CHAPTER FOUR
Insomnia, neurasthenia and fatigue
IN the previous chapter 1 discussed emotional stress ailments. In this one we are considering the physical results of stress, worry, and constant fatigue. Perhaps the most common complaint of this modern age, together with constipation, which is discussed in the following chapter, is insomnia. It is the cause of more widespread misery than one could possibly imagine. There are many ways to combat insomnia but many people, far too many, rely on harmful and habit-forming sleeping drugs which may induce an unnatural sleep but which do not, and cannot, cure the trouble at the source. Indeed many people who have relied on them for years find that they are wholly unable to get a night’s sleep without them. Yes, insomnia is one of the scourges of our time but Yoga has a way with it, nature’s gentle and safe way.
The Yoga cure for insomnia and its dangerous resulting nervous exhaustion, is the natural one based on toning and relaxing the nerves, taking in more oxygen, and remaining immobile with the body inverted.
But first things first. What about the bed on which you sleep? Do you put up with just anything? Is it just a wooden frame, a mattress, and some pillows, sheets and blankets, or is it a supremely comfortable haven to which you can retire in blissful ease at the end of the day? No, I am not being fanciful. That bed on which you sleep may have more to do with your insomnia than you suspect. So let us consider it for a moment.
Have you sometimes suspected that your mattress was too soft and often wake up in the morning in a deep hollow with your mattress making ‘water-wings’ on either side of you? It is time, I fear, to think about replacing it with a firmer one.
Expensive? Perhaps, but after all you spend just about a third of your life in bed and if that third is plagued with insomnia due to an over-soft or worn out mattress is it not wise to consider spending a few dollars in order to improve your health, your spirits and your general well-being? Cheap at the price I would say.
And what about those mounds of bunchy pillows? Do these offenders grace your bed too? Send those packing with that soft mattress. It is essential in sleep that your spine should be held as naturally as possible. If you are lying in the hollow of a feather mattress with your head propped up on a mound of pillows, your poor spine is held in a highly unnatural position so if you do succeed in getting to sleep, which is often unlikely, you will be sure to wake up with morning backache, a s