Young children should take a nap each day. They are so active that they need this rest. Adults can with profit take a short nap, not to exceed thirty minutes, after lunch. Those who are nervous owe it to themselves to take a nap. Those who use the brain a great deal will find the midday nap a great restorer. If sleep will not come, they should at least close their eyes and remain relaxed for a short time. A long nap makes one feel stupid.
Those unfortunate people who are addicted to various enslaving drugs, such as cocaine and morphine, often are very light sleepers. They are deteriorating physically, mentally and morally. Such people are ill and are no guides to the needs of healthy people.
Coffee drinking is a destroyer of sound sleep. At first the coffee seems to soothe the nerves, but in a few hours it has the opposite effect. The habitual use of coffee helps to bring on premature nervous instability and physical degeneration.
Sleep is self-regulating. If we are normal otherwise we need give the subject no thought except to select a regular time to go to bed and get up promptly in the morning upon awaking.
It is easy to drive away sleep. Those who wish to enjoy this sweet restorer at its best must be regular.
CHAPTER XXV.
FASTING.
Fasting is one of the oldest of remedial measures known to man, not only for the ills of the body, but for those of the soul. Oriental lore and literature make frequent reference to fasts. From the Bible we learn that Moses, Elijah and Christ each fasted forty days, and no bad effects are recorded.
Addison knew the value of fasting and temperance. He wrote that, "Abstinence well-timed often kills a sickness in embryo and destroys the seeds of a disease." Unfortunately, he did not live as well as he knew how. Hence his brilliant mind had but a short time in which to work and the world is the loser.
Our own great philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, had the same knowledge, for he wrote, "Against disease known, the strongest fence is the defensive virtue, abstinence."