grief is scarcely to be put away without some seeming hurt to the best in us. For many a subject to insomnia the most that can apparently be done is to stand cheerfully and confidently between him and the temptation to grow morbid and melancholy, to keep the house as quiet as circumstances will allow, to provide for the bedtime hour a glass of hot milk with its pinch of salt in it, the hot malted milk unsweetened, the clam bouillon, the beef extract, or a cup of cocoa which every insomniast should take before he goes to bed, and by day and night to soothe, sustain, and cheer the troubled spirit.
DR. LEARNED’S PLAN
The physiological problem is uncomplicated. As Dr. Learned, who more than a quarter of a century ago cured himself of habitual insomnia by getting control of the respiratory and circulatory functions in the sleeping posture, has made clear, the problem is simply to shift the belt of attention from the wildly whirling wheel of introspection to the steadier wheel the will revolves.
By deep regular respirations, accompanied by rhythmical movements of the head and hands and feet, Dr. Learned has frequently brought the wandering attention back from some side track it sought in fitfulness to the main line of the controlled consciousness. So surely has he in recent years become convinced that the problem is usually psychical that he no longer emphasises physical exercises in or out of bed. Instead he provides an ingenious little tablet on which the wakeful one with unlifted pencil steadily records in waving lines his inhalations and his exhalations until at last, fatigued by the long exercise, the brain becomes anæmic and sleep overtakes the drowsy mind.
RELAXATION AND RHYTHMIC BREATHING
To Mrs. Annie Payson Call[11] and Dr. Emily Noble we owe of late the stress we lay on muscular relaxation and rhythmic breathing, which practised faithfully will now and then bring sleep where drugs are worse than useless. Muscular relaxation can be learned by any who will take the trouble. The Delsarteans are already adepts at it. The letting of the arms drop limp by the side as one sits in an easy chair, the letting of the trunk sink unsupported against the easy chair as though it were sinking into a yielding bank of snow, the letting of the head fall forward or sideways without resistance will furnish even to the slow of wits a visual image which will serve as a sufficient pattern in the relaxation of the whole body.