Some time before retiring, excitement and mental work should be avoided. The patient should take a quiet walk after supper, drink no fluid, empty bladder and bowels, and take a hot foot-bath.
Retire and rise punctually, for the brain, like most other organs, may be trained to definite habits with patience.
If sleeplessness be ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to an empty stomach, a glass of hot milk and two plain biscuits should be taken in bed; dyspeptics should take no food for three hours before retiring. If the patient wakes in the early morning he may find a glass of milk (warmed on a spirit-stove by the bedside) and a few plain biscuits of value.
A victim of insomnia should lie on his side on a firm bed with warm, light coverings, open the window, close the door, and endeavour to fix his attention on some monotonous idea; such as watching a flock of white sheep jump a hedge. Think of trifles to avoid thinking of troubles.
How often do we hear people complain that they suffer from insomnia, when in fact they get a reasonable amount of sleep, and indeed often keep others awake by their snoring.
When you wake, _get up_, for a second sleep does no good. When some one, on seeing the narrow camp-bed in which Wellington slept, said: "There is no room to turn about in it," the Iron Duke replied: "When a man begins to turn about in his bed it is time he turned out of it."
The only safe narcotic is a day's hard work. For severe insomnia consult a doctor; do not take drugs--that way lies ruin. By taking narcotics, or patent remedies containing powerful drugs, you will easily get sleep--for a time only--and then fall a slave to the drug. Such victims may be seen in dozens in any large asylum.
"The surest way to health, say what they will Is never to suppose we shall be ill; Most of the ailments we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow." --Churchill.
"Men may die of imagination, So depe may impression be take." --Chaucer.
"Suggestion is the introduction into the mind of a practical belief that works out its own fulfilment."--Guyau.
Man suffers from no purely imaginary ills, for mental ills are as real as physical ills, and though an individual be ailing simply because he persuades himself he is ailing, his mind so affects his body that he is actually unwell physically, though the cause of his trouble is purely mental.