A Simple Remedy For Insomnia

1895

A physician, in speaking of the various methods of inducing sleep, said: "I've tried them all — putting a cold towel on the head, bathing the feet in hot water, counting up to 1,000, drinking a glass of milk, and so on, and the best thing I ever found was simply this: When I have worked all evening and find myself at bedtime in a state of nervousness or mental activity, I go to bed and place my right hand directly over the pit of the stomach. Whether it is the animal warmth of the hand resting on the stomach and drawing the circulation from the head or some nervous action I can't say, but I know that I fall asleep in a few minutes. I believe that in a large majority of the ordinary cases of sleeplessness this simple remedy will prove effective. I have recommended it to many patients, and they report surprising success. — Chicago Record.

Suggestions to the Wakeful

1902

If you are nervous and wakeful in temperament, don't overtax your memory, but if you have anything on your mind make a note of it. It will pay better to use a paper tablet than to exhaust your brain.

Do no mental work whatever after the evening meal. Use the evening entirely for relaxation, amusement, but not excitement.

When you go to bed stop thinking, or let the mind rest very lightly on some pleasant or even childish subject.

A hot foot-bath before getting into bed soothes the tired nerves, draws the blood from the brain and is one of the best sleep inducers.

Relax. Lie as limply on your bed as though you were a year-old babe. You cannot have repose of mind without repose of muscle.

The salt rub will be found highly beneficial with the bath. First wet the body with warm water, then rub hard all over with handfuls of damp salt, rinse and rub dry. — American Queen.

Note: This advice is from 1902.

Deep Breathing Helped One Sufferer With Insomnia

1908

Troubled All His Life

"I have been troubled with insomnia all my life," remarked the nervous man, "and like most people similarly afflicted I have tried all the familiar dodges to induce sleep. The results were never particularly satisfactory in the way of producing the desired effect until one night I thought I had actually found a sleep-inducer when I chanced to grasp one of the rods at the head of my bed with both hands and practically hung the weight of my body on them. That sent me to sleep and it did the same thing for a few times, when to my extreme disappointment, I found it had ceased to work.

"I was as badly off as recently, until one night, when I had a bad cough, as well as an attack of sleeplessness. I tried the well-known remedy of trying to send myself off into the land of nod by taking long deep breaths. What it did to me, and has done several times since, was not to only send me to sleep, but to stop my cough. Just why it did so is not of much consequence. That it did so is the thing that concerns me most."


Poetry Wins Bandit's Heart

Prof. Bliss Perry tells a story to illustrate the advantages of literary wisdom. A friend, he says, was traveling in French mountains when on a lonely road he was stopped by highwaymen, his life threatened, and his valuables demanded. His literary instincts were to the fore, even in his extremity and half unconsciously he burst forth with an appropriate couplet, quoted from some obscure French poet.

"Hold!" cried the leader of the highwaymen. "My comrades, this gentleman is acquainted with the works of our friend, M. So-and-So! He is, then, our brother."

The purse was returned, courtesies extended, and the traveler and three bandits adjourned to an inn near by and spent a pleasant evening. — Boston Herald.

Get Wise: Little Nuggets of Wisdom

Bedford, Pennsylvania, 1920

Trading a peck of trouble for a pint of whisky is a poor bargain.

The poor fellows whose thirst for whisky in Massachusetts brought them to their grave will not trust their fellow-man any longer. They've handed in their checks.

If you are the architect of fortune don't build too many castles in the air.

If you have to hit a man on the head to make him see a joke, hit him so hard that he will never see another one.

Nobody is so blind as he who refuses to see through other people.

It is well to make well rounded periods in making a speech. In fact some could devote all their time to punctuation and omit words. Everybody would be better pleased.

In these days the fellow who shoots off his mouth about prohibition isn't apt to be loaded.

When blushing, modesty gets so flustered it doesn't know which way to turn, it simply turns red.

Procrastination is the thief of time. Insomnia, is never ready to say goodbye till the alarm clock is ready to go off.

It is polite now to tell a whole country to 'dry up".

The report that the world would come to an end on December 17, caused some little stir in Bedford. However Mrs. Pedro Helwanger and some of her neighbors got consolation from the fact that if it did end they would get rid of Pedro. After Pedro learned of this conspiracy he was glad it did not come as he likes to get ahead of his wife and neighbors.

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 2, 1920, page 5.