DON’T SLEEP TOO LONG

Mt Benger Mail, 30 November 1938, Page 4

DON’T SLEEP TOO LONG

IE YOU WANT TO SUCCEED Dor some reason, very long ago, mau decided that he needed eight hours’ sleep every night. Such old traditional beliefs, too firmly founded to .be regarded as temporary fancies are often dangerous things to tamper with, for they are usually based on long experience, and incorporate tbe findings of the great majority of unnkiud. It is true that, though to-day people theorise about sleep, men and women as a whole, untroubled by scientific propositions, continue .o sleep for roughly the same period that their ancestors enjoyed—only they usually take it from, say 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., instead of fro nr 9 p.m. to 5 am., as hard-working past generations did. Yet it seems certain that too much sleep has an enervating effect, just as too little leaves, people limp. Thousands have observed this. Par stranger is the fact that many of the world’s greatest figures have been able to retain their mental and physical energies on a ration of sleep maybe only half that usually quoted. The amount of sleep you need seems to depend very largely on 'your nervous temperament. Conversely, one would suppose that the short sleeper had a brief life but a merry one—that he lived on his nerves and had to make up the balance by a shorter life. But this is by no means the case. George Bernard Shaw, an octogenerian in full possession of his faculties sleeps a good deal less chan eight hours nightly. Sir Thomas Oliver, a famous ’rofessor of Medicine at the Uni/ersity of Durham, and a student jf sleep, was inclined to attribute to loss, of sleep some of the alterations that tend to make ns old before our time. But when he one day visited Thomas Edison in his New Jersey home he was surprised to learn that the inventor, during the previous week, had slept only a total of twenty-two and a half hours— a daily -average of just over three hours. Edison .was then past middle age and engaged on some of his finest work. ; A few years later, when Professor Oliver again saw Edison, .he latter remembered perfectly ill the details of the former conversation, thus proving that regular “ under’’-sleeping need neither weaken the memory nor diminish the mental activity.

THE TREK TO THE SEASIDE The train had just come in and lie pretty girl turned to her companion. Girl: Bother! I have left my cigarette case at home. Companion: That does not matter. I have cigarettes enough. Girl: Yes, but my bathing costume is in it.

BRITAIN SELLS SCRAP TO GERMANS o Two thousand tons of scrap metal a week are being sold to dermany by big British concerns, and ships to carry it are being eagerly sought. Shipping circles are asking why the scrap, used fto build armaments is being allowed to go abroad. It is because Britain has gained control of the international crap metal trade and is able to sell at her own price. Germany is having to pay up to £4 a ton. Most of the metal is being bought in America by British interests, and a good deal of it resold at higher prices. Frantic Rush Many people now feel, however, [■hat with Germany’s declarations if her desire for peace the frantic rush to buy scrap is not reassuring. The metal is being shipped from ports as far apart as Liverpool, Belfast London Dover, Shore ham, Plymouth, and Yarmouth. It is taken to Duisburg and Hamburg. Both Germany and Italy have been outbidding British shipbreakers in order to get old ships and break them up for scrap. But they are having to pay prices unknown two years ago.