TAKE A PLEASANT THOUGHT TO BED WITH YOU
Shut off your mental steam when you quit work. Lock up your business
when you lock up your office or factory at night. Don't drag it into
your home to mar your evening or to distress your sleep.
You can not afford to allow the enemies of your peace and happiness to
etch their black pictures deeper and deeper into your consciousness.
Many people lie down to sleep as the camels lie down in the desert,
with their packs still on their backs. They do not seem to know how to
lay down their burdens, and their minds go on working a large part of
the night. If you are inclined to worry during the night, to keep your
mental faculties on the strain, taut, it will be a good plan for you to
have a bow in your bedroom and unstring it every night as a reminder
that you should also unstring your mind so that it will not lose its
springing power. The Indian knows enough to unstring his bow just as
soon as he uses it so that it will not lose its resilience.
If a man who works hard all day uses his brain a large part of the
night, doing his work over and over again, he gets up in the morning
weary, jaded. Instead of having a clear, vigorous brain capable of
powerfully focusing his mind, he approaches his work with all his
standards down, and with about as much chance of winning as a race
horse who has been driven all night before a contest would have. Not
even a man with the will of a Napoleon could win out under such
conditions.
It is of the utmost importance to stop the grinding, rasping process in
the brain at night and to keep from wearing life away and wasting one's
precious vitality.
Many people become slaves to night worry. They get into a chronic
habit of thinking after they retire--especially of contemplating their
troubles and trials,--and it is a very difficult habit to break.
It is fundamental to sound health to make it a rule never to discuss
business troubles and things that vex and irritate one at night,
especially just before retiring, for whatever is dominant in the mind
when one falls asleep continues its influence on the nervous structure
long into the night.
Some people age more at night than during the daytime, when, it would
appear, if they must worry at all, the reverse ought to be true. When
hard at work during the day they do not have much time to think of
their ailments, their business troubles, their misfortunes. But when
they retire, the whole brood of troubling thoughts and worry ghosts
fill the mind with horrors. They grow older instead of younger, as
they would under the influence of sound, refreshing sleep.
Mental discord saps vitality, lessens courage, shortens life. It does
not pay to indulge in violent temper, corroding thoughts, mental
discord in any form. Life is too short, too precious, to spend any
part of it in such unprofitable, soul-racking, health-destroying
business. The imagination is particularly active at night, and all
unpleasant, disagreeable things seem a great deal worse then than in
the day, because in the silence and darkness imagination magnifies
everything. We have all dreamed of the evening's experience, after we
went to sleep: perhaps it is the refrain of a song or the intense
situation in a play which we live over again. This shows how powerful
impressions are; how important it is never to retire to rest in a fit
of temper, or in an ugly, unpleasant mood. We should get ourselves
into mental harmony, should become serene and quiet before retiring,
and, if possible, lie down smiling, no matter how long it may take to
secure this condition. Never retire with a frown on your brow; with a
perplexed, troubled, vexed expression. Smooth out the wrinkles; drive
away all the enemies of your peace of mind, and never allow yourself to
go to sleep with critical, cruel, jealous thoughts toward any one.
It is bad enough to feel inimical toward others when under severe
provocation or in a hot temper, but you certainly can not afford
deliberately to continue this state of mind after the provocation has
ceased. The wear and tear upon your nervous system and your health
takes too much out of you.
Be at peace with all the world at least once every twenty-four hours.
You can not afford to allow the enemies of your happiness and your
manhood or womanhood to etch their miserable images deeper and deeper
into your life and character as you sleep.
Many of us with crotchety, sour dispositions and quick tempers
sometimes have very hard work to be decent in our treatment of others.
But we can, at least when we are alone, and away from the people who
nettle and antagonize us, forget injuries, quit harboring unpleasant
thoughts and hard feelings toward others.
It is a great thing to form a habit of forgetting and forgiving before
going to sleep, of clearing the mind of all happiness and success
enemies. If we have been impulsive, foolish, or wicked during the day
in our treatment of others; if we have been holding a vicious, ugly,
revengeful, jealous attitude toward others, it is a good time to wipe
off the slate and start anew. It is a blessed thing to put into
practise St. Paul's exhortation to the Ephesians: "Let not the sun go
down upon your wrath."
If you wish to wake up feeling refreshed and renewed, you simply must
retire in a happy, forgiving, cheerful mood. If you go to sleep in an
ugly mood or while worrying or depressed, you will wake up tired,
exhausted and with no elasticity or spring in your brain or buoyancy in
your spirits, for the blood poisoned by worry, by discordant mood, is
incapable of refreshing the brain.
If you have a grudge against another, forget it, wipe it out, erase it
completely, and substitute a charitable love thought, a kindly,
generous thought, before you fall asleep. If you make a habit of
clearing the mind every night of its enemies, of driving them all out
before you go to sleep, your slumber will be undisturbed by hideous
dreams and you will rise refreshed, renewed.
Clean your mental house before retiring. Throw out everything that
causes you pain, everything that is disagreeable, undesirable; all
unkind thoughts of anger, hatred, jealousy, all selfish, uncharitable
thoughts. Do not allow them to print their black hideous pictures upon
your mind. And when you have let go of all the rubbish and have swept
and dusted and garnished your mind, fill it full of the pleasantest,
sweetest, happiest, most helpful, encouraging, uplifting
thought-pictures possible.
An evening-happiness bath ought to be the custom in every home. A bath
of love and good-will toward every living creature is more important
than a water bath.
We should fall asleep in the most cheerful, the happiest possible frame
of mind. Our minds should be filled with lofty thoughts--with thoughts
of love and of helpfulness--thoughts which will continue to create that
which is helpful and uplifting, which will renew the soul and help us
to awake in the morning refreshed and in superb condition for the day's
work.
If you have any difficulty in banishing unpleasant or torturing
thoughts, force yourself to read some good, inspiring book--something
that will smooth out your wrinkles and put you in a happy mood;
something that will make you see the real grandeur and beauty of life;
something that will make you feel ashamed of petty meannesses and
narrow, uncharitable thoughts.
After a little practise, you will be surprised to see how quickly and
completely you can change your whole mental attitude so that you will
face life the right way before you fall asleep.
You will be surprised also to find how wonderfully serene, calm,
refreshed, and rejuvenated you will be when you wake in the morning,
and how much easier it will be to start right, and wear a smile that
won't come off during the day, than it was when you went to bed in an
ill-humored, worrying or ugly mood, or full of ungenerous, uncharitable
thoughts.
Unless you tune your mind to harmony for sleep, there will be a
constant strain upon the nervous system. Even if you do manage to go
to sleep with a troubled mind, the brain keeps on working and you will
wake up exhausted.
We should take special pains to erase the memory of all unfortunate
experiences of the day, all domestic business or professional troubles
and anxieties, in order to retire in a placid, peaceful, harmonious
state of mind; not only because of the necessity of rising refreshed
and invigorated in the morning, but because the character and the
disposition are affected by the condition of the mind upon falling
asleep. Mental discords not only prevent sound sleep but also leave in
the blood poisonous waste from the chemical changes which in turn dulls
and impairs the brain action.
Many business men suffer so much torture at night that some of them
actually dread to retire because of the long, tedious, wakeful hours.
Financial troubles are particularly exaggerated at night; and even many
optimists suffer more or less from pessimism then.
Business men ought to know how to turn off brain power when they are
not using it. They would not think of leaving or closing their
factories at night without turning off the machinery power. Why should
they then attempt to go to sleep without turning off their mental
power? It is infinitely important to one's health to turn off mental
power when not actually using it to produce something.
When you get through your regular day's work, why allow your precious
energy to dribble away in little worries? Why carry your business
home, take it to bed with you, and waste your life forces in
ineffective thinking? Why permit a great leakage of mental energy and
a waste of life-force? You must learn to shut off mental steam when
you quit work.
Many men use up almost as much mental energy in the evening and in a
restless night as during their actual work in the day.
Refresh, renew, rejuvenate yourself by play and pleasant recreation.
Play as hard as you work; have a jolly good time, and then you will get
that refreshing, invigorating sleep which gives an overplus of energy,
a buoyancy of spirit which will make you eager to plunge into the next
day's work.
No matter how tired or busy you are, or how late you retire, make it a
rule never to go to sleep without erasing every unfortunate impression,
every disagreeable experience, every unkind thought, every particle of
envy, jealousy, and selfishness, from the mind. _Just imagine that the
words "harmony," "good cheer," and "good will to every living creature"
are written all over your sleeping room in letters of light_.
People who have learned the art of putting themselves into harmony with
all the world before they retire, of never harboring a thought of
jealousy, hatred, envy, revenge, or ill-will of any kind against any
human being, get a great deal more out of sleep and retain their youth
much longer and are much more efficient than those who have the habit
of reviewing their disagreeable experiences and thinking about all
their troubles and trials in the night.
Make it a rule to put the mind into harmony and a good-will attitude
when retiring, and you will be surprised to see how much fresher,
younger, stronger and more normal you will become.
I know people whose lives have been completely revolutionized by this
experiment of putting themselves in tune before going to sleep.
Formerly they were in the habit of retiring in a bad mood; tired,
discouraged over anticipated evils and all sorts of worries and
anxieties. They would worry over the bad things in their business, the
unfortunate conditions in their affairs, and their mistakes, and would
discuss their misfortunes at night with their wives. The result was
that their minds were in an upset condition when they fell asleep, and
these melancholy, black, ugly pictures, so exaggerated in awful
vividness in the stillness, became etched deeper and deeper into their
minds, and they awoke in the morning weary and exhausted, instead of
feeling, as every one should, like a newly-made creature with fresh
ambition and invigorated determination.
Form the habit of making a call upon the Great Within of you before
retiring. Leave the message of up-lift, of self-betterment,
self-enlargement, which you yearn for and long to realize but do not
know how to bring about. Registering this call, this demand for
something higher and nobler, in your subconsciousness, _putting it
right up to yourself_, will work like a leaven during the night; and
after a while all the building forces within you will help to unite in
furthering your aim; in helping you to realize your vision.
There are marvelous possibilities for health building, success
building, happiness building, in the preparation of the mind before
going to sleep by impressing, declaring, picturing as vividly as
possible our ideals of ourselves, what we would like to become and what
we long to accomplish. You will be surprised to see how quickly that
wonderful force in your subjective self will begin to shape the
pattern, to copy the model which you thus give it. In these great
interior creative, restorative forces lies the great secret of life.
Blessed is he who findeth it.