CAN WE DO WITHOUT SLEEP?

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 23 June 1915, Page 3

CAN WE DO WITHOUT SLEEP?

/■*\ • - . ■ "The average man sleeps twice as long as he ought. Four hours out of the twenty-four devoted to Morpheus should be sufficient for any man. Furthermore,, in the future man, aided by electric light, will overcome his habit of'sleeping— go with less and less sleep, until finally he never sleeps at all."

Such is the startling view held by Mr. Edison, and it is a view which is supported by his own experience. For years he has made a point of indulging in as little sleep as possible; for, in his opinion, too much sleep stagnates the brain. "The man who sleeps too much," he says, "suffers from it in many ways, and gains nothing from it. The average man, who sleeps seven, eight, and nine hours daily, is continually oppressed by lassitude. I have never overslept. I have never had a dream, good or bad, so far as I know, in my life. - Nothing in the world is" more dangerous to the efficiency of humanity than too much sleep, except, perhaps, stimulation."

One of the chief causes of sleep has, according to Mr. Edison, been removed, "heretofore," to quote his own words, "man has worked with the sun and slept with the dark. But the on© great value of the electric light and of the electric railway, too, is that they expand mankind's day. Man has formed the habit of sleeping in the dark hours merely because the dark incapacitated him for work, but electricity has slowly but surely turned night into day. The man of the future will spend far less time in bed than the man of the present does, just as the man of the present spends far less time in bed'than the man of the past day."

And we eat too much, according to Mr. Edison. One may save in food as well as sleep, and to great advantage. "I consume," he says, "five ounces to a meal three times a day, including the water in the food. A man engaged in hard, physical toil, whose work makes the engine of his body require more fuel than mine does, could get on perfectly well with eight or ten ounces to a meal, although he might find the attainment of the habit difficult. The average man, however, would get on better if he reduced his food consumption by two-thirds. He does the work of a three-horse-power engin© and consumes fuel which would operate a fifty-horse-pow^er engine, and the result is lassitude, sleep, and loss of ability to work. If the world would cease its over-eating it would thereby do away with poverty."