Why Worry?, George Lincoln Walton [bts books to read .TXT] 📗

undertake, as far as he may, without the running accompaniment of undue solicitude, anxious doubts, and morbid fears discussed in the preceding sections. It is futile to expect that a fretful, impatient, and over-anxious frame of mind, continuing through the day and every day, will be suddenly replaced at night by the placid and comfortable mental state which shall insure a restful sleep.

Before proceeding, then, to the immediate measures for inducing sleep, let us consider the suitable preparatory measures.

The nervous breakdown which precludes sleep is oftener due to worry than to work. Nor should the sufferer jump too quickly to the conclusion that it is the loss of sleep rather than the worry that makes him wretched. It is astonishing how much sleep can be lost without harm, provided its loss is forgotten, and how much work can be carried on without extreme fatigue, provided it be undertaken with confidence and pursued without impatience. It is, however, essential that the work be varied and, at due intervals, broken. Trainers for athletic contests know that increasing practice without diversion defeats its end, and particularly insist upon cessation of violent effort directly before the final test. Why should we not treat our minds as well as our bodies?

The active and over-scrupulous business or professional man who allows no time for rest or recreation, who can confer no responsibility upon his subordinates, who cultivates no fad, and is impatient of every moment spent away from his occupation, is in danger of eventually “going stale,” and having to spend a longer and less profitable vacation in a sanitarium than would have sufficed to avert the disaster. Nor will he find it easy to change his sleep-habit with the change of residence. It behooves him to change that habit while still at work, as a step toward averting breakdown.

It will harm few of us to take a bird’s eye view of our affairs at stated intervals, and ask ourselves if the time has not arrived when it will be a saving of time and money as well as worry for us to delegate more of the details, and more even of the responsibilities, to others, concentrating our own energies upon such tasks as we are now peculiarly qualified to undertake. To the man determined to accomplish a lifetime of work before he rests, there is food for thought in the following anecdote:

When Pyrrhus was about to sail for Italy, Cineas, a wise and good man, asked him what were his intentions and expectations.

“To conquer Rome,” said Pyrrhus.

“And what will you do next, my lord?”

“Next I will conquer Italy.”

“And after that?”

“We will subdue Carthage, Macedonia, all Africa, and all Greece.”

“And when we have conquered all we can, what shall we do?”

“Do? Why, then we will sit down and spend our time in peace and comfort.”

“Ah, my lord,” said the wise Cineas, “what prevents our being in peace and comfort now?”

The time to take a vacation is before one is exhausted. If one is discontented during his vacation, he should take it, none the less, as a matter of duty, not expecting to enjoy every moment of it, but contenting himself with the anticipation of greater pleasure in the resumption of his duties. He should cultivate an interest in out-door occupation or some study that carries him into the fields or woods. Aside from the time on shipboard, the worst possible vacation for the overworked business or professional man is the trip to Europe, if spent in crowding into the shortest possible time the greatest possible amount of information on matters artistic, architectural, and historic.

No one can acquire the habit of sleep who has not learned the habit of concentration, of devoting himself single-minded to the matter in hand. If we practice devoting our minds, as we do our bodies, to one object at a time, we shall not only accomplish more, but with less exhaustion. Training in this direction will help us, on retiring, to view sleep as our present duty, and a sufficient duty, without taking the opportunity at that time to adjust (or to try to adjust) all our tangles, to review our past sources of discomfort, and to speculate upon the ills of the future.

A walk, a bath, a few gymnastic exercises, will often serve a useful purpose before retiring, but if they are undertaken in a fretful and impatient spirit, and are accompanied by doubts of their effectiveness, and the insistent thought that sleep will not follow these or any other procedure, they are likely to accomplish little.

The best immediate preparation for sleep is the confidence that one will sleep, and indifference if one does not. It is an aid in the adoption of this frame of mind to learn that many have for years slept only a few hours per night, without noticeable impairment of their health or comfort. Neither unbroken nor long-continued sleep, however desirable, is essential to longevity or efficiency. This is illustrated by the following examples:

Joseph A. Willard, for nearly half a century Clerk of the Court in Suffolk County, and a well-known figure on the streets of Boston, died in his eighty-eighth year. He was active and alert in the performance of his daily duties up to their discontinuance shortly before his death. He kept, meantime, records of the temperature, weather, and condition of the streets, at all hours of the night, and every night, for many years before the establishment of the weather bureau. So reliable were these records regarded by the courts that they were often appealed to in the trial of cases, and their accuracy never questioned by either party in the suit. I publish these facts by the permission of his son.

George T. Angell, the well-known humanitarian, than whom few, if any, have led a more busy life, when in his sixty-ninth year wrote as follows:

“For the benefit of those who do not [take narcotics, opiates, an�sthetics] I will say that I suppose there are very few in this country who have slept less than I have; but I have never taken anything to stupefy, while thousands of good sleepers I have known have long since gone to the last sleep that knows no waking here. It was undoubtedly wise to change my professional life from court to office practice: but in other matters I was compelled to choose between living the life of a vegetable, or losing sleep; and I chose the latter.”

Mr. Angell is now eighty-four, still actively engaged in affairs, and allows me to add that during the past six years he has gone for a week at a time with no sleep; for three months at a time he has not averaged more than two hours in twenty-four; he does not remember having ever had a good night’s sleep. Mrs. Angell states that, with one exception, she has never known him to sleep through the night.

It is worth while to remember these experiences before resorting to drugs for sleeplessness.

I have somewhere seen it stated that a prominent divine attributed his happy and green old age to the fact that he slept a certain number of hours every night. Against this statement must be set the reflection that many another old gentleman can fairly attribute his comfort, in part at least, to an attitude of indifference toward the unessentials, among which I suspect must be included the question whether we average eight hours of sleep or materially less.

Let us now consider some of the faulty mental habits directly affecting sleep itself. First comes the compulsive thought that one must sleep now, and the impatient count of the wakeful hours supposed to be irrecoverably lost from the coveted number. This insistence in itself precludes sleep. The thought, “No matter if I don’t sleep to-night; I will some other night,” will work wonders in the direction of producing sleep to-night.

The continuance of any given position, completely relaxed, in bed, even without unconsciousness, is more restful than tossing about. The mere experiment of remaining immobile in a certain position as long as possible, and concentrating the mind on the thought, “I am getting sleepy, I am going to sleep,” will oftener produce the desired result than watching the proverbial sheep follow one another over the wall. Training during the day in restraining nervous movements is an aid in acquiring the ability to do this.

This is a field in which self-suggestion is of definite value. Everyone appreciates the effect on sleep of the “state of mind” when he has passed a succession of sleepless hours followed by a sudden tendency to somnolence at the time for rising. The problem is to acquire the frame of mind without waiting for circumstances. To demonstrate the effect of faulty suggestion combined with restlessness on awaking in the night, try the following:

EXPERIMENT I.—Place yourself on the face and from this point turn rapidly in a complete circle backwards from right to left until you are again on the face. Pause several times and say to yourself rapidly “I cannot sleep in this position.” The result of the experiment is practically uniform. The rapid movement and the suggestion prevent sleep.

To demonstrate the effect of bodily relaxation combined with correct suggestion, in promoting sleep try—

EXPERIMENT II.—Start in the same position as Experiment I. Traverse the same circle, prolonging each pause with body relaxed, and substituting at each pause the suggestion, “I can sleep in any position,” repeated a number of times deliberately and as if you meant it. The restful pose and the suggestion generally induce sleep long before the circle is completed.

Next comes the compulsive thought that we cannot sleep until everything is “squared up” and all mental pictures completed. The story is told that a gentleman took a room in the hotel next another who was notoriously fussy. He remembered this fact after dropping one boot carelessly to the floor, and laid the other gently down. After a pause he heard a rap on the door and a querulous, “For heaven’s sake, drop the other boot, or I can’t get to sleep.”

Many find themselves unable to sleep until the whole household is accounted for and the house locked up for the night, until certain news is received, and the like. The same tendency postpones sleep until all affairs are straightened out in the mind, as well as in reality. A little reflection shows how indefinite must be the postponement of sleep under such conditions.

No training is more important for the victim of compulsive tendencies than the practice of trusting something to chance and the morrow, and reconciling himself to the fact that at no time, in this world, will all things be finally adjusted to his satisfaction.

The habit of dismissing, at will, disagreeable thoughts is a difficult but not impossible acquisition. Arthur Benson in “The Thread of Gold” relates the following anecdotes:

“When Gladstone was asked, ‘But don’t you find you lie awake at night, thinking how you ought to act, and how you ought to have acted?’ he answered, ‘No, I don’t; where would be the use of that?’”

“Canon Beadon [who lived to be over one hundred] said to a friend that the secret of long life in his own case was that he had never thought of anything unpleasant after ten o’clock at night.”

The insistent desire to sleep in a certain bed, with a certain degree of light or darkness, heat or cold, air or absence of air, is detrimental. This is in line with the desire to eat certain foods only, at a certain table, and at a certain time. The man who loses his appetite if dinner is half an hour late is unable again to sleep if once waked up. This individual must say to himself, “Anyone can stand what he likes; it takes a