Hours of Sleep.

Otago Witness, Issue 2660, 8 March 1905, Page 76

Hours of Sleep.

As to the length of time that adnlt9 should spend in sleep, a writer in T.P.s Weekly remarks : — Air H. G. Wells, in his thoughtful book %< The War of the Worlds." holds out to us as an object of desire the capacity of his well-imagined Martian race of doing without sleep, znd thus, as he puta it, of dome: 24- hours of work in 24 hours. As the faculty is purchased in their case at the price of dispensing with a stomach, and! therefore with moods and emotions, and of becoming, like tadpole's, all head, it does not seem, on consideration, so very desirable. Mr Wells' s suggestion that sleep is dispensed with by ants is negatived by the researches of M. Pictet. but it is, perhaps, his millennial vision that has led to the formation in America" of a club which pledges its members not to sleep more than four hours a night all told. As individual needs in all cases differ, this is about as sensible as if every member should agree to wear boots only lOin long; but there can be little doubt that excessive sleep has an injurious effect on the organism. The muscular strength is less on waking than that before sleep — as can be proved by the measuring instrument ca-lled the dynamometer, — and does not fully recover for two or three hours. Hence, too much sleep in time leads to the permanent impairment of the muscles, and, no doubt, of the other vascular tissues as well. Luckily this supplies us w ith an easy method of finding out whether w-e sleep too long. If, on waking-, the eyelids of a healthy person not exposed to accidents like excessive eye-strain, bad! air, or constanr cigarette smoke remain for some time swollen and red, he may be sura that ho would do better with less of the "balmy sleep " which is, in moderation, "Nature's sweet restorer."