The lie we tell ourselves about going to bed early我们对自己说的早睡的谎言

赵郑敏

充足的睡眠会带给人很强的舒适感，但很多年轻人有一些睡眠障碍，甚至有“报复性睡前拖延症”。

It is nothing new to most people thatadequate sleep improves wellbeing.Onerecent study of more than 30，000 UKresidents found that people who increasedtheir quantity of sleep over a fouryearperiod got about the same happiness benefitsas they would have from eight weeksof therapy. Wellrestedpeople are moresocial and have more positive emotionalexperiences with coworkersand romanticpartners. A lack of sleep， however， lowershappiness by reducing emotionalmemoryrecall and encouraging a scarcity mindset.

If all of this seems obvious， why dontwe sleep more？ Physical conditions， work，stress， and young kids are all common barriersto proper sleep. However， another barriercomes purely from what scholars call“revenge bedtime procrastination （拖延）”，a habit in which some people put off sleepas a form of rebellion （反抗） against theirwon inner authority. Weirdly， we deprive（剥夺） ourselves of sleep to show some sortof independence from—well， ourselves.

Revengebedtimeprocrastinationseemsillogical， in that the retaliator （ 復仇者）and the retaliated of the revenge are thesame person. But the explanation is fairlystraightforward： It happens because， generallyspeaking， people dislike being toldwhat to do in other parts of their life， sothey fight back by demonstrating their ownauthority and staying up.

Personal control over our environment—or even the feeling of control—isdeeply connected to our emotional balance.Given that sleep is something wecan directly control， we may break commonsenserules about getting to bed， becausewe are unconsciously seeking a better emotionalstate—until the morning， when thealarm clock fills us with regret.

Reading Check

According to the recent study， whatare the benefits of adequate sleep？