Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/233



all of nature's functions that should be understood by people, sleep seems the one which should be so simple that no instruction or advice should be needed. The child needs no elaborate treatise upon the value and necessity of sleep—it just sleeps, that's all. And the adult would do the same if he lived closer to nature's ways. But he has surrounded himself with such artificial environments that it is almost impossible for him to live naturally. But he may go a considerable distance on the return journey to nature, notwithstanding his unfavourable environments.

Of all the foolish practices that man has picked up on his travels away from nature, his habits of sleeping and rising are among the worst. He wastes in excitement and social pleasures the hours which nature has given him for his best sleep, and he sleeps over the hours in which nature has given him the greatest chance to absorb vitality and strength. The best sleep is that taken between the hours of sunset and midnight, and the best hours for out-of-door work and the absorbing of vitality are the first few hours after the sun rises. So we waste at both ends, and then wonder why we break down in middle age or before.

During sleep nature does a great part of her repair