不睡觉到底会对我们造成什么伤害？

We certainly know that a lack of sleep will actually prevent your brain from being able to initially make new memories, so it’s almost as though without sleep the memory inbox of the brain shuts down and you can’t commit new experiences to memory. So those new incoming informational emails are just bounced, and you end up feeling as though you’re amnesiac. You can’t essentially make and create those new memories.

我们知道缺乏睡眠实际上会阻止你的大脑产生新的记忆，在没有睡眠的情况下，大脑的记忆收件箱就像关闭了一样，新的经历无法提交给记忆。所以那些新进来的信息电子邮件就会被返回，你会觉得自己好像是失忆了。这个时候你已经不能处理和创造新的记忆了。

We also know that a lack of sleep will lead to an increased development of a toxic protein in the brain that is called beta-amyloid and that is associated with Alzheimer’s disease because it is during deep sleep at night when a sewage system within the brain actually kicks in to high gear and it starts to wash away this toxic protein, beta-amyloid.

睡眠不足会导致大脑中有毒蛋白-β淀粉样蛋白-的增加，这一蛋白与阿尔茨海默氏症有关，只有在晚上深睡眠时大脑内的排污系统才会高速运转来清理掉这种有毒蛋白。

So if you’re not getting enough sleep each and every night, more of that Alzheimer’s-related protein will build up. The more protein that builds up, the greater your risk of going on to develop dementia in later life.

因此，如果你每晚睡眠不足，更多与老年痴呆症相关的有毒蛋白质就会增加。这种蛋白质含量越多，你在以后的生活中患上痴呆症的风险就越大。

What are the effects of sleep deprivation on the body? Well, there are many different effects. Firstly, we know that sleep deprivation affects the reproductive system. We know that men who are sleeping just five to six hours a night have a level of testosterone which is that of someone ten years their senior. So a lack of sleep will age you by almost a decade in terms of that aspect of virility and wellness.

睡眠不足对身体有什么影响？其实有很多不同的影响。首先，我们知道睡眠减少会影响生殖系统。我们知道，每晚睡眠时间在5到6个小时的男性体内的睾丸激素水平与比他们年长10岁的人的睾丸激素水平相当。因此，睡眠不足会通过降低男性活力和健康等方面使你几乎变老10年。

We also know that a lack of sleep impacts your immune system. So after just one night of four to five hours of sleep, there is a 70% reduction in critical anticancer-fighting immune cells called natural killer cells. And that’s the reason that we know that short sleep duration predicts your risk for developing numerous forms of cancer. And that list currently includes cancer of the bowel, cancer of the prostate, as well as cancer of the breast.

睡眠不足也会影响你的免疫系统。因此，在每晚4到5个小时的睡眠后，关键的抗癌免疫细胞(称为自然杀伤细胞)减少了70%。这就是为什么睡眠时间短会预示着你有更高的多种患癌风险，包括了肠癌、前列腺癌、以及乳腺癌。

In fact, the link between a lack of sleep and cancer is now so strong that recently the World Health Organization decided to classify any form of nighttime shift work as a probable carcinogen. So in other words, jobs that may induce cancer because of a disruption of your sleep rate rhythms.

事实上，缺乏睡眠和癌症之间的联系是如此紧密，以至于最近世界卫生组织决定将任何形式的夜间轮班工作归为可能的致癌物，即由于睡眠节奏紊乱而可能诱发癌症的工作。

We also know that a lack of sleep impacts your cardiovascular system because it is during deep sleep at night that you receive this most wonderful form of effectively blood pressure medication. Your heart rate drops, your blood pressure goes down.

睡眠不足会也影响你的心血管系统，因为在夜间深度睡眠时，你会得到最有效的降压作用。这个时候你的心率下降，血压也随之下降。

If you’re not getting sufficient sleep, you’re not getting that reboot of the cardiovascular system, so your blood pressure rises. You have, if you’re getting six hours of sleep or less, a 200% increased risk of having a fatal heart attack or stroke in your lifetime.

如果你睡眠不足，你就无法重新启动心血管系统，所以你的血压就会上升。如果你的睡眠时间是6小时或更短，那么在你的一生中患致命心脏病或中风的风险就会增加200%。

There is a global experiment that is performed on 1.6 billion people twice a year and it’s called daylight savings time. And we know that in the spring, when we lose one hour of sleep, we see a subsequent 24% increase in heart attacks the following day.

有一项每年对16亿人进行两次测试的全球实验，名为夏时制。在春天，当我们失去一个小时的睡眠时，第二天心脏病发作的几率会增加24%。

Another question, perhaps, is what is the recycle rate of a human being? How long can we actually last without sleep before we start to see declines in your brain function or even impairments within your body? And the answer seems to be about 16 hours of wakefulness.

另一个问题就是一个人的循环周期是多长时间?在我们开始看到你的大脑功能衰退，甚至身体受损之前，我们还能坚持多久？答案似乎是16小时的清醒状态。

Once you get past 16 hours of being awake, that’s when we start to see mental deterioration and physiological deterioration in the body. We know that after you’ve been awake for 19 or 20 hours, your mental capacity is so impaired that you would be as deficient as someone who was legally drunk behind the wheel of a car. So if you were to ask me what is the recycle rate of a human being, it does seem to be about 16 hours and we need about eight hours of sleep to repair the damage of wakefulness. Wakefulness essentially is low-level brain damage.

一旦你清醒了16个小时，我们就会开始看到身体的智力衰退和生理上的恶化。我们知道，在你清醒了19到20个小时之后，你的心智能力就会受损，你就会像一个醉酒驾车的人一样有缺陷。如果你问我一个人的循环率是多少，大概是16个小时，我们需要8个小时的睡眠来修复觉醒时身体的损伤。因为清醒本质上就是低水平的脑损伤。