Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1885 — INSOMNIA. [ARTICLE]

INSOMNIA.

A Few Suggestions for the Sleepless. New York suffers more for lack of sleep than for lack of fdod, and this privation is on the increase to a fearful degree. One reason for that excessive drinking which ruins our business men mav be found in the fact that men thus make up for the loes of sleep. The use of stimulants under such circumstances is doubly pernicious, but this does not prevent it. All classes of\bram-work-ers surfer to a greater or less degree, but the most painful instances are found among Wall street brokers and speculators* who are under such intense excitement that healthy sleep often becomes an impossibility. The next in point of suffering are preachers and play-actors, who also become excited to an intense degree. Editors, lawyers, physicians, and business men also suffer from insomnia, and the following paragraph, clipped from a morning paper, is an appeal which might be repeated by a large part of onr population : “Sleeplessness.—l am troubled with this complaint; 35 years old-; married; happy home; active business; S2O for recipe or cure. Address Sleep. ” My reply to the above is entirely gratuitous, and yet may be of. some value, being the result of experience: Avoid intoxicating drinks, and, if .possible, get your work done before dark. If very nervous, a warm bath is •advisable, for which a wash-bowl and a sponge may suffice. Eat moderately before going to bed. To break off annoying thoughts, which keep one awake, repeat poetry or count steadily from one to 100. I know a man who goes over “Gray’s Elegy” night after night until it ends in sleep, while another counts as above mentioned until the same result is reached. Anything that will divert the mind from its tendency to prey upon itself promotes sleep. If it be too cold for a tepid bath, then friction of the skin is beneficial. Opiates are decidedly objectionable, but there is a sedative which is both safe, efficacious, and hence should be better known. This is bromide of potassium, which, in a weak solution, soothes the nerves in a harmless manner. It should, however, be properly prepared by the druggist. Some people have waking spells during the night, and it is better to rise and walk round the house than to toss in bed. A man of my acquaintance who has such waking spells walks the streets for a half hour and then returns to bed and obtains sleep. Knowing the liability of public speakers to insomnia, 1 asked the most excitable of this class (John B. Gough) how he obtained sleep after one of his thrilling lecture, generally two hours in length. He replied: “On returning to my room I begin reading some interesting book, and in this manner fill my mind with other thoughts, and then I can sleep.” Public speakers find it very difficult to stop thinking after they have stopped speaking. Old Lyman Beecher, father of the Brooklyn orator, had a load of sand in his cellar, and after evening service he shoveled it from one side to the other, and by this exercise toned down the fever of his brain, often finishing by playing the violin, which was one of his accomplishments. Bodily exercise is certainly very efficacious under such circumstances.

Persistent insomnia is one of the first signs of insanity, and hence should at once call for treatment. As men advance in life naps in the daytime become very useful. I know one brainworker who takes two or three, and also sleeps well at night. If New York could have a nooning, and our business men could recruit their jaded nerves by “kind nature’s sweet restorer,” there would be less drinking; but as they have no time for this, they keep themselves up by the bottle, and then often lie awake at night from , the excitement caused by intoxication. Sleep being our great necessity, I offer these suggestions to such of my readers as may find them of service. As a general rule people should sleep all they can. The most noted victim of insomonia was Horace Greeley, whose intense mental labors and anxiety during that fatal Presidential canvass led through loss of sleep to insanity, and then again a general collapse of an overworked system, which soon found relief in death. — N. Y. letter.