TO GET SLEEP.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XII, 16 September 1899, Page 475

TO GET SLEEP.

THE BEST KL’LE IS NOT TO THINK OF IT.

It is curious to note that newspaper correspondents, who have written such interesting letters on " i lie Mystery of Sleep” seem to be quite unaware of the most fertile source of sleeplessness, ami are. therefore, unable to point out the true remedy. Let any of your readers when they next pass a sleepless night notice carefully what happens, writes a contributor to the London "Spectator.” It will probably be somewhat as follows: —Suppose, for instance that they are in the habit of being called at 7.30,

they will hear the clock strike 4. 5, 6 and 7. and then when the knock at the door comes they will either be fast asleep or else they will drop asleep immediately afterwards and in either case possibly they will, to their intense disgust, oversleep themselves. What is the explanation of this? Simply that by far the commonest cause of prolonged sleeplessness is the worrying about it. the anxious effort to obtain sleep. And so they lie awake hour after hour wearily striving for it. until at last when 7 strikes the effort is riven up as useless. At once the strain being taken off th- worn out brain takes its rest—the sleep which has been so longed for comes at last. ' great physician has truly said: — "The body will always rest if the mind will let it.”

Some years ago when the house physician at a London hospital 1 used to experiment on this subject. On my midnight rounds I would frequently receive complaints of sleeplessness from weary patients, often when there was no pain or other definite reason for it. I would say to them: "Oil. it doesn’t really matter. Yen are resting all right. It won't do you any harm, .lust lie awake and think howcomfortable you are here.” Or to the weaker natures 1 would say: "Nurse shall bring you a poultice, or "I will send you something when I have finished my rounds." Almost invariably on my return in twenty minutes time they would be sleeping peacefully. No further remedy was needed. Every doctor will tell you how often some simple sleeping draught is sent and never taken —never needed. The mere fact of knowing it is there is sufficient. The anxious dread of another sleepless night has been taken away. The mind is at rest, and sleep comes in the natural way. And so it would seem that by far the commonest cause of sleeplessness is the anxious striving to obtain sleep. It follows, therefore, that all such devices for proeur ng it. as counting an imaginary flo k of sheep, fixing the attention

on the circulation, making an effort to stop thought, are wrong theoretically, as well as being usually worse than useless in practice. What. then, is the real renieoy? Why, siinpiy to give up the attempt to sleep if ones sleep does not come as usual. Give up trying. If a sleepless night is to be ones lot one must accept it as philosophically as one can. remembering that many and many a man has bad to lose a i night’s rest before and has been ittle. if any. the worse for it. To the sleepless one 1 would say: “Make up your mind to stay awake for the night.” Nine times out of ten the blessing, striven for in vain, will come unsought, and that almost immediately. so that on looking back the next morning the last thing you remember will be your determination to lie awake. Directly you cease to strive for sleep, to wish ardently for it. the strain will be taken off. the brain --the body will rest, because the mind is no longer preventing it, and sleep will be the happy result. Ami to make the requisite tietermination—or. I should say. renunciation this thought may be a help to you. It is the anxiety for sleep ami the worrying about its absence far mere than the sleeplessness itself that cause the feeling of prostration which follows •’ sleepless night. The man whose duty or occupation has forced him to give up a ai .lit’s rest is in a far better condit hi the next day than the man who has spent .. restless night in the vain and weary search fr sleep, in the vain and weary search for sleep.

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