SIMPLE CAUSES OF WAKEFULNESS
Where care lodges, sleep will never lie.
SHAKESPEARE.
We all know the blessing of sleep, but it is hard to show the sufferer
that wakefulness is useful.
Wakefulness always has some cause, and, if we truly wish to be cured
of it, it will be well to seek the cause rather than to grumble at the
wakefulness itself. It is not enough to know what is the matter, we
must find out why it is the matter. To find the cause of any condition
simplifies matters; it makes the course we must follow clearer. If the
cause can be removed, we should bend all our energies to removing it;
to paraphrase Stephen Pearl Andrews’ saying—we are not to be subject
to circumstances, but rather to make ourselves center-stances. But,
if the matter be something over which we have no control, there are
two courses open to us: the first is to accept the condition and adapt
ourselves to it; the second is to devise some method by which we may
gain control over it.
A childish story[6] will illustrate this:
[6] Republished by permission of the Century Company.
Once there was a squirrel that did not like its home, and it used to
scold and find fault with everything. Its papa squirrel had long gray
whiskers, so he was wise. He said to the squirrel: “My dear, as you
do not like your home, there are three sensible things you could do:
Leave it,
or Change it,
or Suit yourself to it.
Any one of these would help you in your trouble.” But the little
squirrel said, “Oh! I do not want to do any of those; I had rather
sit on the branch of a tree and scold.” “Well,” said the papa
squirrel, “if you must do that, whenever you want to scold, just go
out on a branch and scold away at someone you do not know.” The little
squirrel blushed so much that he became a red squirrel, and you will
notice that to this day red squirrels do just that thing.
Whatever course we pursue, we find something to do in connection with
the underlying principle or cause; this _doing_ prevents us from
wasting energy and patience upon mere effects. That is an advantage,
for any action relieves mental pain, and often relieves physical pain,
too. The victim writhes not only in its effort to escape, but in the
effort to express its feeling, to respond to the excited nerves, just
as we dance about or hop up and down when we hit our finger with the
hammer. We often hear people deplore that their suffering is increased
because they can do nothing to remedy the trouble. We frequently
exclaim, “It would be easier to bear, if only I could _do_ something.”
A knowledge of what to do and how to do it always helps toward peace of
mind.
When yellow fever was one of the “mysterious dispensations of
Providence,” men of science fought only its symptoms, with very
indifferent success. The people in the district where the fever broke
out were panic-stricken; those who could fled from the place; those
who were compelled to remain went about in fear of their lives. Now
that we believe that the bite of an infected mosquito is the once
“mysterious dispensation,” we no longer allow the infection to spread.
Fear and unreason might have continued to treat outbreaks and epidemics
of yellow fever for centuries to come without lasting advantage to the
plague-ridden spots, but the knowledge of what to do and how to do it
has made yellow fever a preventable evil. It has no terrors for an
intelligent community.
So with wakefulness. If we find ourselves wakeful when we should be
sleeping, the first thing to do is to find the reason.
Sometimes we cause our own sleeplessness unsuspectingly, but none
the less deliberately, by the false requirements that we lay upon
ourselves. People often say, “I could not go to sleep in a room like
that.” If there is time and opportunity to put the room in order, why
do it; but, if not, we can resolve, as the boys say, to “forget it.”
Many a woman frets and disturbs herself continually by putting things
in what she considers order, which things are no better for being
rearranged and which generally cannot stay in order—endless pushing
in of chairs and placing pamphlets or books with the little ones on
top and the big ones at the bottom; a constant and wearisome struggle
to keep all the shades in the house in a line. The labor of Sisyphus,
who had forever to roll a great stone up a sand hill, would be restful
compared with that. I knew a man once who would be entirely upset, and
would upset all the people about him, if his stockings that came from
the wash were not placed below those in the drawer so that they would
surely be used in rotation.
Some persons cannot sleep after dawn if the light shines on their
faces, yet are so possessed by the idea of order that they will not
move the bed, disarrange the furniture to make a screen, or even sleep
with their heads at the foot of the bed.
Another person insists always on being waked up by the last person to
come home in order to be sure that the house was closed up. Still
another cannot go to sleep till he has balanced up every cent of petty
cash spent that day.
Many persons spend the most of their thought and exhaust themselves
over things that are just as trivial and inconsequent as these; though
they seem important to them. When anything has become such a habit,
even though reasonable in itself, that you cannot sleep without it, you
are paying too dear for it and it is time to change it. There is danger
even in good habits—they may master us.
It may be that we have had some stimulating mental experience which
has not yet relaxed its grip upon our attention. In such case even
bodily weariness is apt to be forgotten, for, after all, every physical
sensation is dependent upon some mental condition, whether fleeting or
permanent. It is this interdependence of physical feeling and thought
which makes it possible to recall emotions of pain or sorrow, of
comfort or joy. The sight, the touch, or the smell of certain things
will bring back sensations that once accompanied them, whether those
sensations be painful or pleasant.
If the mind has been so stimulated that it cannot relax, there is
little likelihood that sleep will come quickly, but we cannot relax by
impatience. Tossing and turning will not quiet the mind; we must either
accept the condition calmly and follow out the train of thought that
has started or deliberately side-track the exciting cause. This may be
done by setting up a counter activity in the mind along quieting lines.
For instance, if one had walked the streets late on some such occasion
as a New Year’s Eve celebration in New York, and had become stimulated
by the lights and the crowds, he might deliberately recall the most
peaceful day in the country that it had been his fortune ever to know.
A typical scene of this sort is a warm Sunday in late spring, when
all the usual activities of country life have ceased; the air is
heavy with the scent of clover and field flowers, the apple blossoms,
and the thousand odors of the fresh country field; the air moving so
lazily that it scarcely stirs the trees; the cow chewing the meditative
cud; the bees buzzing dreamily; the very horses, standing under the
shed of the little white country church, whinnying softly to each
other, as knowing that a spell of peace is over all, a spell that must
not be broken; while from the church itself comes the drone of the
preacher,—each little stir a part of the peace that broods over the
day. Think of some such thing as that, recall it in all its details,
and the chances are that the drowsiness induced at the time, whether
one were of the congregation or a mere onlooker, will again steal over
the eyelids and, before one is aware of any change, he is well on the
way to the land of dreams.
In the same way if one has read an exciting book, or has seen a
thrilling play, one may either live them over until the feelings
exhaust themselves, because no longer new, or one may deliberately
divert one’s self from thinking of them and devote the attention to
more soothing things. Either course removes all cause for impatience
with the fact of wakefulness and leaves the mind quieted. This tends to
drowsiness, even if it does not really induce sleep.
Sometimes it may help us if we rise and read some quieting book, not
“a thriller.” Such a volume as Thoreau’s “Walden,” or that more modern
little volume, “Adventures in Contentment,” by David Grayson, or we
may repeat some soothing poem like Tennyson’s “Sweet and Low,” or
Burroughs’ “My Own Shall Come to Me” and similar verses.
Any of these will help to relax tension, and put us in a more restful
frame of mind, and, as minds differ, so some persons will find books
and verses of other sorts to have the desired effect upon them.
When we cannot sleep, to rise, throw back the bed-clothes so as to cool
the bed, walk about the room, go to the window and fill the lungs with
oxygen often tend to quiet the body and mind. We must learn to know our
own needs and to find out each for himself what meets them. To “know
thyself” is only the first step to control thyself.