Myth of eight-hour sleep

八小時睡眠的神話

Bā xiǎoshí shuìmián de shénhuà

在20世紀90年代早期,精神病學家Thomas Wehr主導了一項實驗,他把一群人置于每天有十四個小時黑夜的壞境中度過一個月.測試者們調整睡眠養成了一種不同的睡眠方式.他們先睡上四個小時,然后醒來一到兩個小時,之后又繼續睡上第二個四小時.這表明連續八小時的睡眠也許并非自然.但是在大眾思想中要不間斷地睡上八個小時的觀念依然是不可動搖.

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month. They who had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern, slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep. It suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural. But among the general public the idea that we must sleep for eight consecutive hours persists.

根據弗吉尼亞理工學院的歷史學家Roger Ekirch發掘出的超過500份關于分段睡眠方式的參考文獻,大量歷史證據揭示了人類過去睡眠會分為兩個時間段.這些有來自日記,法庭審理筆錄,醫學圖書和文學作品（從荷馬奧德賽到尼日利亞現代部落的人類學報告）的參考文獻描述了夜幕降臨后兩小時后的第一次睡眠,接著是一到兩小時的不眠期,然后開始第二次睡眠.

Historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech unearthed more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks. These references - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria, described a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep.

Ekirch發現文獻記載的有關分段睡眠在十七世紀晚期開始逐漸消失.首先開始于北歐城市中的上流階層,然后在接下來的200年后情況蔓延到了西方社會的其他地區.一直到20世紀20年代,分段睡眠的觀念才完全從我們的社會意識中退去.他把這種初始轉變歸因于街道照明、家庭照明的提高改進,以及咖啡館的大量興起——它們有時通宵營業.由于夜晚變成了人們合法活動的一個時段,隨著夜生活的興起,人們用于休息的時間就縮短了.

Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th Century. This started among the urban upper classes in northern Europe and over the course of the next 200 years filtered down to the rest of Western society. By the 1920s the idea of a first and second sleep had receded entirely from our social consciousness. He attributes the initial shift to improvements in street lighting, domestic lighting and a surge in coffee houses - which were sometimes open all night. As the night became a place for legitimate activity and as that activity increased, the length of time people could dedicate to rest dwindled.

當今,很多人似乎已經很好地適應了八小時睡眠,但是Ekirch相信許多睡眠方面的問題可能源于人體對分段睡眠的自然偏好和普遍存在的人造照明."許多人半夜醒來伴隨著恐慌,"他說道,"我告訴他們,他們的體驗只不過是退回到了雙模睡眠方式."

Today, most people seem to have adapted quite well to the eight-hour sleep, but Ekirch believes many sleeping problems may have roots in the human body's natural preference for segmented sleep as well as the ubiquity of artificial light. "Many people wake up at night and panic," he says. "I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern."

所以下次當你在半夜醒來,想想你工業時期前的祖先們并且放松下來.醒來躺著或許對你有益.

So the next time you wake up in the middle of the night, think of your pre-industrial ancestors and relax. Lying awake could be good for you.

詞語解釋：

主導 (zhǔdǎo) conduct

置于 (zhìyú) plunge

不間斷 (bù jiànduàn) consecutive

發掘 (fàjué) unearth

(Source: myechinese.com)