Sleep is so important that when a man is ill the doctor often tells the nurse not to waken him even for his medicine or his food. He says that sleep will do him more good than anything else.

A doctor in Stockholm, Sweden, studied the health of children and found that those who did not sleep enough were ill the oftenest, while those who slept the most were generally the healthiest. It is the same with children in other countries.

Ask the members of your class about it, and I think you will find that the ones who read and spell and learn their lessons best are the ones who sleep the most. You might see what they say about it. Perhaps you have noticed that you yourself are always happiest and bravest and kindest, that you learn your lessons the easiest and recite them the best, and that you have the most fun with games of all kinds after you have slept well. It is so with everybody; we do everything best after we have slept best.

But there are some people in every town and city who cannot sleep much, no matter how hard they try.

I knew a woman once who had only slept five hours that week, and she said nobody knew how she suffered. When she did sleep again she was the happiest woman you ever saw.

There are certain things that help many people to go to sleep. The patter of rain on the roof is one, the rustle of leaves is another, and the gentle singing of a lullaby is still another. All these things help because they keep on without much change. They are what we call monotonous. The sound goes on in the same tone, and it is soothing. But when the sound stops the people waken at once.

Perhaps you have seen how quickly an old man stiffens his neck and sits up straight when the minister stops preaching. It is the same with a baby too sometimes. He sleeps while the nurse is singing, but when she stops he wakens and begins to cry.

People know that monotonous things make them sleepy, so when they are excited or tired and cannot sleep they try all sorts of schemes that are monotonous. Sometimes they count slowly from one to one hundred; then they count backwards from one hundred to one. Sometimes they repeat a verse of poetry over and over again, or they say to themselves, "Sleep, sleep, sleep," until at last they go to sleep.

Once when I could not sleep I learned to say the alphabet from both ends to the middle, like this: a z b y c x d w e v f u g t h s i r j q k p l o m n. At the same time I learned to say it from the middle out again, like this: m n l o k p j q i r h s g t f u e v d w c x b y a z. That seems a foolish business now, but it helped me to go to sleep many times in those days.

Children do not lie awake very often. For them the principal questions are when to go to bed and how long to sleep. Or we might put it this way: if a man or a child wants his brain to work for him in the best way it can, and as fast as it can, how many hours ought he to sleep each night? Merely to be in bed is not enough.

Babies need more sleep than young men, and people who are feeble need more than those who are strong. From this we see that there can be no very definite rules. Here are some pretty good ones, however.

1. Children four years old need to sleep about twelve hours.
2. Children seven years old need to sleep about eleven hours.
3. Children eight and nine years old need to sleep about ten and a half hours.
4. Children ten and eleven years old need to sleep about ten hours.
5. Children twelve years old need to sleep about nine hours.

Even grown-up people are healthier as a rule and can use their brains and bodies better when they sleep seven and a half or eight hours a night.

By using this table you ought to be able to decide for yourself how many hours of sleep you need each night. Notice whether you are wide-awake or sleepy when it is time for you to get up in the morning. If you are sleepy, you must go to bed earlier; you need more sleep, and the time to get it is in the evening, not in the morning.

Probably you are nine or ten years old. In this case you ought to sleep ten hours or more every night.

If you are healthy and strong, and if you are wide-awake in the morning so that nobody has to waken you for breakfast, then perhaps ten hours will be enough. Let your father decide about that.

I know three children who go to the grammar school. They are about the best scholars in their classes, but they never have any "home work" to do. They do all their studying in the schoolroom. When they are not in school they are generally playing out of doors in the pure air. One reason why they get along so well without doing "home work" is because they sleep so much.

Elizabeth is nine years old. She sleeps ten and a half hours almost every night. James is eleven, but he is strong, and after he has slept nine and a half hours he is wide-awake. He cannot sleep anymore and his father lets him get up. Fred is thirteen. He is not quite so strong as James, so he sleeps ten hours and he is getting stronger every month.

All three children are healthy, and are growing fast; they are good students and they are full of fun too. They think that sleeping is like putting money in the bank of health. I think so too.

I shall now give you three rules.

1. Sleep all you can. This will make you brighter and bigger.
2. Go to bed and get up at regular hours. This will help you to get sleep enough.
3. Unless you are ill do not lie in bed many minutes after you wake in the morning.

Albert S. Lyons

Copyrighted material; do not reprint without permission.

 

View all articles by Albert S. Lyons