becomes exhausted, and then the patient finds himself worse off than
before, for the reactionary effect of the drugs leaves him with
exhausted nerves and a weakened will. All the strengthening, moral
effect which can be gained from overcoming sleeplessness in
wholesome ways is lost by a recourse to drugs, and character is
weakened instead of strengthened.

When one has been in the habit of sleeping in the city, where the
noise of the street is incessant, a change to the perfect silence of
the country will often keep sleep off quite as persistently as
noise. So with a man who has been in the habit of sleeping under
other abnormal conditions, the change to normal conditions will
sometimes keep him awake until he has adjusted himself to them, and
it is not uncommon for people to be so abnormal that they resist
rhythm itself, such as is heard in the rolling of the sea, or the
rushing of a river.

The re-adjustment from abnormal to normal conditions of sleeping may
be made surely if we set about it with a will, for we have all
nature on our side. Silence is orderly for the night's rest, and
rhythm only emphasizes and enhances the silence, when it is the
rhythm of nature.

The habit of resistance cannot be changed in a single day--it must
take time; but if the meaning, the help, and the normal power of
non-resistance is clearly understood, and the effort to gain it is
persistent, not only the power to sleep, but a new sense of freedom
may be acquired which is quite beyond the conception of those who
are in the daily habit of resistance.