The Portland daily press., 1886-11-05

How Long to Sleep.


Its manifestly impossible to lay down any
universally applicable rule as to the number
of hours which it is desirable to sleep. Prob
ably no two persons require precisely the
same amount of slumber, and it is scarcely
likely that any person needs the same length
of sleep on all occasions. Even the most
monotonous lives involve the expenditure of
varying quantities of energy, and make diff
fering demands on the stores of nerve and
muscle power on several days. We do not.
ofcourse. mean to imply that sleep is the sea-
son of recuperation. That is unlikely in
view of the ascertained facts in relation to
tissue feeding and physiological change but
it is nevertheless true in practice that pro-
longed or exceptionally severe exertion,
whether of brain or muscle, requires CORE
spondingly lengthy or deep repose. Speak
ing broadly, sleep is the state in which the
fires are, SO to say, damped down and the
machinery has opportunity for cooling The
bow is, as it were, unstrung, and may recoy-
er its elasticity during the recurring periods
of slumber. The great point is to secure
what Bichat characterized as general sleep
made up Of particular sleeps. The whole
BILE demand on its energy is concerned-dur-
ing sleep. The Irishman who explained that
short sleep did for him because when he
sept he paid attintion to t" uttered truth
in his witticism. If sleep be thorough, then
a short spell will do more good than a much
longer duration of sleep that is incomplete
and imperfect, both in its nature and In its
effects. We cannot discuss the physiology
OF sleep in this place, but two or three propo-
mn ,aria a
may be briefly set downby way of suggestion
worth thinking out for special application in
individual cases. Sleep is q distinctly natu-
raj function, and therefore, both as regards
its induction and management, ought to be
performed in conformity with natural laws
ically is evident from the rotation of day and
night, and approximately we ought to 90 to
sleep when the natural light fails and wake
with the sunrise. 1t will therefore be evident
That nature meant us to sleep longer in the
winter than in the summer for the sufficient
ly plain reason that the maintenance of ami
NAL heat during the cold season necessarily
requires larger consumption of energy than
is expended on this vital purpose in the
warm season. 1t has been alleged that the
organism takes in and stores just as much
oxygen during sleep as it has expended dur
ing the waking hours, and when the reserves
ale replenished wakes; but this is only
half truth, in so far as it is a truth at all.
What happens is rather rest from the rapid
movements of waking life, during which the
slower activities of function have time to
0vertake the faster ones. Recuperation by
nutrition is more taldy process than con-
sumption by work and heat production, and
II the hare were not to sleep the tortoise
would be left hopeessly behind. 1t is essen
tial to health that the tortoise should not lag
far in the rear, and sleep must be just as
long as will enable the laggard nutritive
processes to Oyertake the impetuous destruc-
tive processes. Practically, therefore, man
should sleep until he is refreshed. The mis-
take many persons make is In attempting to
govern what must be matter OF Instinct by
volitional control When we are weary we
ought to sleep, and when we wake we should
get up.
There are no more vicious habits than
adopting measures to keep awake" or en-
plOying artifiees or, still worse, resorting to
drugs and other devices to induce or prol0ng
sleep. Doing is the very Generalization of
the sleep function, and from this perncous
habit arises much of the so-called sleepless-
ness-more accurately wakefulness-fr
which multitudes suffer. That day is not
the time for sleep is evident upon the face of
the fact that nature has provided the night,
wherein no man can or ought to work In
stead OF trying to lay down arbitrary rules
as to the length Of sleep, it would be wiser
in common sense and physiological way to
say, work while 1t is day; sleep when you
are weary, which will be at night IL the day
has been spent in honest and energetic labor.
When you wake, rise; and if the days work
has been sufficiently well done, the time of
waking will not be earlier than sunrise. The
difficulties about sleep and sleeplessness-
apart from dreams-are almost uniformly
fruits of a perverse refusal to comply with
the laws of nature. Take, for example, the
case of man who cannot sleep at night, or
rather who, having fallen asleep, wakes. If