人为什么不能永远醒着？

 

 英国《新科学家》周刊网站4月27日发表题为《为什么我们不能无限期保持清醒状态？》的文章，文章称，睡眠对我们的健康非常重要。全文摘编如下：

The British "New Scientist" weekly website published on April 27, entitled "Why can't we stay awake indefinitely?" "The article stated that sleep is very important to our health. The full text is excerpted as follows:

我们有三分之一的时间都在睡觉。如果遗漏了这一行为，我们就会生病。睡眠显然极其重要。那是为什么呢？当我们缺乏睡眠时脑部会出现什么状况？为什么我们不能一直保持清醒状态？我们又如何确保得到充分睡眠？

We sleep for a third of the time. If this behavior is omitted, we will get sick. Sleep is obviously extremely important. Why is that? What happens to the brain when we lack sleep? Why can't we stay awake all the time? How can we ensure adequate sleep?

Even fleas have to sleep

睡眠不仅仅是因为我们人类需要闭上双眼。蜜蜂对睡眠的需求与我们大致一样。如果你让蜜蜂熬夜，它们就会受到严重影响。一只正常的蜜蜂跳摆尾舞，那是在告诉其他蜜蜂去哪里觅食。而蜜蜂在缺觉状态下舞步就不那么精准了，舞步角度会出现更多变化，由此导致它给出错误的觅食方向。如果整晚未眠的你尝试去跳舞，你也会是这副模样。

Sleep is not just because we humans need to close our eyes. The needs of bees for sleep are roughly the same as ours. If you let the bees stay up late, they will be severely affected. A normal bee dances its tail, telling other bees where to go for food. In the state of lack of consciousness, the bee's dance steps are not so accurate, and the angle of the dance steps will change more, which causes it to give the wrong foraging direction. If you try to dance without sleeping all night, you will look like this too.

即便是连续飞行数周或数月的动物也离不开睡眠。研究人员给大军舰鸟戴上可穿戴型脑波记录仪，以证实一种普遍观点，即鸟类在飞行时可以入睡。在长途飞行过程中，它们会打很多次小盹儿，每次用时大约12秒，每天总计打盹41分钟，每次打盹儿通常有一半的脑部会进入睡眠状态。当它们回到陆地上，它们每天的睡眠时间会超过12小时。

Even animals that fly continuously for weeks or months cannot do without sleep. Researchers put a wearable brainwave recorder on large frigatebirds to confirm a common belief that birds can fall asleep while flying. During a long-distance flight, they will doze many times, each time taking about 12 seconds, a total of 41 minutes a day, each nap usually half of the brain will go to sleep. When they return to land, they sleep more than 12 hours a day.

Sleep function is very mysterious

不过，尽管睡眠似乎是所有动物的一个共同点，但我们仍未真正了解睡眠的目的。

However, although sleep seems to be a common denominator of all animals, we still do not really understand the purpose of sleep.

很多为解释睡眠行为所做的尝试都表明，睡眠对脑部修复或维护至关重要。人们一度认为，某种毒素在我们醒着的时候会在脑部积聚，当这种毒素达到一定含量时就会让睡眠变得不可抗拒。但人们后来一直都未找到这样一种物质。

Many attempts to explain sleep behavior have shown that sleep is essential for brain repair or maintenance. It was once thought that a certain toxin would accumulate in the brain when we are awake, and when this toxin reaches a certain level, it will make sleep irresistible. But people have never found such a substance.

现代版的观点解释称，我们在白天会耗损脑部运转所需的大分子储备——如蛋白质、核糖核酸和胆固醇，这些大分子在睡眠时会得到补充。

The modern version explains that during the day we deplete the reserves of macromolecules necessary for the functioning of the brain-such as protein, ribonucleic acid and cholesterol, which are replenished during sleep.

另一派观点认为，睡眠不仅仅是一种维护性行为，而且肯定在发挥某种独特的积极功能。最广为人知的观点可能就是，睡眠有助于我们巩固记忆，把重要的细节置入长期存储状态。很多实验都表明，如果我们在学习和回忆这两种行为之间加入睡眠环节，我们的记忆力会得到增强。

Another point of view is that sleep is not only a maintenance behavior, but must also play a unique positive function. Perhaps the most well-known view is that sleep helps us consolidate our memories and put important details into long-term storage. Many experiments have shown that if we add sleep between the two behaviors of learning and recalling, our memory will be enhanced.

我们在睡觉的时候会循环经历不同的睡眠阶段，而每个阶段很可能有不同的功用。夜间的最初几个周期对于深度睡眠十分重要，而深度睡眠似乎对于脑部维护最为重要。后续周期包括更多的快速眼动睡眠，这是我们进入生动梦境的阶段，动物研究结果表明，这对学习非常重要。另一方面，一些抗抑郁药会抑制快速眼动睡眠，但似乎不会影响人们的记忆力。

When we sleep, we will cycle through different sleep stages, and each stage is likely to have different functions. The first few cycles of the night are very important for deep sleep, and deep sleep seems to be the most important for brain maintenance. Subsequent cycles include more rapid eye movement sleep, which is the stage where we enter a vivid dream, and animal research results show that this is very important for learning. On the other hand, some antidepressants inhibit REM sleep, but they don’t seem to affect people’s memory.

无论睡眠行为是出于什么原因，它无疑对我们的健康非常重要。未获得充足睡眠会影响人的情绪、决策、免疫系统和新陈代谢。睡眠不足还是肥胖症、2型糖尿病以及阿尔茨海默病、精神分裂症、抑郁症和双相情感障碍等一系列精神及神经系统疾病的致病风险因素。

Whatever the reason for sleep behavior, it is undoubtedly very important to our health. Not getting enough sleep can affect people's mood, decision-making, immune system and metabolism. Insufficient sleep is also a risk factor for a series of mental and neurological diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder.

 

From website: http://www.cankaoxiaoxi.com/