睡眠不足時,大腦會開始吃自己
If you're tossing and turning every night, there's some bad news. Your brain could be in big trouble!
如果你每晚都輾轉反側，要告訴你一個壞消息，你的大腦要有大麻煩了！
And you thought getting your recommended seven to nine hours of zzz’s was the only thing you needed to worry about. Turns out, there are some pretty scary side effects to sleep loss, all around. (By the way, getting too much sleep could be bad for your health, too.)
你以爲睡夠建議的7-9小時是唯一需要擔心的，事實是，睡眠不足有超級可怕的副作用，而且涉及方方面面。（順便說一下，睡太多對你的健康也有害）。
A study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, investigated how the brain responds to bad sleep habits using lab mice.
《神經科學雜誌》發表的一篇研究用實驗室老鼠研究了睡眠習慣不好時大腦的反應。
Their surprising discovery revealed that not getting enough deep sleep, along with not sleeping at all, can literally cause your brain to start eating itself. No kidding!
驚人的發現揭示了深度睡眠不足和不睡覺其實會導致大腦開始吃掉自己。真不是開玩笑！
The team of researchers, led by neuroscientist Michele Bellesi from the Marche Polytechnic University in Italy, divided the mice into four groups.
來自意大利馬爾凱理工大學的神經系統科學家Michele Bellesi帶領的研究團隊把老鼠分成了4組。
While the well-rested group slept for six to eight hours, another was periodically woken up from sleep, the third group was kept awake for an extra eight hours, and a final group remained chronically sleep-deprived, staying awake for five days straight.
睡眠充足的一組睡6-8小時，另外一組會定期從睡夢中被叫醒，第三組被強制多清醒8小時，最後一組長期剝奪睡眠，連續清醒5天。
When the researchers compared brain activity across the four groups, they noted something odd. The neurons of both the well-rested and sleep-deprived groups continued the same healthy brain-cleaning activity that always happens when we sleep. But the brains of the sleep-deprived mice went into overdrive and began harming themselves, too.
研究人員對比4組老鼠的大腦活動時有了奇怪的發現。休息好的和剝奪睡眠的兩組神經元都在進行相同的睡眠期間總會進行的大腦健康清理活動，但剝奪睡眠的老鼠大腦會超負荷工作，並開始自我傷害。
Sound crazy? As we sleep, our brains do more than replenish our energy; they also clear away the toxic byproducts of neural activity from the day.
聽起來很瘋狂吧？睡覺時我們的大腦不光是在養精蓄銳，也在清理這一天神經活動產生的毒素。
While we’ve known that this process occurs when we get a good night’s sleep, apparently the same thing can happen when we lose sleep, too.
我們已經知道了晚上睡眠充足時會進行這一過程，顯然在睡眠不足時也會如此。
But because of the lack of shut-eye, the brain goes a bit overboard with its cleaning—hence its terrifying self-eating habit.
但因爲缺乏睡眠，大腦就會過度清理，因此就產生了可怕的自我吞噬習慣。
We have only one conclusion. In the name of your brain’s health, you have a pretty good reason to hit the hay an hour earlier tonight.
我們只有一個結論：爲了大腦的健康，你今晚有理由提前一小時睡覺。
