DEVICES FOR GOING TO SLEEP
Southey, in “The Doctor,” thus summarizes some of the chief devices
to attain sleep by monotony: “I listened to the river and to the
ticking of my watch; I thought of all sleepy sounds and of all
soporific things—the flow of water, the humming of bees, the motion
of a boat, the waving of a field of corn, the nodding of a mandarin’s
head on the chimney-piece, a horse in a mill, the opera, Mr. Humdrum’s
conversations, Mr. Proser’s poems, Mr. Laxative’s speeches, Mr.
Lengthy’s sermons. I tried the device of my own childhood, and fancied
that the bed rushed with me round and round. At length Morpheus
reminded me of Dr. Torpedo’s Divinity Lectures, where the voice,
the manner, the matter, even the very atmosphere and the streaming
candle-light, were all alike soporific; when he who, by strong effort,
lifted up his head and forced open the reluctant eyes, never failed
to see all around him asleep. Lettuces, cowslip wine, poppy syrup,
mandragora, hop pillows, spider’s web pills, and the whole tribe of
narcotics would have failed—but this was irresistible; and thus twenty
years after date, I found benefit from having attended the course.”
Frequent impressions on the mind, or calls on the attention, tend to
make us sleepy; thus looking at pictures, the attempt to study, driving
in a carriage. In extreme cases this is very marked. A boy named Caspar
Hauser was shut up alone in a gloomy little room until he was about
eighteen years old; then he was brought to Nürnberg and abandoned in
the street; this was in 1828. He was to all intents a baby and could
not walk, nor speak, nor see clearly, as he had never known any of the
common objects of life—men or animals or plants, or the moon or sun or
even the sky.
He would go to sleep instantly on being taken outside the house,
because the number of new sensations instantly tired his consciousness.
For the same reason that the consciousness is quickly exhausted, many
old or delicate persons readily fall asleep. Marie de Manacéïne says
that Moivre, the French mathematician, used to sleep twenty hours a
day during his old age, leaving only four for science and the other
occupations of life.
Monotony naturally fatigues consciousness and is often successfully
used to produce sleep; the regular dropping of water, the sound of a
brook will put those to sleep whom it does not make nervous. Lullabies
and slumber songs and dull lectures all come under the same head of
devices to tire the consciousness.
Narcotic drugs do not weary consciousness; they simply destroy it. They
stupefy us instead of inducing sleep. Those who would wisely learn
about this by experiments upon others rather than upon themselves, will
find it all in the article by Ringer and Sainsbury on “Sedatives” in
Tuke’s “Dictionary of Psychological Medicine.” It is enough for us
to be assured that narcotic sleep is less like real sleep than the
hibernation of the animal is like repose. (But see “Remedies” in
Appendix A.)
Henry Ward Beecher used to get up when he was sleepless and take a
cold bath, a good device for a full-blooded, vigorous person: but a
weak person would not “react” and get warm again. For such an one it
would be better to sponge off and restore the circulation by rubbing.
Some physicians have prescribed, with good success, blood-warm baths,
beginning at a temperature of about 98 and heated up to 110 or 115
Fahrenheit. When the moisture has been absorbed by wrapping one’s self
in a blanket, throw it off and get quickly into a warm bed. Mark Twain
used to get to sleep by lying down on the bathroom floor after the bath.
Some, when other means fail, find it effective to place a cold-water
bag at the back of the neck, or to rub the feet with a rough towel:
with others, a hot-water bottle at the back of the neck works better.
A warm footbath helps some persons. At the sanitariums they sponge
with warm water, rub with wet salt, gently sponge it off, and dry the
body—all of which helps the blood to the surface. It is always well
to see that the bowels are emptied. Only trial and judgment will show
whether any of these will effect a cure: they all aim at the same mark,
to abstract the blood from the brain.
That drinking milk produces sleep in some persons may probably be due
to the lactic acid in the milk, which is a soporific like morphine.
Perhaps its use is to help young animals to the long sleeps they need.
Willard Moyer, in an entertaining essay, tells us that it is often
advisable for the stomach to have sufficient work for the blood to do
so as to call it from the brain. This does not mean that a meal that
will overload the stomach is a cure for insomnia, but that something
light, such as a cup of warm milk and a cracker, may often “send one
comfortably to sleep like a drowsy kitten or a well-fed baby.” A.
Fleming, following Durham, the author of the “Psychology of Sleep,”
showed that to deprive the brain of blood by pressing the carotid
arteries for thirty seconds brought immediate and deep sleep, but it
only continued while all pulsation of these arteries is stopped.[7]
[7] It is interesting also to note that a similar pressure on the
jugular veins produces loss of consciousness, but from just the
opposite cause, that is, from congestion of blood in the brain. This
state of unconsciousness resembles coma just as the other resembles
sleep.
E. M. W.
It has been found by cruel experiments on young puppies that sleep is
more necessary to them than food, as they die after being kept awake
four or five days, but may live ten or fifteen days without food. They
easily go to sleep when their heads are level with their bodies, and
they will not go to sleep with their heads lower than their bodies: of
course, the raised head drains some blood out of the brain.
This is the reason that heat or extreme cold, both of which bring the
blood to the surface and drain it away from the brain, will often
produce sleep. That is why the cowboy likes to sleep with his feet to
the fire. On the other hand, the demand on the heart of cold hands
or feet for more blood to keep them warm may make the heart pump so
strongly that it sends more blood to the brain and keeps one awake.
So also joy, anger, or anxiety cause a flow of blood to the brain and
hinder sleep.
Becker and Schuller have treated insomnia by wrapping the entire body
in wet sheets and also by applying cold compresses to the head. This
last device is used by students, with doubtful success, “to keep the
brain cool”; it is sometimes affected because it looks like working
hard. Sometimes an ice cap, a double rubber cap filled with cold water,
will bring sleep.
The Russian nobles used to make servants scratch their heels for a long
time; our ladies have their hair brushed; and A. H. Savage-Landor says
that Corean mothers put their babies to sleep by scratching them gently
on the stomach. I have tried this rubbing, rather than scratching, with
great success. Spanish women rub the children’s upper spine to put them
to sleep. Light exercise before lying down is often a good expedient.
Sometimes a pillow of heated hops or of balsam pine needles will induce
sleep. To change the hour of going to bed occasionally, yielding to
apparently untimely drowsiness, often helps, as it accustoms us to gain
sleep at irregular times.
To “relax,” to let the muscles become perfectly loose, is an art,
though it should be natural to one going to sleep. Mrs. Richard Hovey
recommends shaking the fingers, letting them hang loose like a bunch
of strings of beads, and extending the movement to the wrist, arms,
feet, and legs. This is the best form of calisthenic exercise for
sleeplessness. It aids us in getting limp so as to lie at ease.