【翻譯練習】一夜好眠不是夢
A Good Night’s Sleep Isn’t a Luxury; It’s a Necessity
日期：MAY 30, 2011
作者：JANE E. BRODY
來源：http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/health/31brody.html
In my younger years, I regarded sleep as a necessary evil, nature’s way of thwarting my desire to cram as many activities into a 24-hour day as possible. I frequently flew the red-eye from California, for instance, sailing (or so I thought) through the next day on less than four hours of uncomfortable sleep.
童年時期，睡眠對我而言，如同必要之惡：我想在一天24小時之內盡可能填滿各種活動，不過睡眠卻不讓我得逞。例如，我經常從加州搭乘紅眼班機，隔天抵達，睡眠時間只有四小時，愈少愈好。
But my neglect was costing me in ways that I did not fully appreciate. My husband called our nights at the ballet and theater “Jane’s most expensive naps.” Eventually we relinquished our subscriptions. Driving, too, was dicey: twice I fell asleep at the wheel, narrowly avoiding disaster. I realize now that I was living in a state of chronic sleep deprivation.
剝奪睡眠的後果，卻悄悄影響我的生活。在劇院欣賞芭蕾舞時，我打起瞌睡，丈夫揶揄我這是「最高貴的瞌睡」。後來我們把訂位都取消了。開車也彷彿是種冒險，開著開著就睡著了，差點釀成大禍。現在的我總算明白，那時的自己，處於「慢性睡眠剝奪」當中。
I don’t want to nod off during cultural events, and I no longer have my husband to spell me at the wheel. I also don’t want to compromise my ability to think and react. As research cited recently in this newspaper’s magazine found, “The sleep-deprived among us are lousy judges of our own sleep needs. We are not nearly as sharp as we think we are.”
我不願再因瞌睡而錯失精彩表演了。丈夫過世後，開車時也不再有丈夫可以換手輪流駕駛。睡眠同時影響了我的思考與反應能力，此非我所樂見。近來在紐約時報的雜誌所引用的研究指出，睡眠剝奪症，是我們內在對於睡眠需求的大聲疾呼。我們並沒有自己想像中的那麼厲害，睡眠仍是必要的存在。
Studies have shown that people function best after seven to eight hours of sleep, so I now aim for a solid seven hours, the amount associated with the lowest mortality rate. Yet on most nights something seems to interfere, keeping me up later than my intended lights-out at 10 p.m. — an essential household task, an e-mail requiring an urgent and thoughtful response, a condolence letter I never found time to write during the day, a long article that I must read.
研究指出，7至8小時的睡眠是最有利的，而7小時的睡眠，死亡率最低，因此我的目標是睡足7小時。我原打算10點準時熄燈，不過大部分的晚上，總有閒事擾人，使得我更晚才睡；例如，一件非做不可的家事，一個急待回覆且須考慮用字遣辭的電子郵件，一封白天找不到時間寫的弔唁信，一篇必讀的長文。
It’s always something.
總是有事做而晚睡。
What’s Keeping Us Up?
是什麼讓我們夜未眠
I know I’m hardly alone. Between 1960 and 2010, the average night’s sleep for adults in the United States dropped to six and a half hours from more than eight. Some experts predict a continuing decline, thanks to distractions like e-mail, instant and text messaging, and online shopping.
夜貓子之路，眾人同行。1960年至2010年之間，美國成人的夜間平均睡眠時數從8小時以上降至6.5小時。有專家預測，隨著電子郵件、即時通訊息、簡訊、網路購物等的普及，平均睡眠時數有持續降低的趨勢。
Age can have a detrimental effect on sleep. In a 2005 national telephone survey of 1,003 adults ages 50 and older, the Gallup Organization found that a mere third of older adults got a good night’s sleep every day, fewer than half slept more than seven hours, and one-fifth slept less than six hours a night.
年紀增長也是影響睡眠的不利因子。蓋洛普民調公司曾於2005年對1003名50歲以上中老年人進行電話訪問。結果顯示，只有三分之一的受訪者認為自己夜夜好眠；不到二分之一的受訪者睡眠超過7小時；五分之一的受訪者則夜晚睡眠時間不超過6小時。
With advancing age, natural changes in sleep quality occur. People may take longer to fall asleep, and they tend to get sleepy earlier in the evening and to awaken earlier in the morning. More time is spent in the lighter stages of sleep and less in restorative deep sleep. R.E.M. sleep, during which the mind processes emotions and memories and relieves stress, also declines with age.
年歲漸增，自然也出現了睡眠品質的改變：入眠所需時間增加、傍晚愈早感受睏意、晨間愈早醒來。淺眠期間多，具修復效果的深層睡眠變少。有助於處理情緒、整理記憶、釋放壓力的快速動眼期睡眠，亦與時俱減。
Habits that ruin sleep often accompany aging: less physical activity, less time spent outdoors (sunlight is the body’s main regulator of sleepiness and wakefulness), poorer attention to diet, taking medications that can disrupt sleep, caring for a chronically ill spouse, having a partner who snores. Some use alcohol in hopes of inducing sleep; in fact, it disrupts sleep.
伴隨年長而來的生活習性，亦降低了睡眠品質：體能活動減少、戶外時間變短(日光是調節人體睡眠及醒轉的主要機制)、忽略飲食、服用會干擾睡眠的藥物、照護慢性病的伴侶、枕邊人鼾聲如雷…等。有些人睡前小酌希望有助好眠，但卻得到反效果。
Add to this list a host of sleep-robbing health issues, like painful arthritis, diabetes, depression, anxiety, sleep apnea, hot flashes in women and prostate enlargement in men. In the last years of his life, my husband was plagued with restless leg syndrome, forcing him to get up and walk around in the middle of the night until the symptoms subsided. During a recent night, I was awake for hours with leg cramps that simply wouldn’t quit.
還有許多健康問題會影響睡眠：關節炎、糖尿病、憂鬱症、焦慮、睡眠窒息症、女性潮紅發熱、男性攝護腺肥大等。丈夫晚年飽受「不寧腿症候群」所苦，半夜總會不由自主地起身步行，直到症狀緩和為止。而我最近也因腿部抽筋而數小時無法入眠。
Beauty Rest and Beyond
美容覺
A good night’s sleep is much more than a luxury. Its benefits include improvements in concentration, short-term memory, productivity, mood, sensitivity to pain and immune function.
一夜好眠極為珍貴，專注力、短期記憶、生產力、心情、痛感、免疫功能等皆能獲得有效改善。
If you care about how you look, more sleep can even make you appear more attractive. In a study published online in December in the journal BMJ, researchers in Sweden and the Netherlands reported that 23 sleep-deprived adults seemed to untrained observers to be less healthy, more tired and less attractive than they appeared to be after a full night’s sleep.
如果你重視外表，睡眠充足將讓你看起來更有吸引力。BMJ期刊曾發表一篇瑞典及荷蘭的共同研究，有65位未受訓練及提示的觀察者，及23位受試者。首先，受試者分別在一晚正常睡眠(8小時)及一次睡眠不足(一晚睡眠時數減少後又需31小時保持清醒)之後拍照，觀察者再對這些隨機排列的照片進行評分。觀察者普遍認為，比起充足睡眠的情況，這些人在睡眠不足時看起來病懨懨、帶倦容、缺乏吸引力。
Perhaps more important, losing sleep may make you fat — or at least, fatter than you would otherwise be. In a study by Harvard researchers involving 68,000 middle-aged women followed for 16 years, those who slept five hours or less each night were found to weigh 5.4 pounds more — and were 15 percent more likely to become obese — than the women who slept seven hours nightly.
更使人在意的，是睡眠不足可能導致肥胖。哈佛大學進行一項研究，以16年的時間長期追蹤6萬8千名中年婦女的睡眠情況。研究發現，與每晚睡眠7小時的婦女相比，睡眠不足5小時的婦女平均增胖5.4磅，肥胖機會增加百分之15。
Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist in Scottsdale, Ariz., and author of “The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan,” points out that as the average length of sleep has declined in the United States, the average weight of Americans has increased.
臨床心理學家及睡眠專家麥可．布魯斯，著有《睡眠專家的飲食妙方》一書，其中指出，美國人平均睡眠時數減少，造成了美國人平均體重增加。
There are plausible reasons to think this is a cause-and-effect relationship. At least two factors may be involved: more waking hours in homes brimming with food and snacks; and possible changes in the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which regulate appetite.
睡眠與體重的因果關係可稱合理，在此至少納入二項因素：一、在家裡醒著的時間，嘴巴也不停歇，點心不離口；二、睡眠不足可能影響瘦體素與飢餓素的分泌，食欲因此受影響。
In a study published in 2009 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Dr. Plamen D. Penev, an endocrinologist at the University of Chicago, and co-authors explored calorie consumption and expenditure by 11 healthy volunteers who spent two 14-day stays in a sleep laboratory. Both sessions offered unlimited access to tasty foods. During one stay, the volunteers — five women and six men — were limited to 5.5 hours of sleep a night, and during the other they got 8.5 hours of sleep.
2009年於美國臨床營養學期刊所發表的一篇研究，芝加哥大學的內分泌學家普萊門‧佩涅及其同事募集了6男5女共11名健康的受試者，14天的時間待在睡眠實驗室，探討睡眠與熱量吸收消耗之間的關係。實驗分為二階段進行，分別是一晚睡5.5小時、一晚睡8.5小時。每階段當中，美食源源不絕提供。
Although the subjects ate the same amount of food at meals, during the shortened nights they consumed an average of 221 more calories from snacks than they did when they were getting more sleep. The snacks they ate tended to be high in carbohydrates, and the subjects expended no more energy than they did on the longer nights. In just two weeks, the extra nighttime snacking could add nearly a pound to body weight, the scientists concluded.
受試者吃下同樣多的食物，不過在睡眠較短的時期，受試者平均多攝取了221卡路里的熱量。點心雖富含碳水化合物，但睡眠較長的時期，受試者並未消耗更多能量。研究人員總結，在短短二星期的時間，夜間饞食點心的行為可能使體重增加一磅。
These researchers found no significant changes in the participants’ blood levels of the hormones leptin and ghrelin, but others have found that short sleepers have lower levels of appetite-suppressing leptin and higher levels of ghrelin, which prompts an increase in calorie intake.
此項研究中，受試者血液中的瘦體素(可抑制食欲)與飢餓素(將促進熱量攝取)之濃度並無顯著改變；但其他研究發現，睡眠短少者，瘦體素含量變低，而飢餓素含量增高。
Sleep loss may also affect the function of a group of neurons in the hypothalamus of the brain, where another hormone, orexin, is involved in the regulation of feeding behavior.
睡眠不足亦影響了大腦下視丘的神經元運作，而下視丘所分泌的食欲素則與飲食行為的控管有關。
The bottom line: Resist the temptation to squeeze one more thing into the end of your day. If health problems disrupt your sleep, seek treatment that can lessen their effect. If you have trouble falling asleep or often awaken during the night and can’t get back to sleep, you could try taking supplements of melatonin, the body’s natural sleep inducer. I keep it at my bedside.
總結：
1. 一日將盡，宣告休息時刻到來，莫再多攬事情做。
2. 健康問題若對睡眠造成困擾，及早尋求治療。
3. 如有難以入睡或是半夜經常醒轉而難再眠的困擾，可試著補充褪黑激素。
If you have trouble sleeping, the tips accompanying this article may help. And if all else fails, try to take a nap during the day. Naps can enhance brain function, energy, mood and productivity.
若是這些方法無助改善你的失眠情形，不妨嘗試白天時小睡片刻，將能增進腦力、體能、情緒、及生產力。
日期：MAY 30, 2011
作者：JANE E. BRODY
來源：http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/health/31brody.html
In my younger years, I regarded sleep as a necessary evil, nature’s way of thwarting my desire to cram as many activities into a 24-hour day as possible. I frequently flew the red-eye from California, for instance, sailing (or so I thought) through the next day on less than four hours of uncomfortable sleep.
童年時期，睡眠對我而言，如同必要之惡：我想在一天24小時之內盡可能填滿各種活動，不過睡眠卻不讓我得逞。例如，我經常從加州搭乘紅眼班機，隔天抵達，睡眠時間只有四小時，愈少愈好。
But my neglect was costing me in ways that I did not fully appreciate. My husband called our nights at the ballet and theater “Jane’s most expensive naps.” Eventually we relinquished our subscriptions. Driving, too, was dicey: twice I fell asleep at the wheel, narrowly avoiding disaster. I realize now that I was living in a state of chronic sleep deprivation.
剝奪睡眠的後果，卻悄悄影響我的生活。在劇院欣賞芭蕾舞時，我打起瞌睡，丈夫揶揄我這是「最高貴的瞌睡」。後來我們把訂位都取消了。開車也彷彿是種冒險，開著開著就睡著了，差點釀成大禍。現在的我總算明白，那時的自己，處於「慢性睡眠剝奪」當中。
I don’t want to nod off during cultural events, and I no longer have my husband to spell me at the wheel. I also don’t want to compromise my ability to think and react. As research cited recently in this newspaper’s magazine found, “The sleep-deprived among us are lousy judges of our own sleep needs. We are not nearly as sharp as we think we are.”
我不願再因瞌睡而錯失精彩表演了。丈夫過世後，開車時也不再有丈夫可以換手輪流駕駛。睡眠同時影響了我的思考與反應能力，此非我所樂見。近來在紐約時報的雜誌所引用的研究指出，睡眠剝奪症，是我們內在對於睡眠需求的大聲疾呼。我們並沒有自己想像中的那麼厲害，睡眠仍是必要的存在。
Studies have shown that people function best after seven to eight hours of sleep, so I now aim for a solid seven hours, the amount associated with the lowest mortality rate. Yet on most nights something seems to interfere, keeping me up later than my intended lights-out at 10 p.m. — an essential household task, an e-mail requiring an urgent and thoughtful response, a condolence letter I never found time to write during the day, a long article that I must read.
研究指出，7至8小時的睡眠是最有利的，而7小時的睡眠，死亡率最低，因此我的目標是睡足7小時。我原打算10點準時熄燈，不過大部分的晚上，總有閒事擾人，使得我更晚才睡；例如，一件非做不可的家事，一個急待回覆且須考慮用字遣辭的電子郵件，一封白天找不到時間寫的弔唁信，一篇必讀的長文。
It’s always something.
總是有事做而晚睡。
What’s Keeping Us Up?
是什麼讓我們夜未眠
I know I’m hardly alone. Between 1960 and 2010, the average night’s sleep for adults in the United States dropped to six and a half hours from more than eight. Some experts predict a continuing decline, thanks to distractions like e-mail, instant and text messaging, and online shopping.
夜貓子之路，眾人同行。1960年至2010年之間，美國成人的夜間平均睡眠時數從8小時以上降至6.5小時。有專家預測，隨著電子郵件、即時通訊息、簡訊、網路購物等的普及，平均睡眠時數有持續降低的趨勢。
Age can have a detrimental effect on sleep. In a 2005 national telephone survey of 1,003 adults ages 50 and older, the Gallup Organization found that a mere third of older adults got a good night’s sleep every day, fewer than half slept more than seven hours, and one-fifth slept less than six hours a night.
年紀增長也是影響睡眠的不利因子。蓋洛普民調公司曾於2005年對1003名50歲以上中老年人進行電話訪問。結果顯示，只有三分之一的受訪者認為自己夜夜好眠；不到二分之一的受訪者睡眠超過7小時；五分之一的受訪者則夜晚睡眠時間不超過6小時。
With advancing age, natural changes in sleep quality occur. People may take longer to fall asleep, and they tend to get sleepy earlier in the evening and to awaken earlier in the morning. More time is spent in the lighter stages of sleep and less in restorative deep sleep. R.E.M. sleep, during which the mind processes emotions and memories and relieves stress, also declines with age.
年歲漸增，自然也出現了睡眠品質的改變：入眠所需時間增加、傍晚愈早感受睏意、晨間愈早醒來。淺眠期間多，具修復效果的深層睡眠變少。有助於處理情緒、整理記憶、釋放壓力的快速動眼期睡眠，亦與時俱減。
Habits that ruin sleep often accompany aging: less physical activity, less time spent outdoors (sunlight is the body’s main regulator of sleepiness and wakefulness), poorer attention to diet, taking medications that can disrupt sleep, caring for a chronically ill spouse, having a partner who snores. Some use alcohol in hopes of inducing sleep; in fact, it disrupts sleep.
伴隨年長而來的生活習性，亦降低了睡眠品質：體能活動減少、戶外時間變短(日光是調節人體睡眠及醒轉的主要機制)、忽略飲食、服用會干擾睡眠的藥物、照護慢性病的伴侶、枕邊人鼾聲如雷…等。有些人睡前小酌希望有助好眠，但卻得到反效果。
Add to this list a host of sleep-robbing health issues, like painful arthritis, diabetes, depression, anxiety, sleep apnea, hot flashes in women and prostate enlargement in men. In the last years of his life, my husband was plagued with restless leg syndrome, forcing him to get up and walk around in the middle of the night until the symptoms subsided. During a recent night, I was awake for hours with leg cramps that simply wouldn’t quit.
還有許多健康問題會影響睡眠：關節炎、糖尿病、憂鬱症、焦慮、睡眠窒息症、女性潮紅發熱、男性攝護腺肥大等。丈夫晚年飽受「不寧腿症候群」所苦，半夜總會不由自主地起身步行，直到症狀緩和為止。而我最近也因腿部抽筋而數小時無法入眠。
Beauty Rest and Beyond
美容覺
A good night’s sleep is much more than a luxury. Its benefits include improvements in concentration, short-term memory, productivity, mood, sensitivity to pain and immune function.
一夜好眠極為珍貴，專注力、短期記憶、生產力、心情、痛感、免疫功能等皆能獲得有效改善。
If you care about how you look, more sleep can even make you appear more attractive. In a study published online in December in the journal BMJ, researchers in Sweden and the Netherlands reported that 23 sleep-deprived adults seemed to untrained observers to be less healthy, more tired and less attractive than they appeared to be after a full night’s sleep.
如果你重視外表，睡眠充足將讓你看起來更有吸引力。BMJ期刊曾發表一篇瑞典及荷蘭的共同研究，有65位未受訓練及提示的觀察者，及23位受試者。首先，受試者分別在一晚正常睡眠(8小時)及一次睡眠不足(一晚睡眠時數減少後又需31小時保持清醒)之後拍照，觀察者再對這些隨機排列的照片進行評分。觀察者普遍認為，比起充足睡眠的情況，這些人在睡眠不足時看起來病懨懨、帶倦容、缺乏吸引力。
Perhaps more important, losing sleep may make you fat — or at least, fatter than you would otherwise be. In a study by Harvard researchers involving 68,000 middle-aged women followed for 16 years, those who slept five hours or less each night were found to weigh 5.4 pounds more — and were 15 percent more likely to become obese — than the women who slept seven hours nightly.
更使人在意的，是睡眠不足可能導致肥胖。哈佛大學進行一項研究，以16年的時間長期追蹤6萬8千名中年婦女的睡眠情況。研究發現，與每晚睡眠7小時的婦女相比，睡眠不足5小時的婦女平均增胖5.4磅，肥胖機會增加百分之15。
Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist in Scottsdale, Ariz., and author of “The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan,” points out that as the average length of sleep has declined in the United States, the average weight of Americans has increased.
臨床心理學家及睡眠專家麥可．布魯斯，著有《睡眠專家的飲食妙方》一書，其中指出，美國人平均睡眠時數減少，造成了美國人平均體重增加。
There are plausible reasons to think this is a cause-and-effect relationship. At least two factors may be involved: more waking hours in homes brimming with food and snacks; and possible changes in the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which regulate appetite.
睡眠與體重的因果關係可稱合理，在此至少納入二項因素：一、在家裡醒著的時間，嘴巴也不停歇，點心不離口；二、睡眠不足可能影響瘦體素與飢餓素的分泌，食欲因此受影響。
In a study published in 2009 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Dr. Plamen D. Penev, an endocrinologist at the University of Chicago, and co-authors explored calorie consumption and expenditure by 11 healthy volunteers who spent two 14-day stays in a sleep laboratory. Both sessions offered unlimited access to tasty foods. During one stay, the volunteers — five women and six men — were limited to 5.5 hours of sleep a night, and during the other they got 8.5 hours of sleep.
2009年於美國臨床營養學期刊所發表的一篇研究，芝加哥大學的內分泌學家普萊門‧佩涅及其同事募集了6男5女共11名健康的受試者，14天的時間待在睡眠實驗室，探討睡眠與熱量吸收消耗之間的關係。實驗分為二階段進行，分別是一晚睡5.5小時、一晚睡8.5小時。每階段當中，美食源源不絕提供。
Although the subjects ate the same amount of food at meals, during the shortened nights they consumed an average of 221 more calories from snacks than they did when they were getting more sleep. The snacks they ate tended to be high in carbohydrates, and the subjects expended no more energy than they did on the longer nights. In just two weeks, the extra nighttime snacking could add nearly a pound to body weight, the scientists concluded.
受試者吃下同樣多的食物，不過在睡眠較短的時期，受試者平均多攝取了221卡路里的熱量。點心雖富含碳水化合物，但睡眠較長的時期，受試者並未消耗更多能量。研究人員總結，在短短二星期的時間，夜間饞食點心的行為可能使體重增加一磅。
These researchers found no significant changes in the participants’ blood levels of the hormones leptin and ghrelin, but others have found that short sleepers have lower levels of appetite-suppressing leptin and higher levels of ghrelin, which prompts an increase in calorie intake.
此項研究中，受試者血液中的瘦體素(可抑制食欲)與飢餓素(將促進熱量攝取)之濃度並無顯著改變；但其他研究發現，睡眠短少者，瘦體素含量變低，而飢餓素含量增高。
Sleep loss may also affect the function of a group of neurons in the hypothalamus of the brain, where another hormone, orexin, is involved in the regulation of feeding behavior.
睡眠不足亦影響了大腦下視丘的神經元運作，而下視丘所分泌的食欲素則與飲食行為的控管有關。
The bottom line: Resist the temptation to squeeze one more thing into the end of your day. If health problems disrupt your sleep, seek treatment that can lessen their effect. If you have trouble falling asleep or often awaken during the night and can’t get back to sleep, you could try taking supplements of melatonin, the body’s natural sleep inducer. I keep it at my bedside.
總結：
1. 一日將盡，宣告休息時刻到來，莫再多攬事情做。
2. 健康問題若對睡眠造成困擾，及早尋求治療。
3. 如有難以入睡或是半夜經常醒轉而難再眠的困擾，可試著補充褪黑激素。
If you have trouble sleeping, the tips accompanying this article may help. And if all else fails, try to take a nap during the day. Naps can enhance brain function, energy, mood and productivity.
若是這些方法無助改善你的失眠情形，不妨嘗試白天時小睡片刻，將能增進腦力、體能、情緒、及生產力。