HOW TO SLEEP 



it takes nothing from the working efficiency of the 

 other hours. 



By all means then take as many hours of sleep as are 

 needed, regardless of the number that suffice for some 

 other person. 



The chief difficulty in determining the necessary 

 period in any given case, results from the irregularities 

 of living that enter into almost all our lives. Civiliza- 

 tion imposes many artificial conditions upon the indi- 

 vidual, but in no respect more than regarding this 

 matter of sleep. Man is a diurnal animal. Under 

 strictly natural conditions, his hours of sleep would be 

 regulated very largely by the rising and setting of the 

 sun. But artificial lights emancipate us from so oner- 

 ous a bondage, and the evolution of our race has carried 

 us so far from strictly natural conditions, that no one 

 would now think of arguing that it would be necessary 

 or even best to regulate our sleeping hours according to 

 any such obsolete standard. 



Even the dictum "early to bed and early to rise" is 

 obsolescent. There are as many hours from twelve 

 to eight as from ten to six, and while the earlier set 

 has some inherent advantages, it has not been demon- 

 strated that the later set is incapable of doing the 

 same work and doing it just as well if put to the test. 

 For persons living under the ordinary conditions of 

 city life, I make bold to affirm the conviction that the 

 later series is a better one than the earlier. And why ? 

 Because under such conditions of living it happens to 

 most people that two or three evenings in a week will 

 be lengthened to something near the later hour by 



