青少年爲什麼早晨起不來?真的不是他們的錯!大綱

We're a puritanical society when it comes to sleeping late in the morning. We equate having a lie-in to being a lazy good-for-nothing. teenagers in particular suffer at the hands of such ignorant criticism.

在早晨起不來這個問題上，我們的要求極爲嚴格。我們認爲躺着等於懶惰、等於無所事事。尤其是青少年，他們更是承受着這種無知批評帶來的痛苦。

The fact is, teens can no more bounce out of bed early in the morning than you can run 100m in 10 seconds. We've known for some time that the teenage brain literally "deconstructs", meaning that brain connections are broken, brain rhythms are disrupted and brain centres don't function. Crucial among those lost functions is a broken body clock.

事實上，青少年早晨起不來和你無法在10秒鐘內跑完100米是一樣的性質。我們已經知道青少年的大腦是真的"解構"，也就是說他們的大腦連接斷了、大腦節奏被打亂了、腦中心不起作用了。在這些喪失的功能中，最重要的一個就是生物鐘被打亂了。

It's still a 24-hour clock but it's not in sync with day and night. This means teens don't want to go to sleep until after midnight and don't want to wake up until late morning. For virtually all adolescents, the secretion of melatonin (the body clock's sleeping pill) doesn't begin until about 11pm and continues until about 8am. This means that most teenagers simply can't fall asleep until this secretion begins, and find it impossible to wake up until the melatonin turns off.

生物鐘還是24小時，但卻沒有和白天黑夜同步。這就是說青少年不到半夜就不想上牀睡覺，早晨不賴牀就不想起。對幾乎所有的青少年而言，褪黑激素（生物鐘的安眠藥）直到晚上11點左右纔開始分泌，並一直持續到早晨8點左右。也就是說大多數的青少年直到褪黑激素分泌才能入睡、直到褪黑激素停止分泌才能醒來。

This fixed pattern of melatonin secretion in teens doesn't normalise until they're in their 20s. So the unique sleep/wake pattern of teenagers is beyond their control. What bothers me is that the biology of the teen brain is in direct conflict with school timetables, which stipulate an early start for adolescents. The result is they become sleep deprived.

直到20多歲，青少年這種固定的褪黑激素分泌模式纔會開始正常。所以這種獨特的入睡/起牀模式是青少年無法掌控的。令我困擾的是，青少年的大腦機理與學校的時間表直接衝突，而這些時間表規定了青少年必須早起。結果導致青少年睡眠不足。

There are serious consequences if teens fail to get adequate sleep. Those who are sleep-deprived - defined as getting less than eight hours per night - are more likely to smoke, drink and take drugs. With less than nine hours of sleep per night, depression among teens rises significantly. Research shows around half of teenagers who sleep four hours or less per night feel sad and hopeless, compared to just a fifth of those who sleep longer.

若青少年未能獲得充足睡眠，後果將十分嚴重。那些睡眠不足的青少年--定義是每晚睡眠時間少於8小時--更有可能抽菸、喝酒、嗑藥。由於每晚睡眠不足9小時，患抑鬱症的青少年大幅增多。研究表明，與五分之一睡眠更久的青少年相比，一半以上的青少年每晚只睡4個小時或更少時間，他們會感到難受、無助。

Teen car crashes, the primary cause of death for this age group, significantly decline when teens obtain more than eight hours of sleep per night. Later school start times are one answer and results are encouraging. The students do, in fact, get more sleep, tending to go to bed at the same time but getting up a bit later.

車禍是青少年死亡的主要原因，當青少年每晚睡眠8小時以上時，車禍率大大降低。唯一的解決方法就是學校上課時間遲一點，這樣做的結果是令人振奮的。事實上，學生真的能有更充足的睡眠，因爲他們往往上牀時間不變、但起牀時間能稍微延遲。

Not only does the teens' use of drugs, cigarettes and alcohol drop, their academic performance improves significantly with later start times.

上課遲一點不僅能降低青少年嗑藥、抽菸和喝酒的比率，而且還能大大提高他們的學習成績。