Back in my early Microsoft days, I routinely pulled all-nighters when we had to deliver a piece of software. Once or twice, I stayed up two nights in a row. I knew I wasn’t as sharp when I was operating mostly on caffeine and adrenaline, but I was obsessed with my work, and I felt that sleeping a lot was lazy.

回想微軟早年的歲月，當(dāng)我們必須要交付一個(gè)軟件時(shí)，我們經(jīng)常通宵工作。有一次或兩次，我連續(xù)兩天熬夜。我知道當(dāng)我主要靠咖啡因和腎上腺素?fù)沃臅r(shí)候，我的狀態(tài)不會(huì)太好。但當(dāng)時(shí)的我癡迷于工作，我覺得睡太多覺是懶惰的表現(xiàn)。

Now that I’ve read Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep, I realize that my all-nighters, combined with almost never getting eight hours of sleep, took a big toll. The book was recommended to me by my daughter Jenn and John Doerr. Walker, the director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Human Sleep Science, explains how neglecting sleep undercuts your creativity, problem solving, decision-making, learning, memory, heart health, brain health, mental health, emotional well-being, immune system, and even your life span. “The decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is having a catastrophic impact,” Walker writes.

當(dāng)我讀完馬修·沃克的《為什么要睡覺》，我意識(shí)到自己通宵工作，加之幾乎沒睡夠過八個(gè)小時(shí)，這對(duì)我造成了極大的傷害。沃克是加州大學(xué)伯克利分校人類睡眠科學(xué)中心的主任，他解釋了忽視睡眠會(huì)如何削弱你的創(chuàng)造力、解決問題的能力、決策能力、學(xué)習(xí)能力、記憶力、心臟健康、精神健康、情緒健康、免疫系統(tǒng)，甚至縮短你的壽命。沃克寫道：“整個(gè)工業(yè)國家正在遭受睡眠減少帶來的毀滅性影響?！?/p>

I don’t necessarily buy into all of Walker’s reporting, such as the strong link he claims between not getting enough sleep and developing Alzheimer’s. In an effort to wake us all up to the harm of sleeping too little, he sometimes reports as fact what science has not yet clearly demonstrated. But even if you apply a mild discount factor, Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book.

我并不完全接受沃克的這份報(bào)告，例如他所聲明的關(guān)于睡眠不足與阿茨海默癥之間的強(qiáng)聯(lián)系。為了使我們所有人都醒悟關(guān)于睡眠太少帶來的危害，有時(shí)他會(huì)用科學(xué)還未驗(yàn)證的事實(shí)進(jìn)行論述。但是，即使你會(huì)對(duì)此書有一些微詞，《為什么要睡覺》仍然是一本重要且引人入勝的好書。

Because this is a short review, I’ll answer a few questions that I suspect are top of mind for you.

鑒于這是一篇短評(píng)，我將回答幾個(gè)我認(rèn)為你會(huì)首先想到的問題。

Does everyone really need seven or eight hours of sleep a night? The answer is that you almost certainly do, even if you’ve convinced yourself otherwise. In the words of Dr. Thomas Roth, of the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, “The number of people who can survive on five hours of sleep or less without impairment, and rounded to a whole number, is zero.”

每人每晚真的需要七或八小時(shí)的睡眠嗎？答案是：你基本上確實(shí)需要這么多睡眠，即便你已經(jīng)說服自己不這樣做。借用底特律亨利福特醫(yī)院托馬斯·羅斯醫(yī)生的話：“靠五小時(shí)甚至更少時(shí)間睡眠存活下來且沒有因此造成任何損害的人數(shù)，去掉小數(shù)點(diǎn)四舍五入，結(jié)果是零?！?/p>

Why do we sleep? After all, when you’re sleeping—;and all animals do—;you can’t hunt, gather, eat, reproduce, or defend yourself. Yet Walker concludes that the evolutionary upsides of sleep are far greater than these downsides. In brief, sleep produces complex neurochemical baths that improve our brains in various ways. And it “restocks the armory of our immune system, helping fight malignancy, preventing infection, and warding off all manner of sickness.” In other words, sleep greatly enhances our evolutionary fitness—;just in ways we can’t see.

為什么我們要睡覺？在你睡覺的時(shí)候，與所有動(dòng)物一樣，你不能狩獵、聚會(huì)、進(jìn)食、繁殖或防御自己。然而沃克的結(jié)論是，睡眠的演化性優(yōu)勢(shì)要遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)大過這些消極影響。簡而言之，睡眠產(chǎn)生出復(fù)雜的影響神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)的化學(xué)物質(zhì)，通過不同方式改善大腦的功能。此外，它“增強(qiáng)我們的免疫系統(tǒng)，幫助抵抗惡性腫瘤，預(yù)防感染，以及防止各種疾病?！睋Q句話說，睡眠極大地增強(qiáng)了我們的演化適應(yīng)性，以我們?nèi)庋劭床灰姷姆绞健?/p>

What can I do to improve my sleep hygiene?

我能做什么來改善睡眠健康？

Replace any LEDs bulbs in your bedroom, because they emit the most sleep-corroding blue light.

If you’re fortunate enough to be able to control the temperature where you live, set your bedroom to drop to 65 degrees at the time you intend to go to sleep. “To successfully initiate sleep … your core temperature needs to decrease by 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit,” according to Walker.

Limit alcohol, because alcohol is not a sleep aid, contrary to popular belief. While it might help induce sleep, “alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM [rapid-eye-movement] sleep,” Walker says.

If you can possibly take a short midday nap like our ancestors used to and some Mediterranean and South American cultures still do, you should (but no later than 3 pm). It will likely improve your creativity and coronary health as well as extend your lifetime.

替換掉臥室里所有的LED燈泡，因?yàn)樗鼈儼l(fā)出對(duì)睡眠破壞性最強(qiáng)的藍(lán)光。

如果你足夠幸運(yùn)到可以控制居所的溫度，請(qǐng)?jiān)谀銣?zhǔn)備入睡時(shí)將臥室溫度下調(diào)至65華氏度（譯注：約18.3攝氏度）。據(jù)沃克所言，“若要成功進(jìn)入睡眠……你的核心體溫需要下降2至3華氏度（譯注：約1.1-1.8攝氏度）”。

限制飲酒，因?yàn)榫凭皇侵邉?，這與普遍的認(rèn)知正好相反。盡管它可能有助于誘發(fā)睡意，但沃克說：“酒精是快速眼動(dòng)睡眠（譯注：睡眠的一個(gè)階段。在這個(gè)階段里，人的大腦非?；钴S，眼球會(huì)快速轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)，人也很容易做夢(mèng)）的最強(qiáng)抑制劑之一?！?/p>

如果你可以中午小憩片刻，就像我們的祖先過去常常做以及一些地中海及南美群落仍然在做的那樣，你應(yīng)該這樣做（但不要超過下午3點(diǎn)）。這將有可能提升你的創(chuàng)造力和冠狀動(dòng)脈健康，以及延長你的壽命。

It took me a little longer than usual to finish Why We Sleep—;ironically, because I kept following Walker’s advice to put down the book I was reading a bit earlier than I was used to, so I could get a better night’s sleep. But Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.

我花了比平常更多的時(shí)間讀完《為什么要睡覺》—;—;這聽上去有點(diǎn)諷刺，因?yàn)槲铱偸亲裱挚说慕ㄗh，比我習(xí)慣的時(shí)間更早一些將書放下，以便在晚上能有更好的睡眠。但關(guān)于這項(xiàng)地球人都需要的基本活動(dòng)，我從沃克那里學(xué)到了很多。我想他的這本書也將教會(huì)你很多。