国际睡眠日：最近你睡得好吗？算过自己的睡眠周期吗？

明天就是321国际睡眠日了。最近看到“疫情期间人均睡眠时长超八小时”上了热搜，可很多人都说是晚睡晚起，睡眠质量并不高。

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【英文参考】

Many people believe that good sleepers always fall asleep in a flash. But actually this attitude can trigger anxiety and further delay falling asleep.

It’s “perfectly normal” to lie in bed for 10 or 20 minutes before you drift off. Regularly falling asleep in a moment or two is not a sign of being a good sleeper. In fact, it may be a symptom of excessive sleepiness and an underlying sleep disorder.

So first thing first, don’t freak out. Don’t force yourself to fall asleep. I think this is a very important tip as many of us are too easy to get nervous when we can’t fall asleep quickly. 

And also, if you really find it hard to fall asleep, jut get out of your bed. 

Dr. Robin says, 
“The best practice involves going to bed only when one is feeling sleepy and getting out of bed if sleep doesn’t arrive in more than 30 minutes. Spending stretches of time in bed while struggling to sleep negatively conditions the bed for sleeplessness, which can cause future conditioned insomnia.”

[ Insomnia /ɪnˈsɑːmniə/ 失眠 ] 

So if you notice that you have been in bed for 30 minutes or so and nothing is working, maybe you can get out of the bed and do something else, such as writing your journal, or reading a book. 

But remember, stay away from all your electronics. Using electronic devices late at night is terrible for our sleep.

The US National Institutes of Health says, watching TV, playing video games, using a mobile phone and social networking can make it significantly harder for you to fall and stay asleep.

And if you often feel groggy after you wake up, you may not have the right amount of sleep. 

A sleep circle is what your brain does when you’re sleeping. Each circle lasts around 90 minutes. During this time your brain is focusing on two sleep cycle categories, rapid-eye-movement sleep and non-rapid-eye-movement sleep.

So maybe you can time your alarm to go off during your lightest sleeping period. And some sleep cycle calculator apps can help you with this. 
Also if you need to nap during your day time, give yourself a full sleep cycle (90 minutes) can help you recover from fatigue. And many experts say that a nap lasting around 5 to 20 minutes could be beneficial as well, since the farther along you are in your sleep circle, the harder it would be for you to wake up. 

你们对于提高睡眠质量有什么妙招也欢迎留言和大家一起分享~ 

祝大家今晚都能睡个好觉！