01 当失眠成为一种折磨

你的睡眠时间有多少？你觉得睡觉是在浪费时间？你是不是夜猫子，夜深人静的时候是你最活跃的时候，看电视，写文章，刷朋友圈？

今天我们来聊一聊睡觉这件事情，看看睡眠不够到底会导致什么问题，你又应该怎样捍卫自己的睡觉时间。

如果你有睡眠问题，请你不要错过这个故事，你会发现，只需稍稍调整习惯，你就会爱上睡觉。

睡不着，还在数羊？该换换思路啦

02 从熬夜党到按时睡觉，Lisa只用了1招

今天故事的主人公叫Lisa，她长期保持着熬夜的习惯。

已经29岁的她还是单身汪一枚，独居一室，所以没有人提醒她要按时休息睡觉。

第二天早上的日常就是：拖着疲倦的身体勉强从被窝爬起，迈着两条沉重的腿走进办公室开始一天的管理工作。

精神不佳的她白天靠着低糖咖啡饮料强撑，但是，让她尴尬的是，她居然发现自己有几次在会议期间还是睡着了。

到了下午5点的时候，她已经彻底瘫痪了，浑身没有一点力气，所以，那时候的她，脾气火爆，注意力不集中，最糟糕的是，她常常经不住快餐店的诱惑。

One of my students, Lisa, was trying to break the habit of staying up late. At twenty-nine, she was single and lived alone, which meant there was no one setting a sleep schedule for her. She woke up each morning exhausted and dragged herself through her job as an office administrator. She relied on caffeinated diet soda to get through the day, and to her embarrassment, she sometimes nodded off in meetings. By five o’clock, she was wired and tired, a combination that left her cranky, distracted, and craving drive-through fast food.

睡不着，还在数羊？该换换思路啦

这样的日子不断重复，你能想象到你面前站着的是怎样一位姑娘吗？

皮肤粗糙暗沉，黑眼圈，小肚子日益突起，情绪低落，看不到一点强壮年的阳光朝气。

天呐，这哪是29岁，分明是40岁大妈，好吗？？

Lisa不想一辈子都是单身狗，也不愿意一直过这样暗无天日的生活。于是，她下定决心做出改变。

改变的第一步就是发起睡觉挑战，她发誓自己在一周内要早睡。

但是。。。一周过去了，她失败了。

晚餐时，她告诉自己：我今晚一定要早点睡。但是，一到晚上7点的时候，她的决心却一去不复返了。

肿么办，看着那个不争气的自己，Lisa寻求了本书作者美女博士。

博士让她描述不眠之夜的场景，然后Lisa就叙述了自己混乱的生活：每天睡觉前，总是觉得有一百万零一件紧急事情等待处理，而且越晚睡就越觉得事情紧急。

她待处理的事情包括： 浏览Facebook，清理冰箱，处理成堆的垃圾邮件，甚至还包括看电视广告。

事实上，这些事情并不重要啊，但是到了晚上，就是感到这些事情都要做啊。。。

她患上了睡前综合症，睡前总觉得还有一件事情没做完。而且，时间越晚，身体越累，Lisa就发现自己越没有能力控制这种强迫症。

我想到了之前看过的一部电影，安妮海瑟薇主演的，魔法公主，女主Ella从小就被仙女下了咒语，无条件服从对方命令，所以，她总是被迫做出很多不符合自己心意的行为。

Lisa没有被仙女下咒语，但此刻的她却像极了Ella，行为不受自己控制。

睡不着，还在数羊？该换换思路啦

The first week of class, she announced that going to sleep earlier would be her willpower challenge for the class. The next week, she reported no success. Around dinnertime, she would tell herself, “I will definitely go to sleep earlier tonight,” but by eleven p.m., that resolve was nowhere to be found. I asked Lisa to describe the process of how she wasn’t going to bed early. She told me about the million and one things that each seemed more critically urgent the later the night got. Browsing Facebook, cleaning the fridge, tackling the stack of junk mail, even watching infomercials—none of this stuff was actually urgent, but late at night, it felt strangely compelling. Lisa was hooked on doing “one more thing” before she went to sleep. The later it got, and the more tired Lisa got, the less she was able to resist the immediate gratification that each task promised.

好在，和Ella一样，Lisa最后还是找到了解咒的方法：换个角度挑战睡觉。

以前Lisa睡前只是不断告诉自己要睡觉，现在换个角度：不断告诉自己，睡觉前不要做什么。因为真正阻碍Lisa早睡的并不是睡觉本身，而是一种对于未完成事件的执念。

要想解决早睡这个问题，就要攻破这个执念。

于是，Lisa定制了一系列睡前规则：关闭手机和电视，11点之后不能开始任何新项目。

这些规则给了Lisa更多的私人时间去感受身体内部的疲倦，在午夜到来之前，Lisa就能顺利上床睡觉。

每晚7小时的睡眠时间让Lisa重获自由，使她不再沉迷于广告和其他深夜诱惑。

几周以后，她发现自己精力提升了，于是，她又开始新的自我挑战：减少食用低糖饮料和快餐。

When we redefined getting more sleep as a won’t power challenge, things turned around. Forcing herself to go to sleep wasn’t the real problem, it was pulling herself away from the things keeping her up. Lisa set a rule of turning off her computer and TV and not starting any new projects after eleven p.m. This rule was exactly what she needed to feel how tired she really was and give herself permission to go to bed by midnight. With seven hours of sleep each night, Lisa found that infomercials and other late-night temptations lost their appeal. Within a couple of weeks, she had the energy to tackle the next willpower challenge: cutting back on diet soda and drive-through dinners.

03 句子分析

1.She woke up each morning exhausted and dragged herself through her job as an office administrator.

每天早晨，她带着疲倦醒来，拖着身体强撑一天的管理工作。

句子核心成分： She woke up and dragged herself through her job

Exhausted 其实也可以放到句首的，表示她起床的状态； as an office administrator里面，as 表示的是“作为”的意思，后面紧跟一个人的身份，和我们以前讲的意思有所区别；

2.By five o’clock, she was wired and tired, a combination that left her cranky, distracted, and craving drive-through fast food.

到5点的时候，她感觉到了疲倦和焦虑，导致她出现情绪紧张，注意力分散的情况，她无法抵制快餐的诱惑。

这句话的核心结构： she was wired and tired.

A combination 用法比较特殊，其实应该是前面wired  and tired 的同位语，起补充说明的作用。

这句话里面还有一个亮点，在that从句中，leave somebody ....用了非常巧妙的leave一词引导出了因果关系，避免了陈词滥调的因果关系词。

3.The later it got, and the more tired Lisa got, the less she was able to resist the immediate gratification that each task promised.

时间越晚，Lisa越疲累，她就越无法抗拒立刻做完事的满足感。

这句话我们强调的是比较句的构成，普通比较句子的构成形式： Tom was taller than JIm. Tom jumped higher than Jim.

这句话稍显不同，因为它综合了3个并列的比较句，分别是 it got later,  Lisa got more tired, 以及 she was less able to ....., 注意，复合句中连续出现比较级，必须将比较的成分前置，不是倒装形式，只是类似于强调结构，将比较的内容放到句首强调。

4.Forcing herself to go to sleep wasn’t the real problem, it was pulling herself away from the things keeping her up.

强迫她自己睡觉并不能真正解决问题，真正让她睡不着的原因是未完成的事情。

这句话属于并列复合句，核心结构为： forcing herself ...wasn't the real problem, it was ...keeping her up.

这里，动名词短语成为了句子的主语，forcing herself to go to sleep.  后半句的it用法还记得吗，it是指代，不是真的主语，它指代的成分是pulling herself away from the things.

04  故事与我何干

Lisa的故事你是不是很熟悉？大晚上无法安然入睡是不是因为心中执念过多，想刷朋友圈，想读书，想学习，想看电视，想玩游戏？

可是，你心里一定也清楚，晚上睡眠不够一定会导致第二天精力的不集中，工作学习效率的低下。

那么，你也来学学Lisa，换个角度逆向思考问题本质。 不要总暗示自己要睡觉，反过来想想为什么自己睡不着，问问自己身体和未完成的执念哪个更重要，切断不利的因素，让自己获得更多的能量和信心。

05 延伸阅读-小憩片刻也能帮助你恢复体力

If you’ve been running short on sleep, there are many ways to recharge your self-control. Even if you can’t get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every night, small changes can make a big difference. Some studies show that a single good night’s sleep restores brain function to an optimal level. So if you’ve had a week of late to bed and early to rise, catching up on the weekend can help replenish your willpower. Other research suggests that getting enough sleep early in the week can build a reserve that counteracts sleep deprivation later in the week. And some studies suggest that it’s the number of consecutive hours you spend awake that matters most. In a crunch, taking a short nap can restore focus and self-control even if you didn’t get much sleep the night before. Try one of these strategies—catching up, stocking up, or napping—to undo or prevent the effects of sleep deprivation.

哪些小Tips帮助缺少睡眠的你：

1.利用周末时间补充睡眠；

2.一周前几天尽量保证充足的睡眠；

3.白天有时间就小憩一会儿

有任何问题欢迎交流哦，我是作者，80后宝妈，高级口译，实战派老师，7年接触的学生年龄分布各阶段，碰到的学习难题很多已经超越了语言学习本身，我们要从更高的角度看待英语学习这件事。