PERILS OF EARLY RISING.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11248, 11 April 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

PERILS OF EARLY RISING.

EXPERT OPINION ON OBSOLETE THEORY. , Somebody will have to revive the ancient proverb that pearly to bed and early to rise makes a. man healtlvy, wealth'}', and wise." It does nothing of the sort. It makes him. insane. Dr Savary, the French scientist, said soi to the members of the French Academy, and Dr Forbes Ross, m an interview with an Express representative, upheld, the view of his- 'French colleague. According to him, - early rising makes for mental inefficiency, if we were allowed to go to. sleep and to wake up when we liked, nerve idlenesses and half the ailments m the world would be abolished. It is only a plougman or a yokel who has no brain work to-do who can rise early with impunity. But then, it is pointed out, he goes to bed at 8 m the evening. "People must have a healthy heart to rise early," said Dr Forbes Ross. "Many a person with a weak heart has jumped iip, awaking early, and fallen back dead. The theory that rising early is good for one comes from the same source as the theory that -whisky is the only thing on earth worth drinking. Few brain workers of any value get up early. One or two novelists boast that their best work is done m the early hours of the morning — but, then, they don't say how they rest for the remainder of the day. * \ . ; PRACTICAL EXAMPLE. "One of the eleyerest "men I know is an engineer, who helped to found the Manchester Ship Canal. He is 85 years old now, a brilliant man, with an active brain. If his wife had not insisted on his having his breakfast m bed every morning, he would have gnne mad with the strain of his work. If a. man wakes ■up and remains awake for some time j 'he should then get up. -But if he is awakened before his sleep is exhausted the tendency is to go to sleep again. And this shows that forced early rising is wrong. 'It ought to be possible to ai*range most callings m life so that an individual could do a whole day's work as fast as he likes and when he likes. No man should be forced to get out of bed at 6.30, have to be idle half the_day, finish with a hard spurt, and then" be dragged- out of bed again m the early morning. Ninety per cent, of the early risers end by suffering from insomnia. And many' of them get the habit because they cannot sleep. They are like the fox m the fable. They want everybody else to follow their pernicious example." Finally, Dr Forbes Ross declares that "a man who wakes up of his own accord will do double the work of the man who | forces himself to get up early. The thick-headed, sleepy clerk is the man who pets to the office first m the morning. He is not worth his wages. The bright, est man is the inau who is late because, he has overslept himself."