有意思的《睡眠革命》 一次暈厥引發的睡眠頌

The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time By Arianna Huffington WH Allen ￡16.99

《睡眠革命》(The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time) 阿里安娜•赫芬頓(Arianna Huffington)著，WH Allen出版，售價16.99英鎊。

In April 2007 Arianna Huffington fell over. The journalist, multimillionaire, networker, ex-politician, author and all-round celebrity had got herself overtired. She banged her cheek as she went down. There was some blood.

2007年4月，阿里安娜•赫芬頓昏倒了。這位集記者、億萬富婆、網絡工作者、前政客、作家多種角色於一身的全能名流把自己累垮了。倒地時她撞到臉。還見了血。

In the nine intervening years she has turned this tumble into not only an industry but an entire movement. There has been a TED talk, countless media appearances and workshops. Two years ago she published Thrive and now The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time.

之後的9年，她不僅將這次暈厥的經歷打造成了產業，還搞成了一場運動。目前已經有一場TED演講、數不清的媒體採訪和專題研討會。兩年前她出版了《成功的第三種維度》(Thrive)一書，如今又出版了《睡眠革命》。

In what her publishers call a “deeply personal exploration of sleep” she tells and retells the story of her fall. She also tells us some other less remarkable ones. She owns some pink pyjamas. And when her daughter ate lots of salty popcorn and watched Ghostbusters she didn’t sleep so well.

她的出版商稱這本書爲一次“關於睡眠的深度私家探索”，書中她再三訴說着暈倒的經歷。也說了些尋常瑣事。比如她有幾件粉色睡衣。還有她女兒一邊看《捉鬼敢死隊》（Ghostbusters）一邊大嚼鹹味爆米花讓她沒法兒踏實睡覺。

As a life-long sleep hysteric I both revere and deplore the book.

作爲一名長期因精神亢奮而失眠的人士，筆者對此書既推崇又反對。

Her central point is quite right: too little sleep isn’t good for us. When we don’t sleep well we are bad tempered, inclined to crash the car, look peaky and can’t do our jobs properly. She argues rightly that it is time to stop boasting about how little sleep we get and brag about how much we get instead.

她的中心思想很正確：睡眠過少對我們不利。睡不好時我們會脾氣暴躁、容易撞車、面容憔悴以及無法很好地工作。她說的對，別再吹噓自己睡得多麼少了，應該吹自己獲得了充足的睡眠纔對。

And yet the tone of the book is all wrong. On the cover Huffington is pictured in a white suit with power shoulders and flowing skirt, seated on a punishingly hard single bed. Weird sleep angel, is the general idea. In the 300 pages that follow, she makes her point with a relentlessness that undermines her case. Good research is spoilt by scaremongering. She tells us that losing an hour’s sleep a week puts us at increased risk of heart attack. Even more moronically she quotes the figure that says too little sleep costs the economy $2,280 per worker per year.

然而全書的基調卻都不對勁。書的封面是赫芬頓的照片，照片上她身穿白色套裝，高墊肩，大裙襬，坐在一張堅硬的單人牀上。整體感覺就是個詭異的睡眠天使。接下來的300頁，她長篇大論地闡述她的理論，但如此贅述反而有損說服力。危言聳聽糟蹋了書中引用的其他有益的研究成果。她說每週少睡一小時會增加患心臟病的機率。她還沒頭腦地引用了一個數據，說是睡眠不足的問題給經濟造成相當於每個勞動者每年2280美元的損失。

The more she insists that not getting eight hours wrecks our relationships, our looks, our sex life, gives us cancer, heart attacks and diabetes, makes us flunk exams and fail at pretty much everything, the more you want to protest that actually being a bit weary isn’t the end of the world.

她越是強調睡不到8小時會危害我們的人際關係、我們的外表、我們的性生活，讓我們罹患癌症、心臟病和糖尿病，令我們考試不及格以及諸事不順，就讓人越想反駁說一點點疲勞並不代表世界末日。

She scans the past — telling us that it was the industrial revolution that did for our sleep — and the future, in which she predicts a new sleepy era is under way. Sports coaches, supermodels and various companies are all starting to see the importance of sleep. A golden age of sleep, she insists, is about to dawn.

她回溯歷史——告訴我們是工業革命毀掉了我們的睡眠；而未來，她預言一個新的嗜睡的紀元即將到來。體育教練、超級模特以及形形色色的企業都開始看到了睡眠的重要性。一個睡眠的黃金時代，她堅信，就在眼前。

I wish she were right. I also wish that she had a slightly broader notion of what it is to be sleepless. She understands only the sort of exhaustion that comes from setting up a website, running for political office and never being off the television.

我希望她是對的。我還希望她能對失眠這個概念有更爲全面的理解。她僅對因創建網站、競選公職、以及永遠開着電視導致的精疲力盡有所體會。

I also wish Huffington understood more the blessed relief that can come from occasional visits to the medicine chest.

我還希望赫芬頓對那種有時需藉助藥物才能解脫的失眠多些理解。

As a result of reading a marathon sleep nag, my anxiety levels about not sleeping have not gone down. I’m not meditating; I’m not trying lavender pillows, but I am following Huffington in one big way. I have banished all screens from the bedroom.

在看了這本長篇大論、滔滔不絕論述睡眠的書後，我也並沒能降低對失眠的焦慮程度。我沒做冥想，我也沒試試薰衣草枕頭，但是我按赫芬頓的建議做出重要的一步：把所有帶屏幕的東西拿出了臥室。

In the five nights since I finished the book it has made a difference. If I can keep it up, she will have transformed my life, just a little bit.

看完這本書後的頭5個晚上，確實有了些改變。如果我能堅持下去，她將會讓我的生活發生轉變，但也只是一點點。