Why sleep should be every student’s Priority
为什么说睡眠对每一个学生都至关重要？
It’s hard to overstate the benefits of a night’s rest for human memory, and neuroscientists are just beginning to understand why.
一夜的睡眠对人类记忆的好处再怎么说都不为过，神经科学家们刚刚开始理解其中的原因。
Jakke Tamminen has plenty of students who do that very studenty thing of staying up all night right before an exam, in the hope of stuffing in as much knowledge as they can. But “that’s the worst thing you can do”, the psychology lecturer at the UK’s Royal Holloway University warns them.
Jakke Tamminen有很多学生在考试前很学生气地整晚熬夜，就是为了尽可能多的记住知识。但是这位英国伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院的心理学讲师警告说：“这是你能做的最糟糕的事情了。”
studenty：有学生气的
He should know. Tamminen is an expert on how sleep affects memory, specifically the recall needed for language. Sleep learning – another idea beloved of students, in the hope that, say, playing a language-learning recording during sleep would imprint itself into the brain subliminally and they’d wake up speaking Latin – is a myth.
他当然了解这一切。Tamminen是睡眠如何影响记忆的专家，特别是那些学习语言需要的回忆。睡眠学习——一个非常受学生们欢迎的想法，在睡觉的时候播放语言学习录音，由此进入大脑的潜意识，让他们醒来时就会说拉丁语了——是不是个迷一样的方法。
subliminally：下意识地
But sleep itself is essential for embedding knowledge in the brain, and the research of Tamminen and others shows us why that is.
但是睡眠本身对于知识植入大脑中至关重要，Tamminen等人的研究表明了这一点。
embed：把…嵌入;栽种;深留（记忆中）
In Tamminen’s ongoing research project, participants learn new vocabulary, then stay awake all night. Tamminen compares their memory of those words after a few nights, and then after a week.
在Tamminen正在进行的研究项目中，参与者学习新词汇，然后整夜保持清醒。Tamminen分别在几晚之后，以及再过一个星期之后，针对他们对这些单词的记忆进行了比较。
Even after several nights of recovery sleep, there is a substantial difference in how quickly they recall those words compared to the control group of participants who didn’t face sleep deprivation.
即使经过几天的补觉，与那些没有熬夜的对照组相比，他们回忆这些单词的速度也有很大的不同。
deprivation：剥夺;丧失;
Students who do not get enough sleep may have a harder time recalling information .
睡眠不足的学生很难回忆起信息。
“Sleep is really a central part of learning,” he says. “Even though you’re not studying when you sleep, your brain is still studying. It’s almost like it’s working on your behalf. You can’t really get the full impact of the time you put into your studies unless you sleep.”
睡眠确实是学习的重中之重，”他说。“即使你睡觉时不学习，你的大脑仍在学习。这几乎就像是在为你工作。你只有睡觉，才能真正让你投入学习的时间的效力全部发挥出来。
Inside the sleeper’s brain
在睡眠者的大脑中
We’re standing in Lab Room 1 of Tamminen’s sleep lab, a sparsely decorated room with a bed, a colourful rug, and framed paper butterflies. Above the bed is a small electroencephalography (EEG) machine and monitor to detect activity in each research participant’s brain, via electrodes placed on the head. These measure not only activity in different regions of the brain (frontal, temporal, and parietal), depending on their placement on the head, but also muscle tone (through an electrode on the chin) and eye movement (through an electrode next to each eye).
我们站在Tamminen睡眠实验室的第一实验室，一个装饰稀疏的房间，有一张床，一条彩色的地毯，还有镶框的纸蝴蝶。床的上方是一台小型脑电图（EEG）仪，通过放置在头上的电极监测每个研究参与者的大脑活动。它们不仅测量大脑的不同区域（额部、颞部和顶部）的活动，这取决于它们在头部的位置，而且还测量肌肉张力（通过下巴上的电极）和眼睛运动（通过每只眼睛旁边的电极）。
parietal：顶骨的;
While a participant is sleeping, researchers can see activity in different regions of the brain.
当参与者睡觉时，研究人员能看到大脑不同区域的活动。
Down the hallway is the control room, where researchers can see in real time which parts of each volunteer’s brain are being activated, for how long, and to what extent. It’s easy to tell when a volunteer is in the rapid eye movement (REM) phase, based on the activity in the E1 and E2 (eye 1 and eye 2) graphs.
走廊的里面是控制室，研究人员可以在那里实时看到每个参与者的大脑的哪些部分被激活，多长时间以及激活的程度。根据E1和E2（眼1和眼2）图中的活动，很容易判断志愿者何时处于快速眼动（REM）阶段。
But more critical to Tamminen’s current research – and to sleep’s role in language development more generally – is a non-REM phase of deep sleep known as slow-wave sleep(SWS). SWS is important for forming and retaining memories, whether of vocabulary, grammar, or other knowledge. The interaction of different parts of the brain is key here. During SWS, the hippocampus, which is good at quick learning, is in constant communication with the neocortex, to consolidate it for long term recall. So the hippocampus might initially encode a new word learned earlier that day, but to truly consolidate that knowledge – spotting patterns and finding connections with other ideas that allow for creative problem-solving – the neocortical system needs to get involved.
但是，对于Tamminen目前的研究，以及睡眠在语言发展中的作用，更为关键的是被称为慢波睡眠（SWS）的深度睡眠的非REM阶段。SWS对于形成和保留记忆，无论是词汇、语法还是其他知识都很重要。大脑不同部位的相互作用是关键。在SWS期间，擅长快速学习的海马体与新皮层保持持续的联系，巩固新皮层，以便长期记忆。因此，海马体可能最初编码了当天早些时候学到的一个新单词，但是为了真正巩固这些知识——发现模式，并找到与允许创造性解决问题的其他想法之间的联系——新皮层系统需要参与。
During slow-wave sleep, the hippocampus and neocortex communicate to encode information for longer-term recall .
在慢波睡眠期间，海马体和新皮层进行交流，为长期回忆编码信息。
This information expressway between the hippocampus and the neocortex is populated by sleep spindles – spikes in brain activity that are no more than three seconds long.
这个位于海马体和新皮层之间的信息高速公路由睡眠纺锤体构成——大脑活动的尖峰不超过3秒钟。
“Sleep spindles are somehow associated with linking new information with existing information,” Tamminen says. And the data from his research participants suggests that people with more sleep spindles have more consolidation of the words they have learned. (Read more about how you can learn in your sleep).
“睡眠纺锤波在某种程度上与新信息和现有信息联系在一起，”Tamminen说。他的研究参与者的数据表明，睡眠纺锤波越多的人学过的单词越巩固。（阅读更多关于如何在睡眠中学习）。
Dreaming has been shown to help students make new connections to a language they’re learning.
做梦已经被证明能帮助学生与他们正在学习的语言建立新的联系
While Tamminen focuses on slow-wave sleep, there’s a theory that REM sleep plays a role in language development too, through the dreaming that happens during this part of the sleep cycle. Research at the sleep and dreams lab at Canada’s University of Ottawa found that the brains of undergraduates dreaming in French were essentially able to make new connections with the language they were learning.
当Tamminen关注于慢波睡眠时，有一种理论认为快速眼动睡眠在语言发展中也起着作用，通过在睡眠周期的这个阶段发生的梦。加拿大渥太华大学睡眠与梦境实验室的研究发现，用法语做梦的本科生的大脑基本上能够与他们正在学习的语言建立新的联系。
Students intensively studying their second language had more REM sleep, giving them more time to integrate what they were learning while they slept
集中学习第二语言的学生有更多的快速眼动睡眠，给他们更多的时间来整合他们睡觉时学到的东西。
Nightly rhythms
夜间节奏
There’s a genetic component to how many sleep spindles we have. There’s also a genetic basis to our internal clocks, which tell us when it’s time to go to sleep and wake up. And adhering to these hard-wired cycles is necessary to reaching our peak cognitive performance.
我们有多少睡眠主轴有一个基因成分。我们的内部时钟也有遗传基础，它告诉我们何时该睡觉和醒来。坚持这些硬连线循环是达到我们认知高峰的必要条件。
Few people know more about this subject than Michael W Young, who in 2017 was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for his work on clock genes with two co-researchers. Young explains that for optimal functioning – whether at school, work, or other areas of life – “what you want to do is to try to recreate a rhythmic environment”.
很少有人比Michael·W·Young更了解这个课题，他因为与两位合作研究者在时钟基因方面的研究而获得了2017年的诺贝尔生理学/医学联合奖。Young解释说，为了达到最佳的功能，无论是在学校里、工作中还是生活的其他方面，“你要做的就是尝试创造一个有节奏的环境”。
For a person whose lifestyle, environment, or inherited sleep disorder leads to distorted sleep patterns, “a cheap first-line response” could be using blackout curtains at night or bright lights during the day to mimic natural light/dark cycles as much as possible.
对于一个生活方式、环境或遗传性睡眠障碍导致睡眠模式扭曲的人来说，“廉价的第一线反应”可以是在夜间使用遮光窗帘或在白天使用明亮的灯光来尽可能地模拟自然白天/黑夜循环。
Blocking out light can help you sleep – and function – better .
遮挡光线能帮助你睡眠—以及功能运用—会更好。
Power naps
补充能量的小睡
The circadian rhythm’s role in adult learning is unquestionable, but its importance may be particularly pronounced in childhood.
生物钟在成人学习中的作用是毋庸置疑的，但其重要性可能在儿童时期尤为明显。
Children have more slow-wave sleep than adults – which may be one factor explaining how quickly kids learn, in both language and other areas. The child sleep lab at Germany’s University of Tuebingen investigates the role of sleep in consolidating children’s memory. Monitoring what happens in children’s brains during sleep, and how much information they retain before and after sleep, shows that sleep helps with accessing implicit knowledge (procedural memory) and making it explicit (declarative memory).
儿童比成年人有更多的慢波睡眠——这可能是解释儿童在语言和其他领域学习速度快的一个因素。德国Tuebingen大学的儿童睡眠实验室研究了睡眠在巩固儿童记忆中的作用。监测儿童在睡眠期间大脑中发生了什么，以及他们在睡眠前后保留了多少信息，表明睡眠有助于访问隐性知识（程序性记忆）并让它（陈述性记忆）更加明确。
Adults can also call upon this kind of information learned during the day. But as researcher Katharina Zinke explains, “sleep is doing that in a more efficient way in children".
成年人也可以求助于白天学习的信息。但是正如研究者Katharina Zinke所解释的，“睡眠对于孩子们来说是个更加有效率的方法。”
Children need to sleep during the day to remember everything that they have to learn.
孩子们需要在白天睡觉，这样才能有可能记住他们必须记住的一切。
“The effects are stronger in early childhood because the brain is developing,” says Dominique Petit, the coordinator of the Canadian Sleep and Circadian Network, who has also explored the circadian rhythm in children. In practical terms, this means that “children need to sleep during the day to remember everything that they have to learn".
加拿大睡眠和昼夜节律网络的协调员Dominique Petit说：“在儿童早期，这种影响更强，因为大脑在发育。”她还研究了儿童的昼夜节律。实际上，这意味着“孩子们需要白天睡觉来记住他们必须学习的一切”。
"Daytime naps in young children have been shown to be really important for vocabulary growth, generalisation of the meaning of words and abstraction in language learning," she says. "Sleep continues to be important for memory and learning throughout the lifetime, though.”
她说：“孩子们白天小睡对于词汇量的增加、词义的概括、和语言学习中的抽象内容都非常重要。而且，睡眠对终生的记忆和学习都是非常重要的。”
Daytime naps in children are key for their ability to learn new words, among other language skills.
在其他语言技能中，儿童白天的午睡，对他们学习新单词非常关键。
Not only does sleep help with accessing this information, it also changes the way this information is accessed. This makes brains more flexible at retrieving information (or able to access it in more ways). But it also makes them better at extracting the most significant parts of it.
睡眠不仅有助于访问这些信息，而且还改变了该信息被访问的方式。这使得大脑在检索信息方面更灵活（或者能够以更多的方式访问信息）。但这也使得他们能够更好地提取其中最重要的部分。
“It’s actually an active process of strengthening and changing the memory trace,” Zinke says. “Memory gets transferred in a way that the most important information (the gist) is remembered.”
“这实际上是一个强化和改变记忆痕迹的活跃过程，”Zinke说。“记忆是以最重要的信息（GIST）被记住的方式来传输的。”
Clearly, for children as well as adults, prolonged sleep isn’t a sign of laziness in a language learner. It’s critical for our brains’ connections and our bodies’ rhythms.
显然，对于儿童和成年人来说，长时间的睡眠并不是语言学习者懒惰的表现。它对我们大脑的连接和身体的节奏至关重要。
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