DR. FRANK CRANE'S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 38, 7 May 1927, Page 18

DR. FRANK CRANE'S DAILY EDITORIAL

LEARN TO LIE DOWN

(Copyright , 1927.)?

ET into the habit of lying down. Y’ou don’t have to go to sleep. You can often rest quite as much without sleeping. Lying down and relaxing is a thing that everybody ought to learn to do, and to do often. When you lie down and are quiet the stress is taken off your heart and all your other organs have a chance to recuperate. A famous doctor, on being asked at one time what he could recommend for sleeplessness, replied that the best way to get to ‘'Teep sometimes was simply not to care whether you slept or not. It is easy to work up a state of nervousness by trying to sleep when sleep will not come. Physicians often recommend going to bed for many diseases. The reason is that when you are in bed and inactive all the buildingup forces of your body have a chance to operate. The waste is stopped. So long as you are active and using your brain and muscles the body is storing up poisons of which it only gets rid when you rest. Learn to lie abed in the morning. That is a good time to rest. You are not bothered with clothes and ordinarily it incommodes the rest of the family less when you get up at nine o’clock than when you rise at six. It is a common fault to old people to rise early in the morning. They want breakfast when there is nobody to prepare it, and getting up so early is an instance of being all “dressed up and nowhere to go.” It will be found that it is largely a matter of habit. You can change your habits, and by allowing yourself to be dominated by the right thoughts the morning hours in bed may not be unpleasant. The habit of lying down frequently during the day is a good one to cultivate.