On Rest

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

“It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.”

“The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.”

“Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.”

“He it is who ordaineth the night as a garment, and sleep for rest, and ordaineth the day for waking up to life.”

“The mind must have a change, but a change of such a kind that it is not unnerved, but merely unbent.”

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the blue sky, is by no means waste of time.”

“I love a broad margin to my life.”

Volunteers held to four or six hours in bed for two weeks lost more and more mental sharpness each day, yet rated themselves only slightly sleepy. The debt was real; the awareness of it was not.

Imaging of the sleeping brain showed the space between its cells opening wide during sleep, letting fluid wash through and carry away waste that builds up during waking hours.

A nap of sixty to ninety minutes, if it contained both deep and dreaming sleep, improved a learned visual skill as much as a full night in bed did.