But if you are not religious, and have to do things the hard way, then learn to relax by
physical measures. Dr. David Harold Fink, who wrote Release from Nervous Tension,
says that the best way to do this is to talk to your body. According to Dr. Fink, words are
the key to all kinds of hypnosis; and when you consistently can't sleep, it is because you
have talked yourself into a case of insomnia. The way to undo this is to dehypnotise
yourself-and you can do it by saying to the muscles of your body: "Let go, let go-loosen
up and relax." We already know that the mind and nerves can't relax while the muscles
are tense-so if we want to go to sleep, we start with the muscles. Dr. Fink recommends-
and it works out in practice-that we put a pillow under the knees to ease the tension on
the legs, and that we tuck small pillows under the arms for the very same reason. Then,
by telling the jaw to relax, the eyes, the arms, and the legs, we finally drop off to sleep
before we know what has hit us. I've tried it-I know. If you have trouble sleeping, get
hold of Dr. Fink's book, Release from Nervous Tension, which I have mentioned earlier
It is the only book I know of that is both lively reading and a cure for insomnia.
One of the best cures for insomnia is making yourself physically tired by gardening,
swimming, tennis, golf, skiing, or by just plain physically exhausting work. That is what
Theodore Dreiser did. When he was a struggling young author, he was worried about
insomnia, so he got a job working as a section hand on the New York Central Railway;
and after a day of driving spikes and shoveling gravel, he was so exhausted that he
could hardly stay awake long enough to eat.
If we get tired enough, nature will force us to sleep even while we are walking. To
illustrate, when I was thirteen years old, my father shipped a car-load of fat hogs to Saint
Joe, Missouri. Since he got two free railroad passes, he took me along with him. Up until
that time, I had never been in a town of more than four thousand. When I landed in Saint
Joe-a city of sixty thousand-I was agog with excitement. I saw skyscrapers six storeys
high and-wonder of wonders-I saw a street-car. I can close my eyes now and still see
and hear that street-car. After the most thrilling and exciting day of my life, Father and I
took a train back to Ravenwood, Missouri. Arriving there at two o'clock in the morning,
we had to walk four miles home to the farm. And here is the point of the story: I was so
exhausted that I slept and dreamed as I walked. I have often slept while riding
horseback. And I am alive to tell it!
When men are completely exhausted they sleep right through the thunder and horror
and danger of war. Dr. Foster Kennedy, the famous neurologist, tells me that during the
retreat of the Fifth British Army in 1918, he saw soldiers so exhausted that they fell on
the ground where they were and fell into a sleep as sound as a coma. They didn't even
wake up when he raised their eyelids with his fingers. And he says he noticed that
invariably the pupils of the eyes were rolled upward in the sockets. "After that," says Dr.
Kennedy, "when I had trouble sleeping, I would practice rolling up my eyeballs into this
position, and I found that in a few seconds I would begin to yawn and feel sleepy. It was
an automatic reflex over which I had no control."
No man ever committed suicide by refusing to sleep and no one ever will. Nature would
force a man to sleep in spite of all his will power. Nature will let us go without food or
water far longer than she will let us go without sleep.
Speaking of suicide reminds me of a case that Dr. Henry C. Link describes in his book,
The Rediscovery of Man. Dr. Link is vice-president of The Psychological Corporation
and he interviews many people who are worried and depressed. In his chapter "On
Overcoming Fears and Worries", he tells about a patient who wanted to commit suicide.
Dr. Link knew arguing would only make the matter worse, so he said to this man: "If you