Brain-work and overwork / edited by George Black.

Date:
[1888?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Brain-work and overwork / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    121/136 (page 117)
    is using his brain at school should have all the sleep he will take ; less than nine hours is not rarely a scanty allowance. The grown youth or the middle-aged man require less sleep than does the child. It is to them that the rule just enunciated especially applies. As middle life is passed, the daily need of sleep is lessened. A man at sixty usually requires less rest than he did at thirty-five. Why this is so is not altogether clear. It is possibly because a man ac sixty usually works less than he does at forty. Even if he accomplished the same results, by long habit the work has become easier and without effort. It is quite possible, that if a man at sixty engage in a new kind of labor, his sleep-needs will equai those of the younger man. As old age draws on, there is a steady increase in the sleep requirements, until finally nine, ten, or twelve hours daily are well passed in forget- fulness. Every one recognizes that severe physical work must be followed by a corresponding rest; but it is not so universally remembered that the one law rules mental and physical labor. When a man works hard with his brain, he must rest hard not only in recrea- tion, but also in sleep. If a personal allusion may be pardoned as an illustration, I have found that, when using my brain vigorously, about one hour more of sleep was required daily than when, for a number of successive days, no effort was put forth.