CHAPTER XIV
PREPARING THE MIND FOR SLEEP
Sleep, gentle sleep, how have I frighted thee?
Shakespeare.
Not long ago I heard a young lady say that it was simply impossible for any woman to look charming or to be agreeable right after getting up in the morning. The Rev. Dr. Bushnell declared that "a man must be next to a devil who wakes angry." The way we feel when we awake in the morning depends on how we were feeling or thinking when we went to sleep.
If we retire holding a grudge against a neighbor, with a resolve to "get square" with somebody who has injured us; if we have hatred or jealousy in our heart; if we are envious of another's success, and if we go to sleep nursing these feelings, we awake in a depressed, exhausted state, feeling bitter, pessimistic, irritable, unhappy, about as nearly like a devil as it is possible for a human being to feel. The destroyer was at work all night, running amuck among the delicate brain and nerve cells, furiously tearing down what beneficent Nature had taken such pains to upbuild. But, when we take pleasant, kindly, loving thoughts to bed with us we awake refreshed, in a happy, contented frame of mind. Our sleepless faculties spent the hours in upbuilding, performing friendly offices for us during the night.
Few people ever think of preparing the mind for sleep, yet it is even more necessary than it is to prepare the body. Most of us take great pains to put the latter in order; we undress, take a warm bath, massage the face with some sort of refreshening salve, cold cream, or oil; we make sure that our sleeping room is properly ventilated and that our bed is clean and comfortable, but to the matter of preparing our minds we don't give a thought.
Instead of making our subconscious mental processes build for us in the night, we allow them to tear down much of what we have built during the day. Many of us grow old, haggard and wrinkled in the night, when just the reverse ought to be the case, for Nature herself has ordained that night should be the building, the renewing, time of life.
If we were only to prepare the mind for sleep with the same intelligence and care that we prepare the body; if we were to give it a cleansing mental bath, wiping from memory's slate all black, discordant pictures, all the worries and fears which vexed and perplexed us during the day instead of having the nightmare panorama passing and repassing before us during the night, robbing us of needed rest and neutralizing our upbuilding, recuperative forces, what a difference it would make in our achievement, in our lives!
I know men whose lives have been revolutionized by adopting the practice of putting themselves in a harmonious condition, getting in tune with the Infinite before going to sleep. Formerly they were in the habit of retiring in a bad mood, tired, discouraged over anticipated evils, worrying about all sorts of things. They would discuss their misfortunes at night with their wives and then fall to thinking over the unfortunate conditions in their affairs, their mistakes, and the possible evil consequences that might result from them. Naturally, their minds were in an upset condition when they fell asleep, and, as might have been expected, the melancholy, black, ugly pictures of the misfortunes they feared, vividly exaggerated in the stillness of the night, became etched deeper and deeper on their brains and did their baleful work, making real rest and reinvigoration absolutely impossible. When they reformed their habits, changed their thought, and retired in a peaceful frame of mind with the intention of going to sleep, instead of tossing about thinking of their troubles, their business straightway began to improve. They were stronger, fresher, more vigorous, more resourceful, better able to cope with difficulties, to make plans and to carry them out than when they were depleting their physical and mental resources by robbing themselves of their best friend, Nature's restorative,—sleep.