There are people who sleep badly. If young people who have difficulties to fall asleep are given medication like opium or morphine, they sleep better; that’s for sure. It cannot be denied that it is effective. But if young people are given medication like morphine or any other sleep inducing medication for that matter, again and again, the body becomes weak over time. The person comes to need more and more of this sleeping medication. He can no longer do without it. He becomes dependent on this medicine and after some time one has to do with a man who is not in full possession of his powers any longer.
That is why it is better that we find different ways to fight insomnia, find a more inner way. And one can actually fight against this inability to fall asleep inwardly. If the insomniac would endeavour to think about one and the same word, making the inner effort to think of one word only, then he gets more and more inner strength to fall asleep. This is a much better method. In this way the human being does not weaken himself.
Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 348 – Über Gesundheit und Krankheit – Dornach, December 2, 1922 (page 85-86)
Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger
Previously posted on May 24, 2015
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