TOO MUCH SLEEP?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19965, 6 December 1926, Page 6

TOO MUCH SLEEP?

EFFECT ON GENERAL HEALTH. THE MIDNIGHT REVELLER. A VICTIM OF INSOMNIA. A man of 60 has spent about 20 years in bed. It seems a lot. It seems a great waste' of time. A man of the same age has spent over three years in eating. It seems a lot. It seems like greediness. But we need not be alarmed at these figures, writes Arnold Bennett, the famous novelist. I doubt if they really indicate either sloth or greed. And as regards bed, the answer to all lamentations is that if the man had not spent the time in bed he would probably have spent it in some activity far more reprehensible. There are, I believe, idlers on earth, but they are not relatively numerous. Leaving them out of count, I should say that people take the amount of sleep they instinctively need—if they can get it: which they often can’t. I do not deny that large numbers of

persons could maintain health upon a smaller quantity of sleep than they permit themselves. Some of the most ardent workers—such as Milton and Newton—contrived to exist richly on four hours’ sleep in 24; though on the , other hand some of the most ardent Workers have been terrific sleepers. As a rule, if a man strongly wishes to accomplish big things he will cut down his sleep. But the majority of us do not want to accomplish big things. We want an average quiet and secure life, and 1 do not see how we can be blamed not wanting more than this. If we were all strivers, the general | pace of individual competition would 1 merely be quickened, and mankind as a whole would be in the same case as nations who persistently arm against one another, and who are no safer when they expend a million a day on defence than when they spent a million a year, to the same end. What is the point of depriving oneself of agreeable and innocuous repose if one has no overmastering desire to utilise the saved hours in a particular way? A man might rise at 6 instead of 8, only to find that he did nothing but [ kill time. This, indeed, has often hapj pened. It is better to sleep than to commit murder. You may argue from my remarks that I am encouraging sloth. Not at all. I am simply trying to look facts in the face and not to talk nonsense. I admit the task is not easy. In my view the blameworthy persons at the present day are the large and apparently increasing class who never want to go to bed and never want to get up. The night-life oi large cities strikes me as being in the main infantile, futile, silly, a.d very harmful. It deranges the existence not only of the revellers themselves, but of the people whose lives are inevitably bound up with theirs. I object to being awakened at 2 a.m. by the automobiles of late returners. Nor have 1 ever been able to comprehend how it is more amusing, more romantic, and more stylish to do at a very late hour what one can do just as well—and better—at an early hour. In a tropical climate, well supplied with moons, gardens, lakes, and sweet odours, I should perhaps see some sense and advantage in dancing and dallying till dawn was annnounced; but I see neither in perspiring and dashing around in hot unventilated, moonless, dry rooms with ladies nearly as exhausted as myself, when I might be in bed. And if I practise this folly, a., on rare occasions I do, my judgment of myself and the next day (which, of course, is a wasted day) is even more severe than during the actual performance. My belief is that revelling (as it is miscalled) is partly responsible for the typically modern malady of insomnia. Insomnia is rife among us, and should be taken seriously. It is not, however, as rife as some of us thing it is. By which I mean that bad sleepers are generally not as bad as they imagine. To be quite sui’e whether one has been asleep or awake is very difficult! Of course, if sleepless, one arises from one’s bed, reads, smokes, has a bath, or dresses and goes out for a walk, there is a reasonable probability

that one has been genuinely awake. But so long as one stays in bed and in the dark, certainty on the point is generally impossible. Even with a radium-lighted dial by one’s bedside the difficulty oi honestly deciding how long one has been awake in the course of a whole night is extreme; and in the morning not one pers&n in a hundred is capable of recalling accurately the times of, waking and of ‘going off” again. Those martyrs who arrive downstairs to breakfast with the information that they ‘‘have not closed their eyes all night’ are obviously liars, for nobody who desired and required sleep could conceivably be such an idiot as not to close his eyes—an act which is the first and indispensable preliminary to slumber. And in general insomniacs are as untruthful, unconsciously or consciously, as fishermen and gamblers. The truth is that insomniacs are proud of their infirmity, and exaggerate it accordingly. They morbidly rejoice to sigh: "Ah, lucky people, you sleepers! While you slept X, with my high-strung nervous temperament, counted the wakeful minutes hour after hour. I am a wreck of ray sensitiveness ; but see how nobly I bear up against misfortune.’’ The insomniac who is not positively convinced of the truth of his narrations can bo tested. Say to hi. : “Did you hear that noise in the house ?” “What noise?” he asks. You say: “Ah! Did you hear a noise, very loud,” He will reply that he head noises, but no special noise. You say: ‘Well, the tyre of a car went oft with a terrific report about 4 o’clock, and the people in the car were hammering and knocking for quite half an hour nnuer the windows.” The truth is not in you, but no matter. You have put the insomniac in a quandry. He is bound to admit. - “Keally 1 Well, 1 must have di-opped off just then.” And, however sure of himself he was before, his confidence will be undermined, showing that he was not in fact absolutely sure of nis sleeplessness. Withal, there are multitudinous cases of insomnia, and though they may be overdrawn, they have a core of fact. Insomnia may be the result of any of three chief causes. The first is worry. This form of insomnia is transient and not pathologically serious. the fit will pass. Either the worry will end or the sufferer will become acci. tom 1 to it, or he will learn to control his mind. _ The second cause is nervous excitement, joyous or the reverse. This form is transcient and not pathologically serious; and it is more easily curable than the fir«t f turally the cure is to avoid evenin' excitations and to go early to bed. The third cause is physical, and has to do with the state of the organs of the body, and the insomnia resulting from it is usually chronic; it may persist : years together. As to this third cause, I have made extensive and minute inquiries from the medical and allied professions and from the laity; and my conclusion has been that, generally sneaking, the origin of the trouble is secondary, or intestinal, indigestion. Hence I attach little imnortance to the current “cures.” for insomnia, if only • for the reason that they deal merely with svmutoms. You mnv count sheen or football fans going through a gate. You may attempt to empty your mind as you would empty a sack and think of nothing. You may remember your blessings or your sins and sometimes go to sleep not finding any. You may dwell on your ill-luck and your grievances and sometimes go to sleep suffocated under the mass and weight f them. You may take ! a drug (if -our doctor will give you a ; prescription for one) and go to sleep with certainty. And what kind of sleep! Bui ! none of these devices is a cure for chronic insomnia, and at least one will bring about | an intensification of the malady. i . For indigestion will yield to neither i mathematical calculations nor to pro , longed and morbid contemplations nor to i the intoxications of a drug. If the in- i digestion is slight it may often be cor- I rected bv netting un and verv conscien- I tiously performing a set of physical exer ; cises—such as we are all now familiar with—the aim of which is to re-establish the right circulation of the blood, and therefore the harmonious functioning of the entire body. Even if the indigestion is severe this oneration will usually induce some sleep, without doing the ; slightest harm. But, of course, if the condition is acute it must be treated thor oughly. and since through treatment means slow treatment, the insomnia is nnl likely to disappear by magic. When the malady is of old standing, as it often is, or when it has developed gradually, as it often has. then the cure will assuredly and of necessity have similar characters- i ties, •

t Magic—there is none! Quackery is for 3 simpletons, and even simpletons sec jr through it in a very little while. To keep j healthy when you are well is an affair 1 demanding eternal vigilance and self-con--3 trol. To attain health when you are un--8 well through persistent neglect or wrong--3 headedness is just as difficult as to attain righteousness. And this axiom arm!'eg with peculiar force to the class of malady to which insomnia belongs—the class which one’s friends are inclined to jeer at and 3 which even the sufferer is inclined not to ' take seriously, 3 i in. 1