年輕人，起不來真的不怪你！

We're a puritanical society when it comes to sleepinglate in the morning. We equate having a lie-in tobeing a lazy good-for-nothing. Teenagers inparticular suffer at the hands of such ignorantcriticism.

在早晨起不來這個問題上，我們的要求極為嚴格。我們認為躺著等于懶惰、等于無所事事。尤其是青少年，他們更是承受著這種無知批評帶來的痛苦。

The fact is, teens can no more bounce out of bedearly in the morning than you can run 100m in 10 seconds. We've known for some time that theteenage brain literally "deconstructs", meaning that brain connections are broken, brainrhythms are disrupted and brain centres don't function. Crucial among those lost functions isa 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(jīng)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(jié)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 togo to sleep until after midnight and don't want to wake up until late morning. For virtually alladolescents, the secretion of melatonin (the body clock's sleeping pill) doesn't begin until about11pm and continues until about 8am. This means that most teenagers simply can't fall asleepuntil 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床睡覺，早晨不賴床就不想起。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點左右才開始分泌，并一直持續(xù)到早晨8點左右。也就是說大多數(shù)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 isthat the biology of the teen brain is in direct conflict with school timetables, which stipulatean 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才會開始正常。所以這種獨特的入睡/起床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沖突，而這些時間表規(guī)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, drinkand take drugs. With less than nine hours of sleep per night, depression among teens risessignificantly. Research shows around half of teenagers who sleep four hours or less per nightfeel 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，后果將十分嚴重。那些睡眠不足的青少年--定義是每晚睡眠時間少于8小時--更有可能抽煙、喝酒、嗑藥。由于每晚睡眠不足9小時，患抑郁癥的青少年大幅增多。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 whenteens obtain more than eight hours of sleep per night. Later school start times are one answerand results are encouraging. The students do, in fact, get more sleep, tending to go to bed atthe 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，因為他們往往上床時間不變、但起床時間能稍微延遲。

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

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