从睡前酒到噩梦 | 卫报

With seasonal festivities well and truly under way, some are already fantasising about a dry January full of early nights.

随着季节性庆祝活动的顺利进行，一些人已经开始幻想干燥、早睡的一月了。

But Dr Alex George, public health advocate and former Love Island contestant, revealed last week in a video on his YouTube channel that a sober night’s sleep isn’t necessarily all it is cut out to be – at least not in the early days of sobriety.

但公共卫生倡导者、前《爱情岛》参赛者亚历克斯乔治博士上周在其 YouTube 频道上的一段视频中透露，清醒一晚的睡眠并不一定能达到应有的效果——至少在清醒的初期不是这样。

Two years after George gave up alcohol, he revealed that his sleep “got worse for about eight weeks before it got better”.

乔治戒酒两年后，他透露自己的睡眠“在大约八周的时间里变得更糟，然后才有所好转”。

For the first two months, he said, he struggled to get to sleep, felt tired when he woke up and had “crazy dreams.”

他说，头两个月他很难入睡，醒来后感到疲倦，还做着“疯狂的梦”。

His comments are an insight into the often mysterious and misunderstood affects of alcohol on sleep. While some people associate a nightcap with a good night’s rest, it is important to remember that “sedation is different from sleep”, according to Professor Russell Foster, head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford.

他的评论深入揭示了酒精对睡眠的影响，这种影响往往神秘且被误解。虽然有些人认为睡前酒能让人睡个好觉，但牛津大学睡眠与昼夜节律神经科学研究所所长罗素·福斯特教授表示，重要的是要记住“镇静与睡眠不同”。

One of the main issues is how booze disrupts our nightly cycles or what some people call our ‘sleep homeostasis’.

其中一个主要问题是酒精如何扰乱我们的夜间周期或有些人所说的“睡眠稳态”。

Ordinarily, sleep occurs in five stages between waking and rapid eye movement (REM). Between those are stages of increasing depth, N1, N2 and N3 (where N stands for non-REM). N3 is also called slow-wave sleep (SWS or deep sleep) which makes up about 80% of our sleep.

通常，睡眠在清醒和快速眼动 (REM) 之间分为五个阶段。在这五个阶段之间是深度逐渐增加的阶段，即 N1、N2 和 N3（其中 N 代表非快速眼动）。N3 也称为慢波睡眠（SWS 或深度睡眠），占我们睡眠时间的约 80%。

A typical night’s sleep, if we can get one, consists of four to five cycles through these five stages. Importantly, each of these stages are associated with different biological processes, all of them essential for us to get the full benefits of rest.

如果我们能睡一晚，通常一晚的睡眠由这五个阶段的四到五个周期组成。重要的是，每个阶段都与不同的生物过程有关，所有这些过程对于我们充分休息都是必不可少的。

As Professor Foster says, REM sleep is “when you have your most complex and vivid dreams. It’s also associated with emotional processing - it’s the body trying to make sense of a complicated world.”

正如福斯特教授所说，快速眼动睡眠是“当你做最复杂、最生动的梦时。它也与情绪处理有关——这是身体试图理解复杂的世界。”

Multiple studies have shown that, when consumed in moderate or high amounts, alcohol causes an overall reduction of total REM sleep, which can, in turn, lead to forgetfulness, anxiety and problems with concentration.

多项研究表明，中量或大量饮酒会导致总体 REM 睡眠时间减少，进而导致健忘、焦虑和注意力不集中。

Alcohol also causes an increase in SWS in the first half of the night, according to the majority of studies, leading to a deeper sleep initially. This may sound like a good thing but can lead to disruptions as the night goes on, due to something called “homeostatic recovery”.

根据大多数研究，酒精还会导致前半夜的 SWS 增加，从而导致最初睡眠更深。这听起来可能是件好事，但由于所谓的“稳态恢复”，随着夜晚的推移，可能会导致睡眠中断。

Essentially, if you lose certain elements of the cycle at one point in the night, your body and brain will try to make up for it at another.

本质上，如果您在夜间的某个时间点失去了周期的某些元素，您的身体和大脑就会在另一个时间点尝试弥补它。

And because alcohol can increase SWS in the first half of the night, the brain spends more time during the rest of the night in light, non-REM sleep - which you are much more likely to wake up from.

而且由于酒精会增加前半夜的 SWS，大脑会在夜晚的剩余时间里花更多时间处于浅度非快速眼动睡眠中 - 你就更容易从这种睡眠中醒来。

“The other issue which is often ignored is the role of alcohol in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and snoring,” Foster says. “What alcohol does is relax the musculature of the throat and the neck, which means you’re much more likely to snore and to exacerbate OSA.”

“另一个经常被忽视的问题是酒精在阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停(OSA) 和打鼾中的作用，”福斯特说。“酒精的作用是放松喉咙和颈部的肌肉，这意味着你更容易打鼾并加剧 OSA。”

All of this means that, even if you’re in bed for longer after a drink or two, the quality of sleep can be markedly reduced. But what happens when it’s more than a drink or two - and it’s happening regularly?

所有这些意味着，即使你喝了一两杯后在床上躺了更长时间，睡眠质量也会显著下降。但如果喝了一两杯以上，并且这种情况经常发生，会发生什么呢？

The long-term effects of alcohol and alcohol-dependence on our sleep are, unsurprisingly, largely thought to be an accumulation of many of the short-term effects above. The other is insomnia.

酒精和酒精依赖对睡眠的长期影响，在很大程度上被认为是上述许多短期影响的累积，这并不令人意外。另一个影响是失眠。

A 2018 study found that, among alcohol-dependent patients, two-thirds suffered from insomnia (compared to one-third of the healthy, adult Western population).

2018 年的一项研究发现，在酒精依赖患者中，三分之二的人患有失眠症（而西方健康成年人口中这一比例为三分之一）。

Exactly why this happens is still unclear, but prolonged disruption to sleep, poor sleep hygiene, and increased tolerance of the sedative effects of alcohol are likely to play a role.

发生这种情况的具体原因尚不清楚，但长期睡眠中断、睡眠卫生不良以及对酒精镇静作用的耐受性增强可能起到了一定作用。

What’s a little clearer is the important role that neurotransmitters - signalling molecules in the brain - play in alcohol’s effects on sleep, regardless of the level of intake.

更清楚的是，神经递质（大脑中的信号分子）在酒精对睡眠的影响中发挥着重要作用，无论饮酒量如何。

“What we do know is alcohol is interfering with the neurotransmitter systems of the body and these are changing across the sleep cycle and within sleep,” says Foster.

“我们确实知道酒精会干扰人体的神经递质系统，这些系统会在整个睡眠周期和睡眠过程中发生变化，”福斯特说。

Importantly, although these changes are often reversible, our neurotransmitters can take time to recalibrate. This is why it can take up to eight weeks of abstaining from alcohol, as it did for Dr George – potentially longer for others – for sleep to fully recover.

重要的是，尽管这些变化通常是可逆的，但我们的神经递质需要时间来重新调整。这就是为什么睡眠完全恢复可能需要戒酒八周，就像乔治博士一样——其他人可能需要更长时间。

This period can include insomnia and, tragically for those trying to abstain, continued issues with sleep which can often be a cause for relapse.

这一时期可能会出现失眠，不幸的是，对于那些试图戒烟的人来说，持续的睡眠问题往往是导致复发的原因。

In his recent video, Dr George also mentioned “crazy dreams” following sobriety. There’s a scientific explanation for this too: the “REM rebound effect”.

在最近的视频中，乔治博士还提到了戒酒后出现的“疯狂梦境”。这也有一个科学解释：“REM 反弹效应”。

Like homeostatic recovery, when REM sleep is depleted for whatever reason, the brain compensates. As dreams are most likely to occur during REM sleep, studies show that those who have given up alcohol can find themselves having more vivid dreams. This effect is likely to occur on a smaller scale after a drink or two.

就像体内平衡恢复一样，当快速眼动睡眠因某种原因耗尽时，大脑会进行补偿。由于梦境最有可能在快速眼动睡眠期间发生，研究表明，戒酒的人会发现自己的梦境更加生动。这种影响可能会在喝了一两杯酒后以较小的规模出现。

But quantity and timing are key.

但数量和时间是关键。

Professor Foster reckons one glass of wine is likely to reduce sleep quality “by about 10 per cent” - but once you start feeling tipsy, “that will be 40 per cent”. He also says those percentages will be affected drastically by how close to bedtime your drinks are consumed; the closer to bedtime, the worse they are.

福斯特教授估计，一杯葡萄酒可能会使睡眠质量“降低约 10%”——但一旦你开始感到醉意，“这个数字将达到 40%”。他还表示，这些百分比将受到你饮酒时间与就寝时间的临近程度的巨大影响；越接近就寝时间，睡眠质量就越差。

So if it’s a good night’s sleep you’re after, too many nightcaps are not your best bet.

因此，如果您想睡个好觉，睡前喝太多酒并不是最好的选择。