一夜安睡的好方法
Thirty-nine per cent of adults get less than the recommended 8 hours of sleep a night. Women are two times more likely to have insomnia than men - this may be due to hormonal changes. And tiredness peaks at 2am and 2pm, according to scientists. Here an expert nutritionist and a sleep psychologist give us some unusual ways to get a better night's kip...
39%的成年人的夜間睡眠時間少於專家建議的8小時。女性失眠的可能性是男性的2倍--可能是因爲荷爾蒙變化所致。凌晨2點和下午2點是人們疲倦的時候，科學家表示。一位營養專家和一位睡眠心理學家給出了一些不同尋常的建議，幫助我們一夜好眠。1. Avoid stress-inducing food
1. 不要吃引發壓力的食物"Food intolerances are a relatively little-known contributor to sleep problems," explains Alexandra. "When you eat something you are intolerant to, your immune system thinks it's a foreign invader and reacts by triggering inflammation and the production of stress hormones." These raised stress hormones lead to increased heart rate and alertness - the last thing you need as you're trying to drift off.
"很少有人知道食物不耐性是導致睡眠的一個原因，"亞歷山德拉解釋道。"當你吃了不耐受的食物時，你的免疫系統會將其視作外來入侵者，並通過引發炎症、分泌壓力激素而做出應對。"壓力激素增加會導致心跳加快，也會使你更加警覺--而我們就怕臨睡前變得警覺。
If you think you have a food intolerance, keep a food diary for a few weeks, and note down how you feel after eating various foods. If you suspect a food might be giving you nasty side effects like bloating, diarrhoea, indigestion, or itchy rashes, cut it out of your diet for a couple of weeks before reintroducing it gradually.
如果你認爲自己有食物不耐受症狀，那就試着寫幾周關於食物的日記，記下吃完每種食物的感受。如果你懷疑某種食物會給你帶來不好的副作用，比如脹氣、腹瀉、消化不良或發癢、皮疹，那就試着先不吃這些食物，幾周之後再慢慢加入到飲食中。2. How about a bedtime story?
2. 睡前聽個故事咋樣？Two thirds of adults say reading before bed helps them to sleep. There's a good reason for this: according to neuropsychologists, reading reduces stress levels by 68%.
三分之二的成年人認爲臨睡前閱讀有助於他們入睡。這是有原因的：神經心理學家表示，閱讀可減少68%的壓力。"When our mind is full of the facts and thoughts of the day, stories can help us shift down a gear before bed," says Hope Bastine, psychologist for sleep technology brand Simba. "Entering into a literary world distracts us from daily stresses, releasing the muscular heart tension and lowering the breathing rate."
"當我們的大腦想的都是白天發生的事情時，故事可幫助我們做好入睡準備，"Simba睡眠技術品牌的心理學家Hope Bastine說道。"進入文學世界能幫助我們從日常壓力中抽離、釋放肌肉緊張、降低呼吸頻率。""Reading fiction helps build the bridge toward creative dreaming," says Hope. In the dreaming part of the sleep cycle, REM, we dream in pictures, not words. So anything that switches on the image centres of our brain is a good way to prepare the mind for deep sleep.
"閱讀小說有助於打造通往創意性夢境的橋樑，"Hope說道。在睡眠週期的夢境部分，我們的夢境以圖片形式展開，而非語言文字。所以任何切換大腦影像中心的東西都是爲深度睡眠做準備的好方法。
