[...]
By W. H. Bates, M.D.
How much sleep is necessary to maintain health? This is a question
which has never been satisfactorily answered. Theoretically, mental or
physical work should increase the need for sleep, but it is a matter
of common knowledge that many inactive persons seem to need just as
much sleep as those who work, or even more.
Much time has been devoted to the investigation of the symptoms of
fatigue. Analyses have been made of fatigued subjects; the action of
the muscles, nerves and brain, the changes in the structure of the
cells, under the influence of fatigue, the changes following sleep
have all been carefully studied. But so far very little light has been
thrown upon the nature of either fatigue or sleep.
This is a fact, however: that eyestrain has always been demonstrated
when fatigue was present, and that fatigue has always been relieved
when eyestrain was relieved. Perfect sight is perfect rest, and cannot
coexist with fatigue. Even the memory or imagination of fatigue is
accompanied by the production of eyestrain and imperfect sight, while
the memory of perfect sight will relieve both eyestrain and fatigue.
Sleepiness is a common symptom of habitual eyestrain, and when the
sight improves the need for sleep is often markedly reduced.
One patient reports that after gaining normal sight without glasses
she was able to get on comfortably with seven hours sleep, whereas she
had formerly not been able to avoid continual sleepiness and yawning
even on nine and ten hours. The inclination to yawn on all occasions
had been so overpowering, she stated, that it often subjected her to
great embarrassment. On one occasion she yawned so incessantly during
a call made in the early evening that the visitor concluded, not
unnaturally, that her presence was a burden and departed in high
dudgeon, no explanations sufficing to convince her that the yawning
was not the result of boredom. The patient was made very unhappy by
this condition, but finally became reconciled to it in a measure,
thinking that what could not be cured must be endured. Great was her
surprise and delight, therefore, when, after discarding her glasses
and beginning to practice central fixation, she found herself sleeping
less and not yawning so much. She made no conscious effort, she said,
to check the yawning, and had indeed almost forgotten about it. She
now gets sleepy only at bedtime.
Another patient, although he never had any desire to sleep in the
daytime, found it very difficult to keep awake in the evening. At the
opera or theatre, at lectures and social gatherings, and at church, he
was always sleepy and often went to sleep. It was naturally more
difficult for him to keep awake when he was not interested, but
whether he was interested or not he was sure to become more or less
sleepy. He never went to a lecture without going to sleep, and the
world's most famous song-birds were not always able to keep him awake
at the opera. In the case of dull papers or sermons, it did no good to
think of something else, for the sound of the speaker's voice acted
like an opiate. When he learned how to relax by the aid of the memory,
imagination, shifting, swinging and palming, the trouble gradually
became less, and now he can stay awake at all times and in all places
where people are supposed to stay awake.
____
Imperfect Sight Can be Cured Without Glasses
You Can Cure Yourself
You Can Cure Others
Better Eyesight
A monthly magazine devoted to the prevention and cure of imperfect
sight without glasses
Copyright, 1920, by the Central Fixation Publishing Company
Editor—W. H. Bates, M.D.
Publisher—Central Fixation Publishing Co.
$2.00 per year, 20 cents per copy
342 West 42nd Street, New York, N. Y.
Vol. III - September, 1920 - No. 3
____
[...]
Linear Mode
