The Young Woman's Guide

by William A. Alcott

"A full stomach, also, though it sometimes promotes, generally prevents sleep; consequently, supper ought to be dispensed with, except by those who, having been long used to this meal, cannot do without it. As a general rule, the person who eats nothing for two or three hours before going to rest, will sleep better than he who eats a late supper. His sleep will also be more refreshing; and his sensations upon awaking, much more gratifying."

The cold bath at going to bed, taken to reduce our heat, because we are too warm, is of rather doubtful utility. Some may use it with entire safety; but to the feeble, or those who have been greatly over-heated or over-fatigued, it would be hazardous.

By supper, Macnish means, no doubt, that fourth meal so common in fashionable life, and not the usual third meal at six o'clock Those who never heard of a fourth, have no occasion for caution on this subject, except it be in regard to quantity. This third meal, however, even when it is eaten three hours before going to bed, should be light.

In order to sleep properly, let all the conditions which I have mentioned be faithfully observed. Then to these let there be added a most strict and conscientious regard for the rule which I have suggested in the beginning of this chapter—which is, to rise early. Let no young woman be found in bed after day-light, in the longest days; nor in the winter, after four o'clock.

Some will say, that at this rate they should not get sleep enough during the night; and should, as a consequence, either be dull during their waking hours, or be obliged to take a nap in the day-time. But if our hard-laboring people who rise at four o'clock in the summer, find time enough to sleep—most of them—without a nap in the day-time, surely they whose labor is not so hard, can do it. They cannot, I well know, if they sit up till ten or eleven o'clock at night.

If any one desires to glorify God in every thing she does, let her attend to the conditions I have mentioned. If she finds that in rising at daylight she does not get sleep enough, let her go to bed a little earlier. We ought to sleep about as much before midnight as after; and she who goes to bed at eight, and rises at four, will be pretty sure to get sleep enough. Few if any persons over twelve years of age, need more than eight hours sleep; and the greater proportion not so much.

Here I will mention one thing which does not seem to be generally known. The more we sleep, if we increase our sleep by degrees, the more we may. How far the time for sleep may be thus extended, I do not know. There are, indeed, circumstances which may make the same individual require less or more sleep, independent of the habit of indulgence: still it is true, as a general fact, that we may sleep as much or as little as we please.

When we increase the hours of sleep, however, it does not follow that we actually sleep more in the same proportion. Let an active individual, who has been accustomed to six hours, suddenly confine herself to four. Will her actual sleep be abridged one third? By no means. Nature will endeavor to make up for the loss of time by inducing sounder sleep.

In this, however, she is only in part successful. For those who sleep so very soundly, often sleep too sound. We are sometimes conscious, when we awake from an over-sound sleep, that we are not well refreshed; but whether conscious of it or not, it is so. Macnish says—"That sleep from which we are easily roused, is the healthiest; very profound slumber partakes of the nature of apoplexy."

A person who, having been in the habit of sleeping six hours in twenty-four, suddenly reduces the number to four, will, probably, for a time, sleep as much in four hours as she slept before in about five, or five and a half. But the quality of these five or five and a half hours' sleep will be inferior, and continue so, unless she arouses herself to an increased activity of her intellectual powers, and reduces the quantity of her food and drink.