Part 2

ST. JOHN’S RECTORY, NORTHAMPTON, MASS. September 15, 1908.

CONTENTS

PAGE

OUR NATIONAL DISEASE 1

THEORIES OF SLEEP 5

WHAT SLEEP REALLY IS 8

THE NECESSITY OF SLEEP 12

INSOMNIA AND ITS CAUSES 15

THE VALUE OF DRUGS 18

THE REMOVAL OF ALL PHYSICAL CAUSES 25

GENERAL DIRECTIONS 29

SECONDARY AIDS TO SLEEP 33

DR. LEARNED’S PLAN 35

RELAXATION AND RHYTHMIC BREATHING 38

THE EMMANUEL METHOD 43

FAITH REQUIRED IN GOD AND MAN 47

THE SPECIFIC TREATMENT 53

SOME IMMEDIATE RESULTS 64

THE CO-OPERATION OF THE PATIENT 67

THE ULTIMATE EFFECT 72

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES 74

The Art of Natural Sleep

OUR NATIONAL DISEASE

Neurasthenia is now our national disease. Nervousness, nervous exhaustion, nervous prostration, and kindred names are given to it by the doctors. Whatever they may chance to call it, the doctors usually agree as to its causes, symptoms, consequences.

Even the laity are now thoroughly informed as to the effect of neurasthenia on the nerves and on the mind. It wears the nerves threadbare and robs the mind of all serenity. It steals the zest from work, the joy from play. It frequently reduces its unhappy victim to the single occupation of worrying by day because he fears he will not sleep at night, of worrying at night because he knows that worn and haggard he will have no buoyancy and poise to play a man’s part in the day to come.

The day’s work is done, when done at all, with the feverish inquietude of the unrested brain. The evening’s pleasures, when infrequently he ventures to take part in them, are clouded by the listlessness the lack of sleep invariably brings. The silent night, when by any reach of the imagination it can be thus described,

Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill,

is rendered hideous by the flitting of attention like a bird from bough to bough, by the random running of the memory down each unhappy recollection of the past, by the deflection of the mental vision till it loses all perspective and disqualifies the sufferer to think straight concerning even the trivial occurrences of everyday existence.