Depriving yourself of sleep is never ever a good idea, even though in our go-go-go society people take pride in going strong on 4 hours of sleep and tons of coffee. While everybody needs his personal amount of sleep to wake up rested and refreshed, the average human being still needs about 8 hours of sleep per night. You might trick your body into needing fewer hours of sleep by flooding it with caffeine, or by having high stress levels that keep you bouncing around, but you're wreaking havoc on your long-term and short-term performance. In fact, sleep deprivation muddles your ability to judge a situation, and as a result you might judge your mental clarity as OK, while you'd be performing poorly in tests.

在這個形色匆忙的時代，盡管有人每天喝了一頓咖啡后能夠自豪頑強(qiáng)到只睡四個小時，但如此剝奪睡眠真心不是件好事兒。每個人對恢復(fù)自身精力的睡眠要求時間不一，人類平均睡眠時間是八小時左右。也許你會無畏地猛灌咖啡因來減少睡眠或者在高壓之下保持活力。但這樣只會給你接下來的工作和生活帶來更嚴(yán)重的影響。因?yàn)椋卟蛔銜蓴_你的判斷力。這通常表現(xiàn)在有時你自認(rèn)為還挺清醒地參加了測試，但事實(shí)上卻表現(xiàn)得相當(dāng)糟糕。

Allowing yourself adequate sleep should be a no-brainer; it should feel natural to all people and we should reclaim it as our right. Sleep is one of the most important non-negotiable elements in your self-care, but it takes courage to go against the flow of 24/7 alertness and allow your body its necessary rest so that it can rejuvenate.

讓身體得到充足的睡眠是天經(jīng)地義的事情，我們也理所應(yīng)當(dāng)?shù)匾懟卮笞匀毁x予的權(quán)利。毋庸置疑，睡眠是自我保養(yǎng)的最佳方式之一。但為了讓身體得到放松和恢復(fù)，要在三分之一的時間放下一切的確需要勇氣。

Ideally, your sleep cycle should follow the natural patterns of sunset and sunrise as much as possible. You know that you have had enough sleep when you can consistently wake up at the same time in the morning without an alarm clock, feeling rested and refreshed. Besides the length of your sleep, the quality of your sleep is very important as well. Your sleep cycle consists of different levels, with deep sleep as the phase in which most restoration occurs. If your sleep is disrupted, you might find it very difficult to reach the state of deep sleep.

理想狀態(tài)是，你的睡眠周期要盡量貼合自然規(guī)律，日出而作，日落而歇。要知道在大量規(guī)律睡眠后，即使不用鬧鐘你也會在每天清晨自然醒，并且頭腦清晰，充滿活力。除了睡眠的時間，其質(zhì)量也特別重要。你的睡眠周期具有不同的水平程度，其中深度睡眠是頭腦劇烈整合恢復(fù)的階段，一旦被打斷，你便發(fā)覺很難再次進(jìn)入該階段。