HOW DO YOU SLEEP?

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1934, Page 19 (Supplement)

HOW DO YOU SLEEP?

(By a Woman Doctor.)

“How do you sleep ?” “Oh, all right, thanks,” would no doubt be the offhand reply of the majority of people. Yet few take much serious note of how they sleep. By which I mean the quality, duration, and general aftereffects of their slumber. It is upon the answers to these questions that the benefit of the hours spent in sleep must be judged. The quality of sleep is the important part, the time necessary to recuperate the body properly varying with the individual.

Some people are lighter sleepers than others, this being a good deal a matter of temperament, the difference between the highly-strung and the naturally more placid or lethargic. But in the main quality of sleep is indicative of general health. When you wake at the slightest sound, or start up at intervals during the night, it is Nature’s warning that the nervous system is working overtime and requires specific attention. Tossing about and talking during slumber are other signs pointing in the same direction.

A warm soothing drink, such as milk or cocoa, just before retiring, and a “quiet” bedside book, will often materially help matters in such cases. But if such simple home remedies do not soon begin to banish the symptoms, consult a doctor. Delay in doing so can easily lead to a nervous breakdown.

If you “sleep like a log” and are awakened with difficulty, rising heavyeyed and feeling as tired as when you went to bed, be sure there is some toxin in the blood which is slowly poisoning the whole system, and until this is eliminated the hours of rest will be of little use. Remember this, and again do not delay to have the matter put right. To be the recuperative time for replenishing used-up mental and physical energy, sleep must be quietly sound, yielding to an awakening at which you feel refreshed and ready to get on with the job of living.