that many persons sleep too much. We hear continually of great men whoi practically ignored sleep. Herschel. the astronomer, for instance, used to work some times' all night long at his task of reviewing the stars. Dr Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was an ardent champion of wakefulness, and seldom slept for more than four hours at night. Napoleon could do with practically no deep, and there are countless other instances of great men who used the night for work and scorned 1 to waste so many hours in unconsciousness. The old saying that seven hours' sleep is enough for a man is a very sound one. If a man goes to bed at eleven he can do himself no harm by waking at six the next morning. He then has three clear hours for breakfast and study before going to the office. How many men sleep on till eight? Hundreds. Women need eight hours' sleep at least. Their nervous system is on the average more sensitive than a man's, and so needs more rest. Children should sleep as. lone as possible. The end of the old Saying —that ten hours' "sleep is for a fool —is perfectly right. No man who is in good health need tako ten hours' sleep. He is foolish to do so. In these wasted hours he might reduce his golf handicap, learn to play the piano, or even read the {wets, * who, being persons with no regular hours, extolled the virtues of sleep far into the night.