Sleeping with an Eye Mask1 May Improve Memory2戴眼罩睡觉可以提高记忆力

高齐云

Even as we get older， some of us dont like to sleep in a dark place. Otherscan only get a good sleep when its pitch-dark3. These people can find it difficultto sleep when the sun rises early during the summer.

Viviana Greco， a researcher from Cardiff University， is one of those people.When she moved to Wales from Italy， she found that her curtains4 werentkeeping her room dark， and she was waking up early in the summer. So， as asleep scientist5， she started to study with a team from Europe and the US. Shelooked at how wearing an eye mask at night worked on peoples thinking the nextday. And according to their study， wearing an eye mask at night may help us feelmore alert6， and might even improve our memory.

They did two experiments7. In the first one， 89 people spent a week—insummer—wearing an eye mask at night. After five days， the researchers did sometests to measure8 memory and how alert they were. They then spent a weeksleeping without a mask and did the same tests. The results showed that peoplewere more alert and had better memories after a week of sleep with the mask.Thirty-three people took part in the second experiment. This time they wore asleep tracking9 device10. The device showed that people had better memorieswhen they spent more time in deep sleep wearing a mask.

即使隨着年龄的增长，我们中的有些人也不喜欢在黑暗的环境中睡觉。其他人只有在漆黑的夜里才能好好休息。当夏天太阳很早就升起的时候，这些人会发现很难入睡。

来自卡迪夫大学的研究员维维安娜·格雷科就是其中之一。当她从意大利搬到威尔士时，她发现窗帘并不能让她的房间保持黑暗，在夏天她很早就会醒来。因此，作为一名睡眠科学家，她与来自欧洲和美国的团队合作，研究了晚上戴眼罩如何影响人们第二天的思维。根据他们的研究，晚上戴眼罩可以帮助我们更警醒，甚至可以改善我们的记忆力。

他们做了两个实验。在第一个实验中，89 人在夏天晚上戴了一周的眼罩。五天后，研究人员进行了一些测试，以测量参与者的记忆力和警醒程度。然后，他们在不戴眼罩的情况下睡了一周，并做了同样的测试。结果显示，戴着眼罩睡了一周后，人们变得更加警醒，记忆力也更好。三十三个人参加了第二个实验。（实验操作类似）这次他们戴上了睡眠追踪设备。

该设备显示，当人们在戴眼罩的情况下用更多的时间深度睡眠时，他们的记忆力会更好。

Notes

1. mask 面罩；口罩

2. memory 记忆力；记性

3. pitch-dark 漆黑的

4. curtain 窗帘；门帘

5. scientist 科学家

6. alert 警惕的；警觉的

7. experiment 实验；试验

8. measure 测量

9. track 追查；追踪

10. device 装置；设备