IV 



HOW TO SLEEP 



TO round out our conception of the needs of 

 the body, we must turn from the active to 

 the passive side. We have considered such 

 functions as eating, drinking, exercising; we must 

 now consider the seemingly passive function of sleeping. 

 Sleep appears at first sight to be merely a negative 

 state, a cessation of functioning, rather than itself a 

 function. It would seem, then, that nothing should be 

 simpler and easier than to sleep properly. As a matter 

 of fact, scarcely anything is more difficult. Here as 

 with all other functions there may be excess, deficiency, 

 or perversion of functioning; and scarcely anywhere 

 are the penalties of wrong functioning more severe 

 than in the case of sleep. In thousands of cases in- 

 somnia proves the open door to insanity; while the 

 common vice of excessive sleeping lays a perpetual if 

 less tangible ban upon the mind. Of the two it is 

 better to sleep too much than too little, but it is best to 

 sleep just enough. Nature demands a certain amount 

 of recuperation through sleep. She will not take less 

 without severe penalty. But every hour in excess of 

 what is needful is an hour less of conscious life, an 

 hour's loss of opportunities that might perhaps, in this 

 hurrying age, have turned the scale between success 



[61] 



