Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1885 — How Long Ought a Man to Sleep? [ARTICLE]

How Long Ought a Man to Sleep?

The latest authority on this vexed question, Dr. Malins, says that the proper amount of sleep to be taken by a man is eight hours. So far as regards city life the estimate is probably correct. Proverbial wisdom does not apply to modern conditions of social existence. “Five (hours) for a man, seven for a woman and nine for a pig.” says one proverb; and a second, quoted by Mr. Hazlitt in his English Proverbs, declares that “Nature requires five; custom gives (aHows?) seven; laziness takes nine; and wickedness eleven.” These conclusions were, however, drawn from observation of country life. Phys 7 ical fatigue is more easily overcome than intellectual. Which of us, when traveling in the country or abroad, or in any way sepairated from the ordinary processes of thought and anxiety, has not found that he could, without difficulty, do with a couple of hours less sleep than he was in the habit of taking ? Men, however, who follow any intellectual pursuit are exceptionally fortunate if the process of restoration occupy less than seven hours. More frequently they extend to eight or nine hours. Grant, I see it stated, took never less than seven hours. Goethe owned to requiring nine. Soldiers and sailors, on the other hand, like laborers, do with much less quantity. lam afraid to say how few hours the Duke of Wellington regarded as essential. A schoolmaster under whom, at one time, I studied, a hard-working* man at the acquisition of languages, proclaimed loudly that he never took more than five hours’sleep. The hour at which he rose in the morning gave some color to this assertion. Only in afterlife did I discover that a two hours’ postprandial siesta was not included in that allowance. —Gentleman’s Magazine.