Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III INSOMNIA AND ITS CAUSES "How many thousands of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh mine eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?" —henry IV. INSOMNIA, briefly defined, is an inability to sleep the average length of time. It manifests itself in various ways. The individual may go to bed tired, and apparently well prepared to sleep, but in spite of all his efforts, or rather because of them, sleep does not come for one, two, or more hours, but once it does come the individual sleeps soundly until morning. During the time he remains awake, the sufferer may be tranquil in mind or, as is more often the case, peevish and fretful. He may be conscious of the fact that it is pain, worry, or other cause that keeps him awake but in other cases the individual is mentally quiet and cannot fathom the reason for his sleeplessness. This type of insomnia is frequent in those given to worry, nervousness, or who are over-fatigued. On the other hand, the person may readily go to sleep, only to awake in the early morning hours. He may, after an hour or two, again go to sleep; but, as is usually the case, once awakened, no more sleep is granted. This type of insomnia may be due to distressing dreams which the sufferer remembers, either wholly or in part, to the effects of light or noise, to physical discomforts, to habits, etc. In so far as habit is concerned, if one awakes on one or two occasions at a certain time a tendency is formed to awake regularly at that hour. The majority of us, even though our sleep has never been disturbed, can by resolving to awake at a certain hour fulfill that resolve. However, unless we encourage the practice by getting up whe...