What is the best remedy for sleeplessness?
Remedy for
Sleeplessness
Q. What is the best remedy for sleeplessness?
A. At bed-time take
a neutral bath. This consists of a full bath at a
temperature of 92° to 96° F. A bath of this temperature has wonderful calmative and soporific effects. The duration of the bath may be as long as necessary to produce the desired effects. Several hours in the bath may be required. Sooner
or later the disposition to sleep will come,
and then the patient may leave the bath and retire. In getting out of the bath the greatest care must
be taken to avoid chilling, even in the slightest degree.
The patient should not be cooled off in the
manner usual after warm baths, but should be
wrapped in a Turkish sheet and gently dried (not rubbed), and should then slip into
a warm bed as quickly as possible.
A warm foot bath taken just before going to bed will often induce sleep by withdrawing the blood from the head. The moist
abdominal bandage, -a wet bandage well
covered with flannel so as to produce thorough warming
will often accomplish the same result. In addition observe
the following rules:
1. Discard meats.
2. Take only a light supper, consisting of fruits, with perhaps a glass of buttermilk or plain soup of some sort. Avoid bread and butter, cake, pastry and all indigestibles. The less work the stomach has to do during the night, the sounder the sleep will be.
3. Discard tea and coffee if you are addicted to the use of these poisons.
4. Drink two or three quarts of water daily.
5. . Make the bowels move three or four times a day by the use of laxative foods. The bowels ought at least to move after every meal.
6. Live out of doors as much as possible, and sleep in a tent or on a porch so as to breathe out-of-door air when asleep.
7. Take enough muscular exercise every day to get really tired.
8. Avoid excitement of any sort before going to bed.
9. Avoid feather mattresses and pillows, and too much bed covering. The bed covers should be light and porous.
The writer has sometimes, when under great strain, found it advantageous to spend the greater part of the night in the neutral bath. It appears that one can sleep at least twice as fast in a bathtub as in bed. Care should be taken to encourage the drowsy feeling which the bath induces and to get into bed and get to sleep with out in any way exciting the nervous system.
1. Discard meats.
2. Take only a light supper, consisting of fruits, with perhaps a glass of buttermilk or plain soup of some sort. Avoid bread and butter, cake, pastry and all indigestibles. The less work the stomach has to do during the night, the sounder the sleep will be.
3. Discard tea and coffee if you are addicted to the use of these poisons.
4. Drink two or three quarts of water daily.
5. . Make the bowels move three or four times a day by the use of laxative foods. The bowels ought at least to move after every meal.
6. Live out of doors as much as possible, and sleep in a tent or on a porch so as to breathe out-of-door air when asleep.
7. Take enough muscular exercise every day to get really tired.
8. Avoid excitement of any sort before going to bed.
9. Avoid feather mattresses and pillows, and too much bed covering. The bed covers should be light and porous.
The writer has sometimes, when under great strain, found it advantageous to spend the greater part of the night in the neutral bath. It appears that one can sleep at least twice as fast in a bathtub as in bed. Care should be taken to encourage the drowsy feeling which the bath induces and to get into bed and get to sleep with out in any way exciting the nervous system.