One often hears a reference to beauty sleep and is often asked: "Is it really true that an hour of sleep before midnight is equal to two hours after midnight?" There are many writers who claim that the time when you sleep matters but little if you secure a sufficient amount of sleep. It is doubtful, however, if this view is absolutely correct. I am inclined to lean towards the old-fashioned view as to the good effect of early retiring on beauty development that is based on health building.
In one sense, it is reasonable to conclude that an hour of sleep before midnight is worth more than an hour thereafter. I am satisfied that there is greater exhaustion of the body from late than from normal hours, and it is difficult to get the full benefit from sleep when going to bed after midnight. At least the nerve strain of artificial light tends to produce a certain degree of vital depletion that one would not experience if his waking hours included only the daylight. Then again, there is probably some mysterious influence that we do not fully comprehend which makes sleep at night more restful than sleep during the daylight. Those who go to bed at midnight or thereafter use several hours of daylight in the early morning for sleeping. I realize that there are nocturnal animals and that the human race has developed nocturnal habits to a certain extent, but the human race and the animal life of the world generally have followed the habit through the ages of sleeping at night. Without doubt a revolutionary change in this habit has more or less effect upon the restful character of our sleep. Perhaps the mere question of light has much to do with it. Daylight is stimulating. Light has a chemical action and tends to stimulate animal metabolism. Darkness, or the lack of light, tends to a restful condition. Without doubt this question of light has much to do with the supposed benefits of sleep before midnight. The old saying that "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" may not hold true in the matter of wisdom and wealth in all cases, but there is no doubt it has much to do with the development of health and vitality.
[CHAPTER XX: Mind-The Master-force for Health or Disease]
We hear of many miraculous achievements in the building of health and the cure of disease through mental influence. The mind is unquestionably a master-force. I will not go so far as to say it is limitless, for certainly a hungry man cannot imagine he is eating a dinner and secure the same benefits that he would from the meal itself. Nor can a man who is passing away into the other world, through a definite vital defect, bring back life through mental force.
But we should remember that many diseases are to a great extent imaginary. And some of those not actually imaginary may at least be brought about through fears that are the results of abnormal delusions. And where such diseases are combated by mental forces of the right sort, a cure can be effected in many instances. In numerous cases, also, it is well to remember that the mental state is the actual cause of disease. You become blue, hopeless and to a certain extent helpless. You see nothing in the future. Life is dull. Ambition, enthusiasm, have all disappeared. It would not be at all difficult for this state of mind to bring about disease in some form.
Health, strength, vitality of the right sort, should radiate all the elements and forces associated with life's most valuable possessions. Happiness and health are close friends. It is very difficult to be gloomy and miserable if you are healthy. It is perhaps even more difficult to be healthy if you are gloomy and mentally ugly.
Therefore it is a wise precaution to cultivate a hopeful spirit. If the day is gloomy, if the sun is obscured by clouds, then develop the sunshine in your own spirit. Try to radiate good cheer. By seeking to cheer up others you will cheer yourself up, for always when we help others, we inevitably help ourselves, though this should not be our main purpose in the action. When we try to build up the characters, improve the morals and add to the mental and physical stability of others our efforts develop our own powers. Therefore, the best way to help yourself is to help others.
We have a remarkable exemplification of the value of mental influence in what is known as Christian Science. Even the most prejudiced enemy of this cult will admit that many remarkable cures have been accomplished through the principles it advocates. These cures alone indicate clearly that the mind is a dominating force that works for good or for evil. They prove that your thoughts are building up or tearing down your vital forces; that to a certain extent "Thoughts are things," that good thoughts are a real tangible influence for developing mental or physical force, and-that bad thoughts have an opposite influence. It is well for each one of us to determine clearly whether the thoughts that fill our minds each day are constructive or destructive in nature.
Your thoughts can actually destroy you. They can kill you as unerringly as a bullet fired from a rifle. Keep this fact very definitely before you, and try to make your thoughts each day the means of adding to your life forces. There are many emotions that are harbored on occasions, which are devitalizing and destructive.
We are all, to a certain extent, slaves of habit, whether good or bad. For instance, there is the worrying habit, for worry is really a habit. Therefore, it is a splendid plan to become slaves of good habits. One who has acquired the chronic habit of worrying needs a mental antiseptic. Worry never benefited anyone; it has brought thousands to an untimely grave. To give prolonged and grave thought to a problem that may come into your life, with the view of forming an intelligent conclusion, should not be called worry, but anxiety. There is a very great difference between worry and concentrated study of a vexing problem. The characteristic of worry is a tendency to brood anxiously over fancied troubles. The typical worrying mind will take mere trifles and magnify them until they become monumental difficulties. Many acquire the habit of going over and over again, and still again, the various unpleasant experiences which they have passed through during life. This inclination is baneful in its influence, To such persons I would say, eliminate the past. Try the forgetting habit, cultivate health and along with it good cheer. Make your mind a blank so far as the past is concerned, and fill it with uplifting thoughts for the present and the future. Worry is a mental poison, the toxic element produced in the mind by retention of waste matter, thoughts of the dead past that should have been eliminated with the passing of out-worn periods of existence.