爲何我再也無法在週末睡懶覺?大綱

Why Can't I Sleep In on Weekends Anymore?

爲何我再也無法在週末睡覺？

Sleeping in is one of the best parts of the weekend. After a long, exhausting work week, sometimes all you want to do is sleep. On Friday night, you slide under the covers, smiling in anticipation. Now you can finally catch up on your sleep.

睡覺是週末最棒的地方之一。在漫長而疲憊的工作日後，有時你唯一想做的就是睡覺。在週五晚上，你鑽進被窩，帶着美好的期盼微笑着。現在你終於可以彌補你的睡眠了。

Except you can’t. When you open your eyes Saturday morning, it’s still early. If this were a weekday, you’d be up before your alarm. So what’s the deal?

然而你不行。當你週六早上睜開眼時，時間還早。如果這還是個工作日，你在鬧鐘響之前就醒了。那麼這是爲什麼呢？

We hate to break it to you, but you’ve pretty much done this to yourself. Your body is very good at recognizing patterns and adjusting accordingly. If you’ve got a 9-to-5 job, you’re getting up early five days a week. This effectively sets your body clock to wake you at a certain time each day.

我們不想向你拆穿，但這大多是你自己的原因。你的身體非常擅長識別模式然後以此做調整。如果你有一份朝九晚五的工作，你一週5天都早起。這有效地設定了你的生物鍾，每天都在特定的時間把你叫醒。

Waking up may feel instantaneous, but it’s actually a pretty gradual process. About an hour before you wake, your blood pressure and body temperature rise, as do levels of stress hormones like cortisol. Minute by minute, you become more alert until you’re completely awake. You can shut off your alarm clock, but your body clock will just keep ticking.

醒來或許感覺是瞬間發生的，但事實上這是個循序漸進的過程。在你醒來的一個小時前，你的血壓和體溫上升，同時還有壓力荷爾蒙的水平，比如皮質醇。時間一點點過去，你越來越清醒直到徹底醒來。你可以關掉你的鬧鐘，但你的生物鐘還會繼續走着。

There’s another reason that you probably don’t want to think about: You’re just not as young as you used to be. We need less sleep as we get older. Babies need between 16 and 20 hours. Teenagers should (but often don’t) get nine hours a night. Younger and middle-aged adults need about eight hours of sleep a night. In general, the older you get, the harder it is to snooze the day away.

還有另一個你或許不願意想的原因：你再也不像曾經那樣年輕了。我們長大後所需的睡眠時間變少了。嬰兒需要16到20個小時的睡眠。青少年應該每晚睡9個小時（但經常不能）。年輕和中年人需要大概8個小時的睡眠。總體來說，你年紀越大，睡得越少。Even if you do manage to sleep in, you may never fully catch up on your sleep. If your body needs eight hours every night and you only get six or seven from Monday to Friday, you’d have to sleep an extra five to ten hours on Saturday to make it up. And experts say even that may not be enough.

即使你真的設法睡着了，你或許永遠也不能完全補上你的睡眠。如果你的身體每晚需要8個小時的睡眠，而你只從週一到週五睡了6或7個小時，那麼你需要在週六補上5到10個小時。並且專家說或許這都不夠。

The bottom line: Sleep when you can, and enjoy those extra weekend morning hours. Who doesn’t want a longer weekend?

最後一句：能睡多少睡多少，享受那些週末額外的早晨。誰不想要一個長點兒的週末呢？

譯文屬原創，未經允許，不得轉載。