THE TIME OF SLEEP
“Women, like children, require more sleep normally than men, but
‘Macfarlane states that they can better bear the loss of sleep, and
most physicians will agree with him.’” H. CAMPBELL.
The amount of sleep, like the amount of food, required by an individual
varies greatly, depending largely upon the conditions at the time.
Edison, for instance, can go days without sleep when engrossed in some
invention, and he has been quoted as saying that people sleep too much,
four hours daily being quite sufficient.
In answer to my inquiry, Mr. Edison’s secretary wrote, “Mr. Edison
directs me to write you that the statement is correct, that for
thirty years he did not get four hours of sleep per day.” Evidently,
experience taught him that an average of four hours per day, if taken
rightly and at the right time, is enough for him. He keeps a couch in
his workroom so as to sleep when he is sleepy. He does not need a clock
to tell him when to go to bed, any more than you need a thermometer to
tell you when to pull up the blankets.
Edison is not alone in his views on sleep. He made extensive
experiments with the two hundred workers in his own factory which
convinced him and most of them that the majority slept much too long.
The hands seem to have entered willingly into the trials: perhaps
their personal regard for him influenced their conclusions. Napoleon
Bonaparte and Frederick of Prussia were both satisfied with four hours
of sleep,[1] while Bishop Taylor was of opinion that three hours was
sufficient for any man’s needs, and Richard Baxter, who wrote “The
Saints’ Rest,” thought four hours the proper measure.
[1] It is said, however, that in later life Napoleon carried this too
far, and was sometimes stupid for lack of sleep.
Paul Leicester Ford, who was never a strong person, once told me that
he found four hours’ sleep enough for all purposes. He did not wish
to be understood as saying that four hours’ rest was enough, but four
hours’ sleep. He was one of the few who understood the difference
between sleep and rest. He frequently rested; his favorite practice
being to lie back in a big armchair with a book, and forget the
surrounding conditions. The book created a different set of sensations,
which, combined with the pause in physical activity, brought a sense
of rest to the frail body. He frequently got his four hours of sleep
curled up in the big chair, and was then able to go on with the work
which in a few short years made him famous. The wife of the late
George T. Angell of Boston testifies that for years he seldom slept
four hours a night, having found that, for him, more was unnecessary;
but, of course, it does not follow that no more is necessary for anyone.
These are not unusual instances, but rather typical cases. History
and biography are full of such; each of us can probably mention one
or more persons among his own acquaintance who can do well with less
than the usual eight hours of sleep, but we have looked upon them as
exceptions and perhaps have prophesied that they will feel the evil
results later, if not now. We usually select ourselves as the standard
for all other persons, or perhaps it is more correct to say that we are
prone to select one stage of our own development as a standard, and try
to compel even our growing self to conform to that stage. When the crab
outgrows his shell it sloughs off, and, so far as we know, he offers
no objection, but takes the new shell, which answers his needs better.
But we, who consider ourselves infinitely superior to the crab, try
to compel ourselves to keep within the bounds of old thoughts, early
habits, and outgrown customs after we no longer need them. When we are
unfortunate enough to succeed, we rejoice at our cramped souls as the
Chinese woman prides herself upon her crushed, cramped, misshapen foot.
The amount of sleep that suited you last year may not suit you to-day.
You may really be getting better sleep and so needing less of it: or
you may have to make up by quantity for a poorer quality. The test
is that, if you are sleepy in waking hours, you need better sleep or
more of it. If you are wakeful in sleeping hours, you need less sleep
or else you are not getting the right kind. Good sleep is a habit, a
natural habit as distinguished from an acquired habit, and when we
learn to take it naturally, and in natural amount, we get a great deal
more from it. It is fair to assume that purely natural habits, which
continue from age to age through all stages of human progress, are
essential to human welfare. Otherwise they would drop away from us
as many useless physical parts have dropped. If you stop to think of
this, you know that it is so; the man in the street and the girl at the
ribbon counter do not know, so there is more excuse for them if they
misunderstand. It may be that they usually sleep better than you do,
and so do not need to know it.