What Sleep will Cure

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 23, 1875

What Sleep will Cure.

The cry for rest has always been louder than the cry for food. Not that it is more important, but it is often harder to get. The best rest comes from sound sleep. Of two men or women otherwise equal, the one who sleeps the best will be the most moral, healthy and efficient. Sleep will do much to cure irritability of temper, peevishness, uneasiness. It will restore to vigor an over-worked brain. It will build up and make strong a weary body. It will do much to cure dyspepsia, particularly that variety known as nervous dyspepsia. It will relieve the languor and prostration felt by consumptives. It will cure hypochondria. It will cure the blues. It will cure the headache. It will cure neuralgia. It will cure a broken spirit. Indeed, we might make a long list of nervous maladies that sleep will cure.

The cure of sleeplessness, however, is not so easy, especially in those who carry grave responsibilities. The habit of sleeping well is one which, if broken up for any length of time, is not easily regained. Often, a severe illness, treated by powerful drugs so deranges the nervous system that sleep is never sweet after it. Or, perhaps, long continued watchfulness produces the same effect; or hard study, or too little exercise of the muscular system, or tea and whisky drinking and tobacco-using. To break up the habit are required:

A good, clean bed.
Sufficient good exercise to produce weariness and pleasant occupation.
Good air, and not too warm a room.
Freedom from too much care.
A clean stomach.
A clean conscience.
Avoidance of stimulants and narcotics.

For those who are overworked, haggard, nervous, who pass sleepless nights, we commend the adoption of such habits as shall secure sleep, otherwise life will be short, and what there is of it sadly imperfect.— Herald of Health.