为什么睡眠对我们很重要「为什么睡眠对身体和大脑至关重要」

After reading "The Sleep Revolution," which is all about the importance of a good night's sleep…

在我阅读了《睡眠革命》这本关于良好睡眠重要性的书之后......

I found it really hard to... fall asleep.

我发现真的很难......入睡。

Before that, I didn't have much difficulty with it.

在这之前都没有什么问题。

But after being bombarded with endless statistics and research results illustrating the detriments of inadequate sleep, I became very anxious about how long I was lying awake in my bed.

但看到源源不断的统计数据和研究结果阐明睡眠不足的危害后，我对于躺在床上多久没睡着而感到非常焦虑。

"What?

“咋？

... What the hell?" When we're trying to get more out of life, sleep is usually the first thing that gets cut to make room in our schedules.

咋回事？”当我们需要更多时间时，睡眠通常是我们从日程中缩减的第一件节约时间的事。

Ironically, it can be hard to realize that by cutting back on sleep, we are decreasing productivity, creativity, concentration, patience, communication skills and a lot of what makes a good... human.

讽刺的是，我们很难意识到减少睡眠会降低生产力、创造力、专注力、忍耐力、交流技巧能力以及许多让我们成为一个良好人类的能力。

That's because less sleep results in a less effective brain and less healthy body.

这是因为更少的睡眠会导致更差效率的大脑和更次的身体健康水平。

Pretty much whatever you're doing, you end up doing it worse.

差不多你做任何事情，结果都是做得很糟糕。

Of course, there are some cases where you have no choice, but to stay up late or wake up early.

当然，有某些原因导致你没有选择，只能熬夜或早起。

But I'd like to spend this video looking over why sleep is so important.

但是我想用这个视频来好好审视下为什么睡眠如此重要。

By getting a new perspective on sleep, hopefully, you'll enjoy getting more of it rather than just feeling like you're wasting 8 hours of your life.

通过从新的视角看待了解睡眠，希望你会乐于接受更多良好睡眠的信息，而不仅仅是觉得浪费了生命中的 8 个小时。

First, let's take a look at what happens to your mind when you're not completing the process of sleep properly.

首先，让我们来看看当在没有得到适当的睡眠流程时，你的头脑心智会发生什么事情。

In 1999, two professors at Loughborough University wanted to test how sleep affects the brain's ability to react to changing conditions.

1999 年，拉夫堡大学的两位教授想测试睡眠是如何影响大脑应对不断变化情况的能力的。

They developed a computer game set in the business world, and MBA students had to promote sales of a virtual product.

他们设计了一个电脑游戏，游戏设计为在商业世界中，让工商管理硕士学生们推销一种虚拟产品。

Then, halfway through the game, the dynamics of the virtual marketplace suddenly changed.

然后，在游戏的中途时，虚拟市场中的变量突然改变。

Now strategies that used to work resulted in terrible sales.

然后，之前有用的策略会导致糟糕的销量。

Only students who could quickly change and adapt could survive.

只有当学生能快速改变并适应才能在游戏中存活下去。

Students were split into two groups, one with restricted sleep and another where they could sleep as much as they liked.

学生分为两组，一组睡眠时间受限制，而另一组可以想睡多久就睡多久。

Most of the students who slept well quickly adapted to the changes and maintained their sales.

大部分能睡好的同学迅速适应改变，并保持着他们在游戏中的销量。

On the other hand, the sleep-deprived students were unable to modify their strategy appropriately and very quickly became bankrupt.

在另一组中，缺乏睡眠的学生无法适当地调整他们的销售策略，很快在游戏中破产。

The conclusion was that without sleep, their brains lost the ability to consider alternative solutions to problems.

结论是缺乏睡眠，大脑失去面对问题时寻找替代解决方案的能力。

Brain scans have shown that when you're lacking sleep, the neurons firing in the prefrontal cortex begin to slow down.

大脑扫描显示，当你缺乏睡眠时，前额叶皮质区的神经元放电开始减慢。

The prefrontal cortex is particularly important for the behaviors that make us... human.

前额叶皮质区对人类之所以为人的行为尤其重要。

This region is associated with planning, personality expression, decision making, attention control, reasoning, and problem solving.

这个区域关联计划能力、个性表达力、决策力、掌控注意力、推论力以及解决问题的能力。

When you lack sleep, it's harder for us to complete a thought or see a problem in a new way.

当你缺乏睡眠，是很难进行完整思考或用新的眼光看待问题。

In a talk on the role of sleep in learning and creativity, Robert Stickgold discusses an experiment; where subjects were supposed to come up with a string of numbers based on a different set of numbers they were provided with.

在一个睡眠对学习和创造力之作用的演讲中，Robert Stickgold 讨论了一个实验；受试者需通过事先提供的一组数字组合得出另一组数字组合。

The instructions were complicated, but after several trials everyone got the hang of it and could slowly but consistently solve the number puzzle.

这个指示是复杂的，但是在几次尝试后，每个人都琢磨出了点窍门，能够慢慢但不断地解决数字谜题。

However, there was a trick to make the process much faster.

不过，有个技巧能让这个过程更快。

The last three numbers in the sequence always ended up being a mirror image of the 3 numbers before it.

一串数列中最末的三个数字总是它前面三个数字排列的镜像。

They wanted to see how long it would take people to pick up on the trick.

他们想看看要多长时间人们才能发现这个规律。

So, after everyone got a hang of the instructions, they had them wait 12 hours and then try it again.

所以，在每个人都对指示熟悉后，让他们等 12 个小时后再尝试。

But, they were split into three groups: those who learned how to do the puzzle in the morning and got tested at night; those who learned how to do it at night and then stayed awake all night before trying in the morning, and those who tried in the morning but had gotten a good night's rest.

不过，这些人被分成三组：一组 上午学习如何解谜，在晚上测试；一组在晚上学习解谜的，整夜不睡，然后第二天上午再尝试，第三组在晚上学解谜睡好一觉后，再在第二天上午测试。

The first two groups showed about the same chance of discovering the trick in the puzzle.

前两组显示出在发现谜题规律上显示出相同的比例的人数。

But with the 3rd group, and again the only difference is that they got to sleep, they were 2.5 times more likely to gain the insight into the puzzle and catch the trick.

但是第三组，唯一的区别是他们睡了一觉，他们比前两组的人在洞悉谜题把握规律上多 2.5 倍的成功率。

"So you can gain these insights when you didn't even know there was an insight to find, just by sleeping on it. " Two big things on the sleep to-do list that allow for such insights are memory consolidation and information processing.

“所以你能获得更多洞察力，有时甚至在不知道有新信息时也能发现到，仅仅是放放再看（去睡了一好觉）。”当你在睡眠时，两项大脑必做的事项让此类洞见产生，其一是记忆整合，其二是信息处理。

While asleep, your brain looks at the information you picked up throughout the day, prunes out the useless junk and keeps the things worth remembering.

睡觉时，你的大脑会纵览这一天获取的所有信息，剔除无用的垃圾，保留值得记住的信息。

Of the four stages of sleep, slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement have been shown to move electrical impulses between the brain stem, hippocampus, thalamus and cortex.

在睡眠的四个阶段中，短波睡眠和快速眼球运动期显示出在脑干、海马体、丘脑和大脑皮层之间有着更多的电脉冲。

These four areas serve as relay stations for memory formation.

这四个区域作为记忆形成的中继站。

During this process, your brain takes the information in the short term memory and moves the important bits to long term memory.

在这个处理过程中，你的大脑从短期记忆中拿出信息，然后把重要的部分移至长期记忆。

In this World Science Festival program, Neurobiology professor Matthew Wilson describes an experiment designed to gain insight into this information processing step.

在这个世界科学年会的项目中，神经生物学教授 Matthew Wilson 介绍了一个实验，实验的设计是为了解这种信息处理的过程。

They analyzed the brain activity of rats while they were making their way through a maze, and then compared that to their brain activity while sleeping.

他们分析了老鼠在探索迷宫时的脑部活动，然后与它们睡觉时的脑部活动进行比较。

What they saw was that as the rat went into non-REM deep sleep, its brain was lighting up as if it was actually back in the maze... except it was replaying the information about 10 times faster than normal, and it was playing the events backwards and forwards and skipping around.

他们发现，当老鼠进入非快速动眼期的深睡眠时，大脑的一些区域被激活了，显示出仿佛老鼠们重回到了迷宫中一般；只不过这是之前信息的重演，但是比普通快 10 倍的模式重演，并且是让这个信息/事件来回地无序转换。

The idea is that during this non-REM deep sleep phase, your brain is quickly reviewing the information you've gained throughout the day and taking notes.

这个发现就是，在非快速眼动深度睡眠期间，你的大脑在快速回顾复习一整天获取的信息，并记下笔记。

It's kind of like flipping around in your textbook before you take the test the next day.

有点类似你在第考试前一天迅速翻看教科书。

REM sleep, on the other hand, is played out at normal speed.

不过，动眼睡眠是以正常速度进行的。

This is why your dreams, however ridiculous, will follow some sequence of events.

这就是为什么你做的梦，尽管荒诞不经，却依然会按照事件的一定顺序进行。

While you dream, your brain is seeing how unrelated pieces of information fit together and simulating scenarios you might need to be prepared for.

当你在做梦时，你的大脑会看到不相关的零碎信息搭在一起，并模拟你可能需要准备的相关情境。

What if my boss turns into the monster from Pan's Labyrinth, what would I do! ?

如果我的老板变成了潘氏迷宫里的怪物，我该怎么办！？

Because your brain is playing around with information like this, some of our most creative insights can come to us in the form of dreams.

因为你的大脑如此这般摆弄信息，一些我们最为妙想天开的洞见以梦的形式呈现在眼前。

August Kekulé in 1865 came up with the structure of the Benzene molecule in a dream.

1865 年，奥古斯特·凯库勒在梦中发现了苯分子结构。

Elias Howe owes the invention of the sewing machine to a dream.

埃利亚斯·豪也是靠做梦发明了缝纫机。

Paul McCartney came up with the melody for Yesterday in a dream, and there's all kinds of examples like this.

保罗·麦卡特尼在梦中获得了歌曲《昨日》的旋律，像这样的例子比比皆是。

So insufficient sleep interferes with creativity and memory, but it can also interfere with your personality and competence in general.

所以睡眠不足会干扰创造力和记忆力，同时也在整体上破坏你的个性与能力。

As mentioned earlier, the more "human" part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex shows less activity when you're sleep deprived.

就像之前提到的，因为许多“人之所以为人”的部分在你的大脑中当睡眠被剥夺时，前额叶皮质区会显示更少的活跃性。

The Amygdala on the other hand, shows more activity.

但在另一方面，此时杏仁体会显示出更多的活性。

The amygdala is associated with processing emotional information and, as this study has found, "a lack of sleep inappropriately modulates the human emotional brain response to negative aversive stimuli." Essentially, the less sleep you get, the more likely you are to interpret situations negatively, overreact to things and be more moody in general.

杏仁体处理情绪信息以及，如这项研究发现的，“睡眠不足会导致无法适当调节人类情绪大脑对负面厌恶性的刺激。”本质上，就是睡眠越不充分，就越会把遇到的情况进行负面的理解，在一般情况下反应过激以及更为情绪化的表现。

This can manifest itself as more fights with your spouse as illustrated by this article, or much more drastic behavior.

就像文章中用图例显示的，影响到你自身例如与你的配偶有更多争吵，或更多激烈极端行为。

In 2009, a band of American soldiers from the 172nd infantry found themselves in court martial for murdering two men in Baghdad against a superior's orders.

在 2009 年，第 172 步兵团的一群美国士兵在军事法庭上被控诉在巴格达违背上级命令谋杀两名男子。

Their lawyers' defense was that the soldiers were too sleep deprived to make rational decisions.

他们的律师辩护称，因为这些士兵们极度缺乏睡眠而无法做出理性决定。

David Randall's book Dreamland discusses how in the early 80's military studies found that sleep deprived air force pilots "changed their vocal patterns, no longer enunciating or speaking loudly enough [to be understood]" by their co pilots.

David Randall 的书《梦境》其中讨论在 80 年代早期的军事研究中，发现睡眠不足的空军飞行员改变了声音模式，不再能清晰地或发出足够大的声音指令以便理解，这些现象又是如何被他们的副驾驶发现的。

Maybe that didn't bother the military that much because in 1996 "...crew fatigue was blamed for thirty-two accidents that destroyed American military aircraft, including three F-14 jetfighters that cost $38 million each." The military has spent millions of dollars testing all kinds of methods to keep soldiers awake longer, but in 2007 they concluded that the only way to recover from lost sleep was to... sleep.

也许这并没有给军方带来太大困扰，因为在 1996 年“因队员疲劳而引发 32 例美国军事飞机损毁事故，包括三架每架 F-14 喷气式战斗机，每架造价 3,800 万美元。”军方花费数百万美元测试了所有让士兵保持更长时间清醒的方法，终于在 2007 年，他们得出结论，能从睡眠损失中恢复的唯一办法就是睡觉。

Now some of you may say "I'm operating just fine on my 6 hours of sleep a night, thank you very much." And you could be one of the 5% of the population with the genetic mutation that lets you get by on only 6 hours of sleep.

也许你们中的一些人会说，“我每晚只睡 6 小时挺好的啊，多谢你操心了。”也许你属于所有人口中 5% 有着这种特定基因突变的人，让你只睡 6 小时就能度日。

But as we discussed earlier, activity in the prefrontal cortex lessens when you lack sleep.

但是我们早前谈过，当你缺乏睡眠时，你的前额叶皮质区会有更少的活动性。

And the prefrontal cortex is the only part of the brain that has the power of self-assessment, to think about how it is thinking.

前额叶皮质区是大脑仅有的掌控自我评估的能力的区域，能够思考自己的思维方式。

So if you're not getting enough sleep, would your prefrontal cortex properly recognize that it's working at sub-optimal capacity?

所以，当你没有得到充分的睡眠时，你的前额叶皮质区能正确的意识到你正处于次优运行状态中吗？

It's not only your brain that needs sleep, also on the sleep to do list is tissue repair, maintenance of metabolic pathways and the balancing of hormones.

不仅你的大脑需要睡眠，在睡眠中身体的代办事项还包含组织修复新陈代谢途径的维护和荷尔蒙平衡。

Sleep is also very important for your body.

睡眠对你的身体也很重要。

A study at the University of Chicago put participants on a calorie restricted diet and then randomly assigned them to sleep 5.5 hours or 8.5 hours each night.

芝加哥大学的一项研究让参与者进行热量限制的饮食，然后随机安排他们在每晚睡时间为 5.5 小时或 8.5 小时。

Those who slept only 5.5 hours lost 55% less body fat.

那些每晚只睡 5.5 小时的人体内脂肪减少了 55%。

Again, they were on the same diets.

要知道，他们可都是进行相同的饮食的。

The sleep deprived group did lose weight, but they were losing more muscle.

睡眠不足组是减轻了体重，但他们损失了更多的肌肉。

They lost 60% more fat-free mass compared to those who slept well.

比起那些睡眠足够的人，他们失去了 60% 的无脂肪体重。

They also reported feeling hungrier.

他们同时也反映肚子更饿一些。

An important factor in this was that the sleep deprived group were shown to have much higher ghrelin levels.

在这个研究中发现的其中一个重要因素是睡眠不足组显示有更高的饥饿荷尔蒙/生长激素释放肽水平。

Ghrelin is a hormone that causes you to retain fat and feel more hungry.

饥饿荷尔蒙是一种荷尔蒙，会让你储存脂肪并感觉更饿。

It has been shown that just one night of poor sleep leads to a 15% increase in this "hunger hormone." Now ghrelin isn't the only hormone that is disrupted.

研究表明，只需一晚品质不佳的睡眠就会导致饥饿荷尔蒙增长 15%。饥饿荷尔并非是唯一被睡眠不足所扰乱的。

Lack of sleep also means lowered levels of the satiety hormone leptin, and less melatonin.

缺乏睡眠也意味着更低水平的饱足感荷尔蒙瘦素，和更低水平的褪黑激素。

Melatonin has some very powerful anti-aging and anti-cancer properties, and as the Journal of pineal research found, melatonin increases weight loss by increasing brown adipose tissue.

褪黑激素有着有效抗老和抗癌的特性，根据松果体研究杂志发现，褪黑激素靠增加棕色脂肪组织来让体重减轻。

Brown adipose tissue or BAT Fat actually acts a lot like muscle in that it increases your metabolic rate and burns white adipose tissue.

棕色脂肪组织或称 BAT 脂肪实际作用效果类似肌肉组织，增加新陈代谢率并燃烧白色脂肪组织。

Inadequate sleep also increases Cortisol, which has been shown to increase the worst type of fat, visceral fat, the stuff that surrounds your organs.

缺乏睡眠还会增加皮质醇，研究显示皮质醇的增加会增多最糟糕的的一种脂肪——内脏脂肪，围裹你器官的脂肪。

Cortisol also encourages your body to break down muscle for fuel through a process called gluconeogenesis.

皮质醇还通过一种叫做葡萄糖异生作用的程序促进身体分解肌肉获取能量。

So whether you are trying to make some "gains" or just want to lose a bit of fat, your time in the gym needs to be complemented with proper sleep.

所以不管你是试图努力运动或仅仅只想减点脂，你在健身房的运动需要与好睡眠相互配合。

One more key hormone secreted during sleep is Human Growth Factor (HGH) , otherwise known as "the youth hormone".

还有一种关键荷尔蒙在睡眠中分泌，另外为人所知的名称是年轻激素。

As the name suggests, it stimulates growth, cell reproduction and cell regeneration, which means increased muscle, more fat loss, and other things like improved skin elasticity.

顾名思义，这个激素刺激生长、细胞繁殖和细胞再生，这表示有增加肌肉、减少更多脂肪，还有例如增进皮肤弹性等其他作用。

Human growth hormone even plays a role in improving cognitive function and a deficiency in it has been linked with depression.

人类生长激素甚至在增进认知功能方面也扮演重要角色，并且缺乏这种激素与抑郁症有关联。

It's important to get enough sleep, but also to get it at the right time.

获取足够的睡眠很重要，在正确的时间睡眠也同样重要。

While it depends on each individual's circadian rhythm, in general, 10PM to 2AM is when your body secretes the most growth hormone (that is- IF you're asleep at that time) .

尽管这与每个人个体生理节奏有关，不过通常来说晚上 10 点到凌晨 2 点是你的身体分泌最多的生长激素的时间（也就是需要你在此刻是睡着的）。

The other thing on the sleep to do list is waste cleanup.

另一项在睡眠待办事项上的任务是废物清除。

Throughout the course of the day, the brain produces a decent amount of waste.

运行了一整天，你的大脑也产生相当量的废物。

The brain handles this waste cleanup task during sleep via something called the glymphatic system in which brain cells shrink to allow for cerebrospinal fluid to flood into the brain and flush out the waste.

大脑进行废物清除是通过睡眠，经由胶状淋巴系统来进行，也就是大脑细胞收缩，让脑脊髓液涌进大脑，冲洗出废物。

One thing that needs to be flushed out is the compound adenosine.

其中一种需要清除的废物是一种叫做腺苷的化合物。

Adenosine is a byproduct of your neurons and other cells when they burn up adenosine triphosphate, the main molecule that our bodies use to store energy.

腺苷是神经元和其他细胞燃烧三磷酸腺苷时的副产品，而三磷酸腺苷是我们身体用来储存能量的主要分子。

As adenosine builds up, you start to slow down and accumulate a "sleep pressure".

当腺苷逐渐增多，你会开始慢下来并积累“睡眠压力”。

When your adenosine levels reach a certain point, your body sends you signals to go to sleep.

当腺苷水平达到一个特定点，你的身体会发出去睡觉的信号。

Caffeine works by bonding to the same receptors as adenosine, tricking the body into thinking it's not tired.

咖啡因就是靠与腺苷这种受体结合而起作用的，让身体以为没有疲劳。

While caffeine will wake you up, it will interfere with your sleep cycle if taken too late in the day.

虽然咖啡因能让你保持清醒，但在一天中太晚喝咖啡会打乱你的睡眠周期。

Cristopher Drake, associate professor of behavioral neurosciences at Wayne State University School of Medicine led a study that found that taking caffeine even 6 hours before bed can lead to a measureable objective loss of 1 hour of sleep.

韦恩州立大学医学院行为神经科学副教授 Cristopher Drake 所带领的一项研究发现，在睡前 6 小时摄入咖啡因都会导致睡眠损失可测量的客观存在的一小时。

What this means is that it may seem like you got say 7 hours of sleep after having a coffee mid day; but a sleep monitor would show that you're not properly dipping into the normal ranges of REM and deep sleep, leading to an actual sleep total of 6 hours.

意思是，你可能感觉在中午喝杯咖啡后，也睡了 7 个小时；但是睡眠监视器会显示你并没有正常地进入正常幅度的快速眼动和深睡眠期，导致实际睡眠时间只有 6 小时。

For this reason, it's recommended to finish your caffeine at least 8 or more hours before bedtime.

所以，推荐你至少在睡前 8 小时就喝完你的咖啡。

Like adenosine, Amyloid beta is another waste product that is created in the brain.

如腺苷，淀粉样 β 蛋白是大脑中产生的另一种废弃产物。

Unfortunately, excess amyloid beta is toxic to the brain and Amyloid plaques have been thoroughly linked to Alzheimer's disease.

不幸的是，过量的淀粉样 β 蛋白对大脑是有毒性的，淀粉样 β 蛋白也已经与阿尔茨海默症全面联系在一起了。

It's understood that Alzheimer's patients don't create more amyloid beta than other people, but they simply were not clearing it out enough.

据了解，阿尔茨海默症患者比起其他人并没有产生更多的淀粉样 β 蛋白，但是他们仅仅是没有清除掉足够的淀粉样 β 蛋白。

Of course, other lifestyle factors like diet play a role here, but sleep could be particularly critical for avoiding neurodegenerative disease.

当然，其他生活习惯如饮食也起着重要作用，但是睡眠绝对对于防止神经退行性疾病起着关键重大作用。

Artificial intelligence, robots, and all kinds of automation are already replacing jobs nowadays and the technology is only expected to get better and better.

如今，人工智能、机器人和各种自动化已经在取代了许多工作，科技技术总是在期望更上一层楼。

Machine intelligence may be the last invention humanity will ever need to make; but at least until that point we need to set ourselves up access our creative insights and take advantage of the more human faculties of our brains.

人类也许终究会创造出机器智能；但至少在那之前，我们需要让自己获取创造性的洞察力，充分利用我们大脑的人类天赋。

As Daniel Pink says in A Whole New Mind, it's the "creative and emphatic 'right-brain' oriented thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't." Without enough sleep, our bodies as well as these creative, insightful and emotionally adept human faculties of our brains suffer.

正如 Daniel Pink 在《全新的思想》中所说，“有创造力的和倾向于偏右脑的思维者有能力决定着谁能向前和谁不能的断层线。”没有足够的睡眠，我们的身体以及我们大脑中这些创造性、洞察力和人情人性能力都会遭到损害。

Now, I'm sure you're thinking "OK, so we should get more quality sleep, but how?" This is what I'll be talking about next week, so make sure to stick around for sleep part 2.

现在，我肯定你在想“好吧，我们确实应该有更多高质量的睡眠，但如何做到呢？”这就是我下周将谈到的，记得关注收看关于睡眠的第二部分。