【TED演讲】每天真的需要8小时的睡眠吗？

Sleep is so important. We need it to live. And when we can't sleep, we're desperate for help.

睡眠是如此重要， 没有它我们就无法生存下去。 而当我们无法入睡时， 我们迫切需要帮助。

But lately, our fascination with sleep feels as if it's taken on an urgency. Do a quick internet search for sleep and you'll find a slew of articles about how to make your sleep perfect. New gadgets, fancy alarm clocks, stay away from blue light. There are lots of services, products and advice columns that tell us we're sleeping wrong. Not enough, not quality sleep, wrong position. Even worse, you might find scary messaging claiming that if you're not sleeping right your life is going to be shorter, you're going to get all kinds of diseases.

但最近，我们对睡眠的着迷 似乎使它伴随着一种紧迫感。 在网上快速搜索一下睡眠， 你会发现很多篇文章 教你怎样获得完美睡眠。 新的科技小设备，设计复杂的闹钟， 远离蓝光。 有很多服务、产品和建议专栏 告诉我们睡觉的方式是错的。 睡得不够， 并非高质量睡眠，姿势不佳。 更糟糕的是，你可能会 找到可怕的消息 声称如果你睡得不对， 你的寿命会缩短， 你会患上各种疾病。

One of the biggest worries we have about our sleep is that we're not getting enough and that anything less than seven hours a night means that we’re doomed to bad health, everything from high blood pressure to Alzheimer’s disease. But there are two flaws with this kind of messaging. The first flaw is that it's not completely accurate. Seven to eight hours of sleep, while recommended for adults, is just an average. And while messages have to be simplified for health communication to the public, sometimes important nuances get lost. So yes, it's true that not getting enough sleep in the long term is associated with health problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression. But fixating solely on seven to eight hours ignores the fact that there's a range of sleep that people need. The duration of a good night's sleep can be different for different people. Some adults need eight, but some are just fine on six.

我们关于睡眠的最大担心之一， 就是我们没有睡够； 只要每晚少于 7 个小时， 就意味着我们逃脱不了 欠佳的健康状况， 包括从高血压到老年 痴呆症的所有那些。 但这种信息里有两个漏洞。 其一是它不完全准确。 七到八个小时的睡眠， 虽然是成年人的建议时长， 但只是一个平均值。 虽然传达给大众的 健康信息需要被简化， 但是有时重要的细节会丢失。 所以是这样没错， 长期缺乏充足睡眠 确实会和心血管疾病、 糖尿病和抑郁症这样的健康问题有关。 但执着于把睡眠时间 固定在七到八小时的范围内， 忽略了一个事实—— 人们所需的睡眠时长是因人而异的。 一夜好眠的持续时间对于 不同的人可以是不一样的。 有些成年人需要八小时， 但有些人六小时差不多了。

The second flaw with this kind of doomsday messaging is that it can be counterproductive, especially for people who do have trouble sleeping. For instance, in 2019, it was estimated that 21 percent of adults in the US were wearing sleep tracking devices. And that number is probably growing. And I get it. It's fascinating to see how much sleep you've gotten each night and to know what part of your night was spent in deep sleep or dreaming. But having all of that sleep data is causing some people to become obsessed with it, so much so that it’s leading to a condition some call orthosomnia: a preoccupation with the constant need to achieve perfect sleep. And this condition, ironically, is causing more sleep problems.

这种耸人听闻消息的漏洞其二 是它可能适得其反， 尤其是对那些入睡困难的人。 例如，在 2019 年， 估计有美国 21% 的成年人 使用睡眠跟踪设备。 而且这个数字可能会持续增长。 我理解。 能知道你每晚睡了多久 和你在晚上哪个时段有深度 睡眠或做梦是挺有意思， 但是掌握着所有这些睡眠数据 会导致有些人对它非常在意， 以至于到达“睡眠强迫”的级别。 意思是时刻执着于追求完美睡眠。 而这种情况，讽刺的是， 正在导致更多的睡眠问题。

Now orthosomnia might be an extreme example, but the anxiety of not getting enough sleep is keeping some of us up at night. So here's what some experts are saying. Stop fixating on the number because that can lead to unrealistic expectations of sleep. According to Dr. Colleen Carney, a psychologist and the head of the Ryerson University Sleep Lab, the basic questions you should ask yourself are: Do I feel reasonably well-rested during the day? Do I generally sleep through the night without disturbances? Or, if I wake, do I fall back asleep easily? Can I stay awake through the day without involuntarily falling asleep? If your answers are yes to all three, you probably don't need to worry about your sleep. And if you're struggling with your sleep, instead of buying expensive blue light filters or fancy sleep trackers, try talking with your doctor to make sure there aren't any medical conditions that need to be explored first. Then try evidence-based recommendations laid out by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. What's really cool is that there's a highly effective therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, It doesn’t have any medications involved. And it has a really low failure rate.

虽然“睡眠强迫”也许 是个极端的例子， 但没能获得足够睡眠的焦虑感， 让我们中的一些人难以入眠。 这是专家们所说的： 不要去关注数值， 因为那会引起对于 睡眠不切实际的期望。 根据科琳·卡尼博士 （Colleen Carney）， 心理学家以及瑞尔森大学 睡眠研究室主任的说法， 你该问自己的最基本问题是： 我在白天感觉精神充沛吗？ 我是否通常晚上睡眠不间断？ 或者，如果我中途醒来， 我能轻易再次入睡吗？ 我能整天保持清醒， 不会不由自主地睡着么？ 如果你对这三个问题的 回答都是肯定的， 那你大概不用为 你的睡眠担心。 如果你在为睡眠而挣扎， 不要购买昂贵的蓝光滤片， 或高级的睡眠追踪设备， 而是尝试与你的医生 交流以确认没有其它 要先排除的医疗状况。 然后试试美国睡眠医学会 给出的有科学依据的建议。 真正炫酷的是 一种高效的疗法， 叫做失眠认知行为疗法， 即CBT-I。 它不需要任何药物， 失败率也很低。