The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1905-08-18
GET YOUR FULL QUOTA
OF SLEEP EVERY DAY

sort. 1t is not like lifting dumheIis or
running or rowing. But IN sleep nature
does her secret work of recJnstituting
and repairing the injury that during our
waking time we infiict upon ourselves
A man fails asleep exhausted, and wax
ing finds himself rebuilt and ready for
more self injury Nature has been TAX
ing her turn at exercise, which is not to
destroy, but to restore. And sometimes
she seems not only To restore what has
been lost, but actually out of her mystic
rious resources to add something to the
man that he had not possessed before.
| mean this literally, though l have
y Dot happened to meet with any reference
it in works on physiology. But
well-k Southern writer, now dead,
who ia his day was a true amateur
sportsman and athlete. informed me that
he had once had the care of man dur
ing his training for a race. and on the
morning of the day of the contest he
found mis- man a pound below weight;
overdrawn and anxious. The race was
set for three O'Clock in the afternoon,
at noon he sent the man to beu.
The man slept very soundly till half
past two, when he was awakened and
weighed. He had gained two pounds
during his sleep, felt we'll and strong,
and ne won the race. Where did he
get those two pounds?
The saying Of the holy man of old, 81
die daily. ls true of us all, and 1t Is
during our waking time that we are
dying During what has been called
deaths counterfeit-sleep-the dying
process is arrested, if 1t be not even
turned backward toward more life. Yet
We must put limit TO the life that we
ifa that ia
worth living is worth a mans while. |
He must do things, he must use him.
self, he must die in order to live TO pur-
pose. Tortoises sleep for months every |
year and live for centuries, but that sort
of endurance is not what we are here
to practice.
NO GENERAL RULE FOR SLEEP.
There is for each man certain daily |
period which he should give to sleep.
If he falls below it he harms and weak
ems himself: if he overpass it he becomes
stupid. But this period differs in
length 50 much in different men that no
general rule can be given for 1t, and it
differs widely at different ages. A man
/ know, great original genius In /
science. who has one of the most finely Il
organized and we'll balanced brains IN
the world, never takes or apparently Il
needs more than four hours sleep day,
and often he does we'll with three, or
even with two. That brain OF his does
more work in an hour than most men
could do in a year, and yet it Iecuperstes
its powers with but half or third the
rest that numskulls give TO theirs. he
is tall and slender, but muscular and
vigorous, and the grasp of his long,
slight hand, if he chooses to exert 1T,
could force blood drops from the ends of
your fingers. | have thought his case
might be partly explained by the fact
that the abstraction of his thoughts is so
constant and complete that he eally can
be said to live in his body very little-he
is elsewhere, and his body recuperates
during his absence. But | apologize to
ply siologists for so unscentitic an by
pothess
On the other hand, when | was train
ing hard for rowing in college | could,
and very often did, sleep twelve hours at
a stretch sound and dreamlessly. at
any rate, if | dreampt | did not know it
when | awoke. During one four and
twenty hours that | remember | rowed
sixty miles against a head sea-from
Cape Ann to Charles river, Boston
ana then walked twenty miles, reaching
home at in the morning. | slept till 3
the next afternoon, and woke perfectly
rested AMI was ready to do it over again.
But that was in my nineteenth year. la
the scholarship lists of the faculty that
year leu my class, counting from the
bottom; but my Rotations on the river
always got high marks.
Sometimes men of middle age, or any
age, will all at once fall asleep and sleep
for Gays or weeks, and then awake re-
Erar h,~4 4. rDfn 70 Of q
or other pathological instances, but the
sleepers ! mean had for long time pre-
vious worked hard and rested little
And they took what they needed at last
in one large DOSE OF course, the phe-
nomen0n cannot be termed normal, be-
cause very few men can make up loss
III that wholesale way. The pathology +
cal cases II is not here my cue TO discuss.
They are interesting, but they have
nothing to do with the ordinary give ana
take Of existence.
REAL SLEEP CURES BRAIN FAC.
But doubt not that the average civ
iiized man of 40 has lost two years Of
sleep that he ought TO have had and ne
cannot better employ himself between
10 and 80 or 90 than in getting IT back
again Probably the American man of
business has much larger debt of
sleep than that owing to him They
may be in bed every night six or seven
or eight hours, but they are sleeping on
ly part Of that time. And when they
DO sleep their sleep is not complete
Soldiers sleep on the march or in the 2
saddle have done it myself-but it is 4
a saep of a part only OF the brain and g
its ntges; certainly the motor centers
must be awake lie is better than moth b
ing but 1t is not nearly enough. The &
nerves of overworking men get famished v
beyond the limit of natural restoration, b
and then their possessor cannot sleep, q
aud tnen both mis- body and his mind are M
IA danger One sees many men gong q
about and doing business who are not "a
really awake, any more than they are IS
fully asleep, They are in An uterine NJ
date region, which is not far from the III
graveyard Their figures are familiar Il
OF our streets until teeir names appear q
Uutip,aIy in, ths. Nhitnorv anlt1n1n Rrain W'