Effects of Staying up All Night on Your Brain
熬夜对大脑的危害
词汇：考研 | 句法：四级（高考）| 文本：考研
刘立军供稿
As you prepare for your Roman Empire history final, you decide to pull an all-nighter, a common choice among students. However, staying up all night disrupts your body’s natural circadian rhythms, which are 24-hour cycles influenced by light and govern sleep and wakefulness. Despite this, you push through, studying Julius Caesar’s rule.
当你准备罗马帝国史的期末考试时，你决定通宵达旦地学习，这是学生中常见的选择。然而，通宵不睡会扰乱人体自然的昼夜节律——这是受光线影响、控制睡眠和清醒状态的24小时循环机制。尽管如此，你还是坚持下去，研究凯撒大帝的统治史。
As night falls, your eyes signal the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus about decreasing light. This triggers the pineal gland to produce melatonin, the sleep hormone, which rises about two hours before your usual bedtime. Simultaneously, neurons in the hypothalamus and brainstem release GABA, a compound that calms the brain by slowing its activity.
随着夜幕降临，你的眼睛向大脑的视交叉上核发出光线减弱信号。这触发了松果体开始生成褪黑素——一种睡眠荷尔蒙，它通常在你就寝时间前约两小时开始上升。同时，下丘脑和脑干中的神经元释放γ-氨基丁酸（GABA），这种化合物通过减缓大脑活动来平静大脑。
Approaching your usual bedtime, your core body temperature drops as your brain prepares for sleep. You begin to lose focus, noticing patterns in your study materials that aren’t there. This distraction is due to adenosine, a waste product that accumulates in the brain throughout the day, causing tiredness. You combat this with caffeine, which blocks adenosine from binding to receptors, temporarily boosting your energy but potentially causing jitters and increased anxiety.
临近你平时的就寝时间，你的核心体温下降，因为大脑正为睡眠做准备。你开始失去专注力，注意到学习材料中并不存在的图案。这种分心是由于腺苷——一种全天在大脑中累计的代谢废物，会导致困倦。你用咖啡因来对抗这种疲倦，咖啡因阻止腺苷与受体结合，暂时提升你的能量，但也可能导致紧张不安和焦虑加剧。
As you study, information is stored in the hippocampus. Normally, sleep would consolidate these memories into long-term storage in the neocortex. Without sleep, you risk forgetting this information soon after your exam.
学习时，信息被储存在海马体内。通常情况下，睡眠会将这些记忆巩固到新皮质中，转化为的长期记忆。没有睡眠，你可能会在考试后不久就忘记这些信息。
Sleep deprivation can lead to microsleeps, brief, involuntary naps that last seconds. Your motor skills and reaction times suffer, akin to being impaired by alcohol after 19 hours awake.
睡眠不足会导致微睡眠，即持续几秒的短暂、非自愿的小憩。你的运动技能和反应时间受到影响，连续19小时未眠后的状态堪比醉酒。
With sunrise, melatonin production halts, and you experience a “second wind,” feeling surprisingly upbeat. This euphoria is due to a temporary dopamine increase, which might impair decision-making.
随着日出，褪黑素停止生成，你的精神重振，感觉异常振奋。这种欣快感是由于多巴胺的暂时增加，而这可能会影响决策能力。
The exam starts well with multiple-choice questions, but the essay section proves challenging. Sleep helps the brain connect new memories with existing ones, aiding problem-solving and pattern recognition. Without rest, your ability to think critically is diminished, leaving you staring blankly at the page.
考试开始时，选择题进展顺利，但作文部分则显得棘手。睡眠有助于大脑将新记忆与已有记忆关联，辅助解决问题和模式识别。缺乏休息，你的批判性思维的能力减弱，只能茫然地盯着试卷。
Afterward, you feel anxious and irritable. Your amygdala, responsible for processing emotions, is overactive, while your prefrontal cortex, which regulates the amygdala, is still sluggish. Finally, you collapse into bed, finding comfort in sleep.
之后，你感到焦虑和易怒。负责处理情绪的杏仁核过度活跃，而调节杏仁核的前额叶皮层仍然迟钝。最终，你倒在床上，从睡眠中找到慰藉。
A single sleepless night allows for a quick recovery. However, consistently lacking sleep or frequently altering your sleep schedule can have serious consequences. Regularly getting less than seven hours of sleep is associated with health problems like diabetes, stroke, and chronic pain, as well as increased risk of mental health issues such as depression.
一个无眠之夜，身体能快速恢复。但是，持续缺乏睡眠或频繁打乱睡眠时间表可能会带来严重后果。长期每晚睡眠少于七小时，可能引发如糖尿病、中风和慢性疼痛等健康问题，同时也增加了抑郁症等心理健康问题的风险。
Your sleep habits can also impact academic performance. Research indicates that college students with regular sleep schedules tend to have higher GPAs than those who don’t. So, before choosing to pull an all-nighter, remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your brain needs rest to function optimally.
你的睡眠习惯也会影响学业表现。研究表明，作息规律大学生往往比那些没有规律的学生的平均成绩点数更高。因此，在选择通宵之前，请记住罗马不是一天建成的，你的大脑需要休息才能高效运作。
【词汇】
1. circadian adj. 昼夜节律的
2. pineal adj. 松果体的
3. melatonin n. 褪黑素
4. neuron n. 神经元
5. hypothalamus n. 下丘脑
6. adenosine n. 腺苷
7. jitter n. 颤抖，紧张不安
8. hippocampus n. 海马体
9. neocortex n. 新皮质
10. involuntary adj. 非自愿的，不由自主的
11. upbeat adj. 乐观的，积极向上的
12. euphoria n. 极度兴奋，欣快
13. dopamine n. 多巴胺
14. irritable adj. 易怒的，急躁的
15. overactive adj. 过度活跃的
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