The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, July 19, 1928, Page 9

f as EE Mc) Tm AN ercu — = => TT. ut % we v “Dreams Abe Safety Vales For Your Sanity,” wee wd “You Need. More Rest -’ Than Rip Van Wun" 3 Among First Discoveries By DONALD A. LAIRD Director Colgate Psychological boratory IP VAN WINKLE slept for twenty years. This record is surpassed by the average man who lives out his allotted three score years and ten, for the 70- year-old person has spent more than 25 years in sleep. Sleep overtakes an individual at the close of his day's work, and after about eight hours it relaxes its hold. Beyond is the average person and most scientists know little. Scientific workers who have devoted their time to intensive studies of sleep number scarcely a dozen since the beginning of the scientific era; while in contrast there are at the present moment more than 100 scientists working on how to make the face more attractive by surgi- cal procedures. At the psychological laboratory of Col- gate University experimenters have been trying to find out all they can about sleep, especially what is practical and best. Beginning three years ago, volunteer subjects slept in quarters that the fraternity houses loaned for temporary use. e in- vestigation has grown and expanded from that beginning, until next year an entire 10-room house will be used for the sleep laboratory. Since the field has been practically untouched it has been necessary to de- vise and construct much separate for studying what goes on in people while they sleep, and how sleep can be made most. restful. Some of the apparatus is constructed so. that time is measured not: in merely seconds or tenths of seconds, but in thousandths of The bodily resistance of waked-up slumberers. . . was measured by the application of electric current. your regular work to do during the seconds. In measuring muscular relaxation, aytime, | You:can never fully. ap- which appears to be of paramount importance in f dagen the complete plessite et il restful alen. instruments which will tell the effect eer b awa, unday teal ayaa a single twitch of a finger has upon the total orden clam relaxation of the body have been devised. It has been necessary to develop special meth- ods to measure the exact amount of bodily energy expended while sleeping under various conditions, and the energy expei when doing work after sleep of various kinds and amounts. Tt comes to many people as somewhat of a surprise to find that another hardship is changing rom a medium soft, comfort- able bed to a hard and sagging bed. This demands more will power in some cases than to cut lown on one’s hours of sleep. But sleeping in uncomfortable beds is just another of the cruel and inhuman things required of sleep-test subjects from time to time. Since the “human guinea pigs” have IHE greatest difficulty in the experimental work is in the loss of sleep it demands both from those being experimented upon and those doing the experimenting. It is somewhat of a lark to stay up unusually late one night. But when the experimenters request that you get along with six hours of sleep oy night for a month in place of the eight you ha : accus! to having, the om dis- appears at ‘about 10 o'clock the second night. Nevertheless, some students were willing to make this sleep sacrifice without credit or pay three years ago. These “ cheeen guinea pigs” slept with gas masks firmly aut to thar faces for a half year of nights at a time so that chemical analyses of the expired air tt be made. In meee case the more eves hardship fell upon those seaking the experiments since they wide awake all night to oaks ac- curate determinations of the energy expenditure of those enjoying sleep. Two subjects sleeping peacefully with gas masks will keep 10 others king the chemical analyses of exhaled breath collected through the masks, Other somewhat cruel and a human practices are essential rder to discover the what and oy of sleep. Imagine yourself, for in- stance, ave at four o'clock: in and put through sromps t testa for an hour e Noises. . . a change in blood pressure though the sleeper continues to snooze. The sleepers in the unique laboratory. . . were watched, recorded. — an bs all all cause “Human nine is” in the Colgate University ex- iy ‘seh phage’ how mach “chcuicty’s feent combiantons _ PaTiments. sdbited Yo among and ging as Nepal under shock you, to weights with of mattresses and — in the interest of science. not allow for a os your fomagd Mig al finger every until you are springs in the Col- sirable amount of exhausted and unable to lift even an ounce. gate University restfulness. Then - further ii inapoe you are awakened for laboratory they have found that differences in. The experimenters were somewhat astonished the same work at t! the restf of two beds’ may be as marked to i. fad rap ‘ bed can be too soft, especially for clock two t fulness ee eS a ae as ¢ in the weather. «thle and anette te mating of rellaon ‘tee be It takes considerable determination to stick § sedien, sot hed wie 9 Toe semi at Se ite tee ee ee tically placed coil springs. bed which sags IMU AN of snore than arsines weight. In some ¢, tests seven hours sleep on some ve A recaeery sayin! to eet how 9 ether beds. The ett, of spring and mattress found in practically dormitories gives a poor sleeping com- Po re 1928, NEA Magazine and Sclence Service) ATTRA BA - ad . ee —— Inventor Edison, famed for his practice of sleeping only four hours in 24. . . takes many cal-naps every day, gets as much slecp as the average person. bination. A praiseworthy charity to undertake on a national scale would be to replace all such beds since a poorly rested person is a weak- willed person. Tt was found that the old belief that sleep is deepest the first few hours is true. It does not matter whether the first two or three hours come before midnight or after midnight. More noise is necessary to awaken a person during the first hours of his sleep. If he is awakened it is harder for him to keep awake. There is intense bodily metabolism due to the rebuilding activities tak- ing place. And recovery of ability to do strenu- ous tests appears more marked after the first two or three hours sleep than during the following six hours. T is probably fortunate that we cannot do away with the first two hours sleep. Other- wise some people trying to cheat nature might do as the Irishman who enlisted in the army and found that his blanket was so short that when it covered his feet it did not reach to his chin. So he cut six inches from the bottom of his blanket and sewed it to the top. Tt was found that if you cut down on sleep you will probably have to pay a price for it. After the loss of even two hours sleep, the ability to do difficult mental work is adversely affected, and almost invariably more calories of bodily energy are required to do the work than were needed when the regular amount of sleep had been main- tain ‘One can sleep through the night without awak- ening once, and still have very poor rest. Mea- surements are being made which show this con- clusively. The experimental sleepers are con- nected electrically with an adjoining room through sensitive apparatus developed by Samuel Bene- dict one ito Ver Hoff in the Colgate labora- tory. Every tension in the sleeper's body is registered—even changes in his muscular ten- sions which are not visible to the naked eye. It was found that merely walking past the sleeper's bed | in stockinged feet causes his muscles to tense although he shows f wi This changed tension wl ral het pag od sion at once, There are yt ings in addition to noise which can disturb sleep in this fashion, but noises UU TLANAUUAUAUOE CAAA a ALTA 1 tn The effect an vision of too little sleep... was determined, carefully recorded. are a very common and very potent cause of not getting the most out of sleep. Heavy bed clothing which bears down undily is apparently a disturber. So are bed covers which are too narrow and quickly slip to one side or another, exposing the sleeper to a draught on one side. Sheets should be especially wide so that the under sheet can be tucked under the mattress far enough to keep smooth all night long and so that the upper sheet does not become wrapped around one’s neck by two o'clock in the morning. Although results are not yet com- pleted they indicate strongly that a soft wool or camel's hair blanket which has maximum warmth with light weight is the most desirable. If the bed faces so that morning light falls on the sleeper’s cyes his last two or three hours of sleep is disturbed. Even with the shades down light still comes in through the cpened portion of the windows; a folding screen placed so that the light is kept from falling directly on the sleeper's *' eyes is helpful in many instances. a | eee is sometimes cited as having got along on unusually small amounts of sleep. But we must remember that he was a broken man at the age most men are in their prime. Re- garding the small amount of sleep Thomas A. Edison is said to take, Harvey Firestone says he has a good laugh every time he hears the story. Edison has always taken. innumerable chia itis (uesday, and allie hie aueta sleep may have been short, his total daily amount was that of the average man. The photograph on this page shows the famous inventor catching ene of his cat-naps while on a camping trip with Firestone and the late President Harding. There are indications that the average person is not getting enough sleep to fill nature's re- quirements. This is evidenced by the need of alarm clocks to yet many people started on the day's work, and by the widespread popularity of getting caught up on sleep on Sunday mornings. Many changes unknown to the individual take place during sleep. When a noisy taxicab passes a slecper's window, for instance, there is a change in his blood pressure caused by the noise, although the sleeper is not awakened at the time. Between four and six o'clock in the morning, when sleep is light, these disturbances, which we do not consciously sense, are responsible for the predicament of many persons who wake and toss about restlessly. The crash of a garbage can onto a paved alley or the passing of | the milkman have caused many worries about “What's the matter with me that I always wake at five o'clock lately?” With each question about sleep the experi- menters*have answered, the answer has raised a dozen new questions which are important and which can be answered in turn only by more ex- periments. It was discovered, for instance, that during the first two hours of sleep there are some intense body rebuilding activities taking place. ‘What these are is not known and, moreover, this is a question to be answered by the chemist. Chemists working in the United States Public Health Service and at the University of Chicago have not found what this chemical rebuilding is. Perhaps when they do discover it we will be nearer the day Coleman Du Pont foresees when a pill may take the place of sleep. A race which does without sleep, however, is well on the road to a race of mentally disordered people, probably within the first generation, for sleep is not merely a great restorative, but its dreams are often a oy valve Wy sanit So when are pal appears, if ever, t would warn you still to no Meg for real sleep low of it, and under the best conditions. IOUUAONANEAACOANOULE CANOLA AAA ~oMUANTADAAU LNA MAEM AU