游戏的队友需要我，电视剧的弹幕需要我……怎么舍得放弃如此丰富的夜生活呢！很多人都处于周一周五全熬夜，周末两天不离床的状态，觉得这样能减少熬夜的伤害，很完美!但补觉真的能把睡眠补回来吗？

关键词：科普、译文、补觉

A 20-minute nap refreshes. Just don't sleep in so long on Sunday morning that you find it hard to fall asleep Sunday night.

20分钟的小憩会让你精神焕发。只是周日早上不要睡懒觉，否则周日晚上你将很难入睡。

Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images

Editor's note: If you like this article, you should check out Life Kit, NPR's family of podcasts for navigating your life — everything from finances to diet and exercise to raising kids. Our new sleep guide is out Monday. Sign up for the newsletter, or email us at lifekit@npr.org.

编者按:如果你喜欢这篇文章，你应该看看NPR的“生活工具箱”，这是一组指导你生活的播客 - 从理财到饮食、锻炼再到抚养孩子，无所不含。我们新的睡眠指南周一出版。注册时事通讯，或发邮件至lifekit@npr.org联系我们。

There are lots of reasons why many of us don't get the recommended seven hours or more of sleep each night. Travel schedules, work deadlines, TV bingeing and — a big one — having young children all take a toll.

有很多原因可以解释为什么我们中的许多人没有达到建议的每晚7小时或更长时间的睡眠。旅行日程安排、工作截止日期、电视节目以及 – 一件大事 – 有小孩的都会付出的代价。

 Research published recently in the journal Sleep finds that up to six years after the birth of a child, many mothers and fathers still don't sleep as much as they did before their child was born. For parents, there's just less time in the day to devote to yourself.

最近发表在《睡眠》杂志上的一项研究发现，在孩子出生六年后，许多父母仍然没有孩子出生前睡得多。对于父母来说，每天花在自己身上的时间更少。

So, can you catch up on sleep? That partly depends on how much sleep you've missed.

那么，睡眠能补回来吗?这在一定程度上取决于你错过了多少睡眠。

A study in the current issue of Current Biology points to just how quickly the adverse effects of sleep deprivation can kick in. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder recruited a bunch of young, healthy adults who agreed to a stay in a sleep lab. Some were allowed to sleep no more than five hours per night for five consecutive days.

最新一期《当代生物学》杂志上的一项研究指出，睡眠不足的负面影响会以多快的速度出现。科罗拉多大学博尔德分校的研究人员招募了一群年轻健康的成年人，他们同意呆在睡眠实验室里。一些人连续五天每晚睡眠不超过5小时。

'After five days, people [gained] as much as 5 pounds,' says study author Christopher Depner, who studies the links between sleep loss and metabolic diseases. Lack of sleep can throw off the hormones that regulate appetite, he explains, so people tend to eat more.

研究睡眠不足与代谢疾病之间关系的研究作者克里斯托弗·德普纳说:“五天之后，人们的体重增加了5磅。”他解释说，睡眠不足会释放调节食欲的激素，因此人们往往会吃得更多。

Depner and his colleagues also documented a decrease in insulin sensitivity among the sleep-deprived participants. 'In some people, it decreased to a level where they'd be considered pre-diabetic,' he says. Presumably, that rise in blood sugar would be only temporary in these young, healthy people. But it's a striking indicator of how much a lack of sleep can influence metabolism.

德普纳和他的同事们还记录了睡眠不足的参与者胰岛素敏感性的下降。“在一些人身上，血糖水平下降到了他们被认为是糖尿病前期的水平，”他说。据推测，这些健康年轻人的血糖升高只是暂时的。但这是一个惊人的指标，表明睡眠不足能在多大程度上影响新陈代谢。

And, even after a weekend of catch-up sleep, the participants still gained as much weight as those in the study who had not been allowed to get the extra weekend sleep.

而且，即使经过一个周末的补觉，参与者的体重还是和那些没有在周末补觉的人一样增加了。

So, bottom line: It can be hard for our metabolism to recover from a week of sleep deprivation, and — over time — chronic sleep loss can increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes.

所以，底线是:我们的新陈代谢很难从一周的睡眠不足中恢复过来，随着时间的推移，慢性睡眠不足会增加患2型糖尿病的风险。

These findings are eye-opening, but they don't paint the full picture. After all, many of us who lose out on sleep miss only a few hours here or there. Our sleep loss is occasional, not chronic.

这些发现让人大开眼界，但它们并没有描绘出完整的画面。毕竟，我们中的许多人只失去了几个小时的睡眠。我们的睡眠不足是偶然的，不是长期的。

Consider this scenario: You have a long day of travel and arrive home late, say, at 2 a.m. And you've got to wake up at the crack of dawn for an early meeting the next day. Is that a big deal?

考虑一下这个场景:你经历了一天的长途旅行，很晚才到家，比如凌晨2点。但你必须在黎明时分醒来，因为第二天一早开会。这有什么大不了的吗?

'The short-term effect is that you're a little more sleepy — your concentration is poor, or [you may lose] words on the tip of your tongue,' says Dr. Chris Winter, a sleep specialist in Charlottesville, Va. But what's the long-term effect of one night of partial sleep loss?

弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔的睡眠专家克里斯温特博士说:“短期影响是你更困了 - 你的注意力不集中，或者(你可能会)说不出话来。”但一个晚上的部分睡眠缺失会带来什么长期影响呢?

'I don't think there really is one,' Winter says.

“我不认为真的有，”温特说。

Winter says our bodies are good at compensating for a poor night's sleep. 'That correction is probably going to happen fairly quickly,' Winter says. 'You only got four hours of sleep last night, so you're probably going to sleep quite well the upcoming night.'

温特说，我们的身体很擅长弥补夜间睡眠不足。温特表示:“这种调整可能很快就会发生。”“你昨晚只睡了四个小时，所以接下来的一晚你可能会睡得很好。”

So, while it's ideal to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, it's not always possible to stick to this routine. And, a recent longevity study suggests this is OK. 'We're very adaptable,' Winter says.

所以，虽然每天在同一时间睡觉和起床是很理想的，但不可能总是坚持这个作息。最近的一项长寿研究表明，这是可以接受的。温特说:“我们的适应能力很强。”

Researchers in Sweden looked at how the amount of weekday and weekend sleep was associated with life span. The study included about 44,000 people who were followed for 13 years. The researchers found that people who tended to get less sleep during the week, but who made up for it with extended weekend sleep, did not have an increased risk of premature death. The researchers concluded that 'long weekend sleep may compensate for short weekday sleep.' They published their findings in the Journal of Sleep Research.

瑞典的研究人员研究了工作日和周末的睡眠时间与寿命的关系。这项研究包括大约44,000人，他们被跟踪了13年。研究人员发现，那些往往在一周内睡眠较少，但周末睡眠时间较长的人并不会增加过早死亡的风险。研究人员得出结论：“长周末睡眠可能会弥补工作日的短睡眠。”他们的研究结果发表在《睡眠研究》杂志上。

'If you're somebody who needs seven hours of sleep a night, then you really need 49 hours a week,' Winter says. In other words, it's probably OK to vary your sleep a bit over a short time period, as long as it averages out to what you need.

温特说:“如果你是一个每晚都需要7小时睡眠的人，那么你实际上每周需要49小时。”换句话说，在短时间内稍微改变一下你的睡眠时间是可以的，只要你的睡眠时间能达到你的需要。

'Yes, I do think you can make up for lost sleep,' Winter says. 'I don't think I'll ever make up for the sleep I lost in medical school and residency, but I do think in the short term you can.'

温特说:“是的，我认为你可以弥补睡眠不足。”“我想我永远也无法弥补我在医学院和住院医生期间失去的睡眠，但我确实认为在短期内你可以。”

Still, there is one potential drawback of sleeping in on the weekend: Too much sleep can throw off your body clock. So, an hour or two of extra sleep is fine, but you don't want to sleep in so long on a Sunday morning that then it's hard to fall asleep Sunday night.

不过，周末睡懒觉也有一个潜在的缺点:过多的睡眠会打乱你的生物钟。所以，多睡一两个小时是可以的，但是你不会想在周日早上睡得太久以至于周日晚上很难入睡。

Another way to recover: Take a nap.

另一种恢复的方法是:打个盹。

'A 20-minute nap can make up for one hour of lost sleep,' says Jim Horne, a sleep researcher and professor emeritus of psychophysiology at Loughborough University in the U.K. He published a study in 2011 demonstrating the benefits of a 20-minute nap.

“20分钟的小憩可以弥补一小时的睡眠不足，”英国拉夫堡大学睡眠研究员兼心理生理学荣誉教授吉姆霍恩说。他在2011年发表了一项研究，证明了打盹20分钟的好处。

Horne also points to a review study that concluded that daytime naps can help boost performance — everything from improved memory recall to being more alert. But, here's a tip: Don't take a nap after 3 p.m., or it's likely to interfere with your nighttime sleep.

霍恩还指出，一项综述性研究得出的结论是，白天打盹有助于提高表现 - 从提高记忆力到提高警觉。但是，我有个建议:下午3点以后不要打盹，这可能会影响你的夜间睡眠。

And Horne has another nap strategy for those times when you want to wake up feeling very alert.

当你想要醒来时感觉非常清醒，霍恩还有另一种打盹策略。

'People call it a caff nap,' Horne says. The idea: Lie down to sleep immediately after drinking a cup of coffee.

霍恩说：“人们称之为咖啡觉“。建议：喝完一杯咖啡后立即躺下睡觉。

'That coffee takes 20 minutes to kick in,' Horne explains. That's just enough time to catch a few Z's, and it has been shown to be 'a very effective combination' for sleepy drivers, he says.

“那杯咖啡生效需要20分钟，”霍恩解释道。他说，这段时间刚好够打几个盹，而且已经证明，对于昏昏欲睡的司机来说，这是一个“非常有效的组合”。

（责任编辑：周姚）