如何睡得更香
How to Sleep Better
刘立军 供稿
TRANSCRIPT
Sometimes we are just thirsty or too hot, but most often our insomnia is psychological. It is the mind’s revenge for all the efforts that we have, largely unbeknownst to us, been making not to have certain thoughts in the day. We are being woken up by a need to think about something that we have carefully been ignoring, probably thanks to our work, or our social and family commitments. Having attempted to get our attention by more normal means in the clamor and business of the day, our deep minds are now trying to get us to have an appointment with certain insights and ideas in the quieter hours of the night.
Our 3 a.m. awakenings are signs that we have repeatedly not been doing the sort of self-reflection we need to do in order to be at peace. We are not being lazy; we are not shunning our responsibilities out of wilfulness. We are simply escaping, for very understandable reasons, from what are liable to be a range of difficult thoughts, perhaps about work, a relationship, or our childhoods.
If we are to regain sleep, we should begin to visit ― with greater tenderness and imagination than we allow ourselves in the day ― some of the bolted and locked rooms of our minds. In a spirit of gentle curiosity, we might dare to raise certain sorts of enquiry:
l What am I truly, truly sad about at the moment?
l Who has hurt me?
l What needs to change?
l What is the real grief beneath the surface anxiety?
l What is my gut telling me I need to know now and to do next?
These can be uncomfortable questions, no doubt, but we can use the night to help us to face them. Everyone else is asleep. It matters a little less now that we think in conventional ways. We can be a bit odd, fanciful, imaginative and kind. We can go a little mad between 3 and 4 a.m. and no one needs to know. We can write things down in a notebook and destroy the pages in the morning. What counts is that we give ourselves the chance to understand our shy and pained deep psyches a little better. They have been crying out for our attention and we have ― till now ― run away from our duty of care.
Our minds’ ultimate responsibility is always to our growth and our self-understanding. They want us to sleep of course; they understand as well as any expert that rest is important, but they have as a priority something even more important than energetic limbs, and that is psychological insight. They need us to have felt what needs to be felt, to have been angry where we are in a rage, to be sad where we are grief-stricken. They are irrepressibly driven to try to align our surfaces with our depths. They are trying to send us, as it were, to the School of Night, not to be unkind, but so that we can catch up on some very key lessons about who we really are that we have until now been too distracted or squeamish to attend.
We will sleep better once we begin to ask ourselves these questions on a regular basis.
VOCABULARY
1. insomnia n. the condition of being unable to sleep 失眠（症）。例如：to suffer from insomnia 失眠
2. unbeknownst adj. 未知的，不为人知的
3. clamor n. a loud noise especially one that is made by a lot of people or animals 喧闹声；嘈杂声；吵闹。例如：the cla.m.our of the market 市场上鼎沸的人声
4. shun v. to avoid sb. /sth. 避开；回避；避免。例如：an actor who shuns publicity 一个避免引起公众注意的演员
5. wilfulness n. 任性；倔强
6. bolt v. to fasten sth. such as a door or window by sliding a bolt across; to be able to be fastened in this way 用插销闩上；能被闩上
7. gut n. the place where your natural feelings that make you react in a particular way are thought to be 内心；直觉；本能。例如：I had a feeling in my guts that something was wrong. 我本能地感到出了事。
8. psyche n. (formal) the mind; your deepest feelings and attitudes 灵魂；心灵；精神；心态。例如：the human psyche 人的心灵
9. irrepressibly adv. 无法抑制地
10. align sth. (with / to sth.): to change sth. slightly so that it is in the correct relationship to sth. else 使…（与…）一致
11. squeamish adj. easily upset, or made to feel sick by unpleasant sights or situations, especially when the sight of blood is involved 易心烦意乱的；易恶心的；神经脆弱的
QUESTIONS
Listen to the news and choose the best answer to each question you hear.
1. What are the reasons for our insomnia according to the passage?
A) Thirst and heat.
B) Psychological factors.
C) Excessive work commitments.
D) Lack of self-reflection.
2. According to the passage, why do our deep minds wake us up at 3 a.m.?
A) To disrupt our sleep pattern.
B) To make us think about ignored thoughts.
C) To punish us for laziness.
D) To remind us of our responsibilities.
3. According to the passage, what should we do to regain sleep?
A) Avoid self-reflection.
B) Write down our thoughts in a notebook.
C) Seek expert help.
D) Destroy the pages of the notebook.
4. What is the ultimate responsibility of our minds according to the passage?
A) Ensuring restful sleep.
B) Providing psychological insight.
C) Achieving energetic limbs.
D) Promoting growth and self-understanding.
KEY
1. What are the reasons for our insomnia according to the passage?
A) Thirst and heat.
B) Psychological factors.
C) Excessive work commitments.
D) Lack of self-reflection.
【答案】B
【解析】细节题。根据文章内容，“Sometimes we are just thirsty or too hot, but most often our insomnia is psychological.”（有时我们只是口渴或太热，但大多数情况下我们的失眠是心理上的。）因此，根据文章所述，失眠的原因主要是心理因素。
2. According to the passage, why do our deep minds wake us up at 3 a.m.?
A) To disrupt our sleep pattern.
B) To make us think about ignored thoughts.
C) To punish us for laziness.
D) To remind us of our responsibilities.
【答案】B
【解析】细节题。根据文章内容，“We are being woken up by a need to think about something that we have carefully been ignoring ... our deep minds are now trying to get us to have an appointment with certain insights and ideas in the quieter hours of the night.”（我们被唤醒是因为有需要思考一些我们一直在忽视的事情……我们深层的思想现在试图让我们在更静谧的夜晚与某些洞察力和想法进行约会。）因此，根据文章所述，我们被唤醒是为了让我们思考被忽视的想法。
3. According to the passage, what should we do to regain sleep?
A) Avoid self-reflection.
B) Write down our thoughts in a notebook.
C) Seek expert help.
D) Destroy the pages of the notebook.
【答案】B
【解析】细节题。根据文章内容，“We can write things down in a notebook and destroy the pages in the morning.”（我们可以把东西写在笔记本上，然后在早上撕掉那些页面。）因此，根据文章所述，我们应该把自己的想法写在笔记本上。
4. What is the ultimate responsibility of our minds according to the passage?
A) Ensuring restful sleep.
B) Providing psychological insight.
C) Achieving energetic limbs.
D) Promoting growth and self-understanding.
【答案】D
【解析】细节题。根据文章内容，“Our minds’ ultimate responsibility is always to our growth and our self-understanding.”（我们思想的最终责任始终是我们的成长和自我理解。）因此，根据文章所述，我们思想的最终责任是促进成长和自我理解。
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