Etiquette and Sleep Science

The etiquette of slumber will strike the average reader as a bit of absurdity, but, like most fads, this last new one has something in it. I believe, says a writer in the New York Press, the promulgator of this new idea, Miss Alice Cowell, names it the “Hygiene of Sleep,” and her theory is “the devitalization of the body.” That means that if you go to sleep properly and according to rule, you will be in the same state as if you were dead, save for the fact that the circulation goes on. 

A Science of Sleep

A Lady’s Plan for Preventing Insomnia and Suicide

Devitalization by the Will— The Body and Its Parts Must Be Surrendered Unconditionally— Physical Culture

Women have been instructed in almost everything that pertains to living. They have been taught how to walk and stand and talk and how to eat, and now there comes a lady from Boston to teach women how to go to sleep and how to behave after they have gone to sleep. The etiquette of slumber will strike the average reader as a bit of absurdity, but, like most fads, this last new one has something in it. I believe, says a writer in the New York Press, the promulgator of this new idea, Miss Alice Cowell, names it the “Hygiene of Sleep,” and her theory is “the devitalization of the body.” That means that if you go to sleep properly and according to rule, you will be in the same state as if you were dead, save for the fact that the circulation goes on. 

You will not dream, you will not move, neither will you talk and tell dreadful and fatal secrets, as people do in books. You simply lie an inert mass trusting to providence and the bed to take care of you and hold you up. Miss Cowell says it is “instinctive egotism” that makes people try to look out for themselves when they are asleep. They will not trust the bed for support, but cling to it frantically. As if some sudden and malicious freak of the springs might toss them on the floor. They dig their heads into the pillows as if some violent uprising might occur among the feathers. They clutch the bed-clothes, brace their feet against the foot-board, tie themselves in knots and writhe and wiggle as if they were upon red-hot spikes, it is no wonder that the sleeper gets up tired after such a night as this. 

Not long ago, I heard a lady say: “I feel as if I had been dancing all night.” Women seem to be the greatest sufferers from the antics of sleep. Miss Cowell tells of a lady in Boston who tore out whole handfuls of her husband’s hair when asleep. The poor man had either to seek another couch or buy a wig, he chose to do the former. Miss Cowell make, the statement that if people would train themselves to allow sleep its greatest mission, the woes of the world would be reduced to a minimum. Suicides would be a thing unheard of. It is this unabated state of nerve tension that brings about mental desperation. It makes people nervous and critical. Everything is awry, and the world is upside down. 

The mission of Miss Cowell is to tell people how to get unwound and lay them down in peace. She says it is the habits we take to bed with us that play the mischief with divine sleep. How shall we conquer them? Alter listening to a lecture by Miss Cowell, I deduce the following synopsis of her theory: First of all, you must learn the science of devitalization, and that is the spiritual side of physical culture. This great principle is embodied briefly in these words: “Mind active, body passive.” The physical result is the perfect independence of each member of the body. For instance, a seamstress would have not to accompany every movement of her needle with a like movement of her back and head. A school-teacher using one hand to clean the blackboard would allow the other hand to remain still. A writer would move the pen without working the lips, or gripping the pen until the whole arm ached. 

Few people converse without working the fingers in some way. There are orators who cannot speak unless they contort the body in the most absurd manner. In this way a lot of vital energy is wasted. The exercise which Miss Cowell gives begins with the head, which is supposed to be a wooden ball, and is rolled about at will, “It wont fall off,” says the teacher. “It can't fall off.” Then the arm is handled as if it were a log of wood, the leg swings like a pendulum from the hip, and thus every member of the body is devitalized. Even the eyelids are taught self-control. The results of these exercises are the calling into activity of all the muscles of the body, and at the same time rendering them wholly independent of each other. Each member is made immediately responsive to the call from the brain and wholly indifferent to anything but its own business. 

Now, how does this tend to produce restful sleep? Because the nerve, and muscles are trained to keep still when they are not wanted. Surrender yourself, lay your burden down. God will take care of you and the bed will hold you, says the disciple of devitalization. The mind and body are brought to this perfect state of obedience by the various exercises above mentioned. All the different members of the body are unlimbered, detached, so to speak. These exercises must be conducted with great seriousness and solemnity, but to the frivolous outsider, who is not familiar with the great principles of physical regeneration, these performances are awfully funny. 

After you have rendered your body entirely passive, then get into bed, sit upright and conceive of the backbone as a strand of beads. Then let yourself down slowly, bead by bead, until the head falls back inert upon the pillow. Drop the arms helplessly and let the entire body be divested of the responsibility which the bed is there to assume. You should lie upon the back if possible; if not, upon the side. Such is the Boston recipe for wholesome, restful slumber.— Pittsburgh Dispatch, 1891

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia © Etiquette Encyclopedia