While Ellen G. White doesn't have specific instructions to "sleep outdoors," she wrote extensively about the critical importance of fresh air for health, especially during sleeping hours. Her primary focus was on ensuring a constant supply of pure, outdoor air in the bedroom. She strongly refuted the common 19th-century fear that "night air" was unhealthy. ### The Healthfulness of Night Air Ellen White told a story about being on a crowded, stuffy train car where she opened a window for fresh air. Another passenger objected, fearing the "unhealthful" night air. She replied: > "Madam, we have no other air, in this car or out of it, but night air. If you refuse to breathe night air, then you must stop breathing... The free, pure air of heaven is one of the richest blessings we can enjoy. Many are suffering from disease because they refuse to receive into their rooms at night the pure night air." (2T 527.3) ### Fresh Air in the Bedroom Her most frequent counsel was to ensure proper ventilation in sleeping quarters, day and night. > "Sleeping apartments should be large, and so arranged as to have a circulation of air through them day and night. Those who have excluded the air from their sleeping-rooms should commence to change their course immediately. They should let in air by degrees, and increase its circulation until they can bear it winter and summer, with no danger of taking cold. The lungs, in order to be healthy, must have pure air." (HL 71.4) ### Benefits of Fresh Air for Health and Sleep She directly linked fresh air to better sleep and overall well-being: * "Pure, fresh air ... excites the appetite, renders the digestion of food more perfect, and induces sound, sweet sleep." (HL 170.2) * "Those who have not had a free circulation of air in their rooms through the night, generally awake feeling exhausted, feverish, and know not the cause. It was air, vital air, that the whole system required, but which it could not obtain." (4aSG 143.3) ### The Healing Power of Outdoor Life For the sick, she prescribed outdoor living as a primary remedy, describing scenes that come very close to the idea of resting outdoors: * "For the chronic invalid nothing so tends to restore health and happiness as living amid attractive country surroundings. Here the most helpless ones can be left sitting or lying in the sunshine or in the shade of the trees." (7T 77.2) * "Life in the open air is good for body and mind. It is God's medicine for the restoration of health. Pure air, good water, sunshine, the beautiful surroundings of nature—these are His means for restoring the sick to health in natural ways." (7T 85.3) * "Outdoor life is the only remedy that many invalids need. It has a wonderful power to heal diseases caused by the excitements and excesses of fashionable life, a life that weakens and destroys the powers of body, mind, and soul." (MH 264.1) In summary, while she did not explicitly instruct people to sleep on a cot in the backyard, her writings strongly support the principle of breathing fresh, pure, outdoor air throughout the night as essential for good health.