如何专心睡眠 当我们的思维停不下来的时候

My sleep schedule:
我的睡眠时间表是这样的：

8:30: Get ready for bed
8:30: 准备上床睡觉

9:00: Be in bed
9:00: 上床

9:30: Hopefully be sleeping
9:30: 希望自己入睡

9:55: Definitely be sleeping
9:55: 确定自己要入睡

10:00: Oh god, you’re not asleep? Why aren’t you asleep? You know what happens when you can’t sleep. Well, you just keep thinking about sleep. I mean wait, don’t think about sleep! Just don’t even think about the word.
10:00:我的天啊，你还没睡？你为什么不睡？你知道自己不睡觉时将发生些什么。好吧，只想着睡觉吧。我的意思是，等一下，别再想睡觉这件事啦！甚至连这个词也别去想。

10:05: Now it’s ruined, it’s all ruined.
10:05:一切都毁了，全毁了。

12:30: Is someone vacuuming? I am pretty sure someone is vacuuming. I will find them, I will find them and I will hurt them.
12:30:有人在用真空吸尘器打扫卫生吗？我确定有人在这么做。我一定要把他们找到，拽出来痛打一顿。

1:00: silent rage until sleep comes
1:00: 无声的愤怒，直至睡意袭来

Much of my life is dictated by my fear of not falling asleep at the right time. I calculate how much sleep I need down to the exact minute. I lay in bed each night waiting for the unyielding thought-vomit to occur. I used to think that the endless stream of thoughts that plagued my nightly routine were unique to me, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
我生活中的许多时光都充斥着我对于无法适时入睡的恐惧。我计算了我所需的睡眠时间并精确到了分钟。每晚我躺在床上等待着那些执着的想法从脑袋中涌出。我曾经认为困扰我夜间休息的那无尽的思维洪流仅仅是我所独有。但是我大错特错了。

If you have trouble turning your mind off at night, you aren’t alone. It is estimated that 30-to-40 million Americans have a sleep disorder and an additional 20 million have occasional difficulty sleeping. It’s so bad that the Centers for Disease Control considers it a public health epidemic. To unearth the reasons why we can’t turn off our mind at night, we should first understand the body’s mechanisms which govern sleep.
如果你无法在晚上关掉你的思维阀门，你不是一个人。据估计，有3,000-4,000万美国人都患有睡眠障碍，另有2,000万人患有偶发性失眠。糟糕的是，疾病控制中心认为这是一种关乎公众健康的传染病。要明白为什么我们在夜间无法停止思考，首先我们应该弄懂我们身体中管理睡眠的机制。

Until as recently as the 1950s scientists believed that falling asleep was a completely passive process. Scientists now think that the body’s wakefulness and sleep mode is dictated by a two-process model. Process S: Promotes our desire to sleep and inhibits our arousal centers at night. Process C: Maintains our wakefulness during the day. This two-process model is also influenced by the circadian rhythm.
直至20世纪50年代，科学家才相信，睡眠完全是一个被动过程。现在，科学家认为身体的觉醒和睡眠模式是一种双进程模型（two-process model）。分为S进程：在夜间提升我们的睡眠渴望，抑制我们的觉醒中枢。以及C进程：在白天让我们保持清醒。这种双进程模式也被昼夜节律[1]（circadian rhythm）所影响。

The circadian rhythm is the body’s clock that regulates our activities and behaviors. It’s controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) — a part of the brain known as the circadian rhythm pacemaker. Morning light lets the SCN know ‘Hey, it’s time to get up and start this process over again.’ As the sun sets, the SCN signals our body to calm down and prepare for sleep.
昼夜节律是身体的时钟，管理着我们的活动和行为。昼夜节律由视交叉上核（suprachiasmatic nucleus-SCN）所控制，视交叉上核是大脑的一部分，被称为昼夜节律起搏器。早晨的光线让视交叉上核知道“嘿，该起床了，重新再开始这一过程吧”。随着日落，视交叉上核给我们的身体发出信号，让身体平静下来，准备睡觉。

Disruptions to the circadian rhythm can prevent us from falling asleep at night and feeling overly tired during the day. These disruptions can also adversely effect our health.
昼夜节律如果被破坏，将会阻止我们在夜间入睡，让我们在白天感到极度疲惫。这种破坏也会对我们的健康产生有害影响。

(Night) Shift workers have an increased risk of heart problems, digestive disturbances, and emotional and mental problems, all of which may be related to their sleeping problems. The number and severity of workplace accidents also tend to increase during the night shift.
（夜班）倒班工人患心脏疾病、消化紊乱以及情绪和精神疾病的风险更高，这些都与他们的睡眠问题相关。夜班期间，车间事故的数量和严重性也会有所上升。

Okay, so we understand the process that drives us to sleep, but what happens to our bodies once we are in bed?
好吧，虽然我们理解了睡眠的运行过程，但是当我们上床睡觉以后，我们的身体会发生什么呢？

There are two kinds of sleep, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and Non-REM (NREM) sleep. Both of which are necessary for the body to go through its restorative process. There are also five stages of sleep. The entire process takes about 90-120 minutes. In an ideal situation, it would look something like this:
睡眠有两种形式，分别是快速眼动（REM）睡眠和非快速眼动（NREM）睡眠。这两种睡眠对于处于恢复过程中的身体来说都十分必要。睡眠也有五个阶段，整个过程需要90-120分钟。在一种理想的情况下，睡眠看起来是这样的：

When we can’t turn off the mind it is because we are having trouble transitioning from the alpha waves of stage 1 to the theta-band waves of stage two. Those with severe sleep disorders often enter REM sleep immediately upon falling asleep. As we begin the transition into sleep our brains are letting go of a lot, but this is by no means a passive process. Our brains are reordering and assessing the day’s events, working to promote new memory formations, and cleaning up debris.
我们无法关掉思维的阀门，是因为我们无法将第一阶段的α脑波转化成第二阶段的θ脑波。那些患有严重睡眠障碍的人通常在入睡后就立刻进入快速眼动睡眠。当我们开始入睡时，我们的大脑会非常放松，但是这并不是一个被动的过程。我们的大脑会重新排列并评估白天的事务，促进新的记忆形成，清空记忆碎片。

Turning off our mind — as anyone who has tried to do will tell you — is easier said than done. There’s no magical switch you can flip to make yourself fall asleep, but there are some tricks you can do to help quiet your mind.
正如任何曾经尝试过的人都会告诉我的那样，关掉思维阀门说来容易做来难。你没有魔法开关，按下去就能入睡，但是有一些有助于你让脑袋静一静的小诀窍。