白天打盹能让大脑更聪明(中)

I’m glad Lydia is taking the shame out of napping. So what’s the sweet spot for naps? Ten minutes? An hour?

我很高兴莉迪亚摆脱了打盹的羞耻感。那么打盹的最佳时间是多久呢? 十分钟? 一个小时?

Well, the idea is that the best way to nap is to nap for just maybe 20 to 30 minutes and to do it before 5 P.M. if you keep regular daytime hours so it doesn't interfere with your nocturnal sleep.

这个观点认为，打盹的最佳时间是20到30分钟，如果你保持正常的白天作息，那么最好在下午5点前打盹，这样就不会干扰你晚上睡觉。

And the reason that 20 to 30 minutes is good has to do with where you are in sleep cycles during that time.

20到30分钟是最佳时间的原因是，这个时间与你在这段时间内处于睡眠周期的哪个阶段有关。

So most of your sleep in 20 minutes will be light sleep, N1, and it makes it easier to wake up.

大部分20分钟内的睡眠都是浅睡眠，这时处于N1阶段，会更容易醒来。

If you sleep longer, you will go into a deeper phase of sleep that can be harder to wake up from.

如果睡得时间更长些，就会进入难以醒来的深度睡眠阶段。

That definitely rings true to me. I don’t take naps that often. But when I do, I sometimes nap for too long and wake up feeling pretty groggy!

这对我来说绝对是真的。我不经常打盹。但当我打盹时，我有时会睡得很久，醒来时感觉头晕脑胀!

So what are the benefits of these shorter naps?

那么这些较短时间的打盹有什么好处呢？

You improve your memory, your information processing, your vigilance, which in scientific terms is your ability to respond to something sudden, like a swerving car.

会提高记忆力、信息处理能力、警惕性，用科学术语来说，就是提高你对突发事件(如，遇到突然转向的汽车)的应对能力。

And there's a bunch of other ways in which it improves your mental acuity, but those are the things that show up most strongly.

还有很多其他的方法可以提高精神敏锐度，但打盹这样的方法效果最明显。

That makes sense. I know they say if you’re tired while driving, you should pull over and take a short nap. But I didn’t know about the memory effect.

这是有道理的。我知道有人说如果你开车累了，你应该停在路边打一会儿盹，但我不知道对记忆也有影响。

If you take a 20 or 30 minute nap at, say, 1 P.M., it will actually improve your memory?

如果在下午1点小睡20到30分钟，真的会提高记忆力吗?

Yes, it will improve your recall in the subsequent hour or two after the nap.

是的，在小睡后的一两个小时内会提高记忆力。

And so if you wake up feeling like, “Hey, I feel better able to do my work now,” you're not wrong.

如果一觉醒来觉得现在能更好地工作了，你的感觉没有错。

How did scientists figure this out? Did they have people take naps and then measure their recall?

科学家们是怎么发现的? 科学家们是否会在人们小睡后测量他们的记忆力？

That’s exactly what researchers have been doing.

这正是研究人员一直在做的事情。

Two of them are Ruth Leong and Michael Chee of the National University of Singapore.

其中两位研究人员是新加坡国立大学的露丝·梁(Ruth Leong)和迈克尔·陈（Michael Chee）。

They work at the Center for Sleep and Cognition there.

他们在这所大学的睡眠与认知中心工作。

And in a 2022 study, they found the kind of cognitive benefits to short naps that Lydia was talking about.

在2022年的一项研究中，他们发现了莉迪亚谈到的小睡对认知的好处。

Also, a nap simply makes people feel better, they learned.

此外，他们还发现，小睡会让人感觉更好。

Chee says that sleep scientists don’t talk about mood enough.

陈认为睡眠科学家对情绪的讨论还不够。

But he and Leong have found, not surprisingly, that tired people are grumpy people. Quick nappers, though, are nicer.

但他和梁发现，疲劳会使人脾气暴躁，这并不足为奇。不过，短暂小睡会使人友善些。

We could all use a bit more niceness, that’s for sure. But not everything about napping is good.

我们都可以通过小睡变得更友善些，这毋庸置疑。但小睡并不是只有益处。

Frequent and longer daytime naps might actually be a sign of health problems, right?

白天频繁打盹和长时间小睡实际上可能是存在健康问题的征兆，对吗?

Yeah, Lydia talked about that.

是的，莉迪亚对此进行过讨论。