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The weekend looms, and that means a lie-in for many - though with the clocks going forward there'll be an hour's less shut-eye on Sunday morning. But, says Sean Coughlan, there's more to getting a really good kip than just shutting your eyes.
Britons are the worst sleepers in Europe, claimed a survey last week, depicting a nation starved of sleep and facing a daily battle against red-eyed exhaustion.
Notice in boarding house
One in five of the population sleeps for fewer than seven hours a night, according to research from the Future Foundation for the health campaign Sleep Well Live Well. Many of these tired souls reported feeling stressed and unhappy.
But how about looking at the question from another direction? If insufficient or disrupted sleep is bad for our health - then what would be the ingredients of a really good night's sleep? What makes a perfect sleep?
Dr Adrian Williams of the Sleep Disorders Centre at St Thomas's Hospital in London sets out a few ground rules.
Don't have any caffeine drinks after 2pm, exercise some time between 4pm and 7pm, have a milky drink and a bath before bedtime and try to exclude noise and light from the bedroom, recommends Dr Williams.
But sleep is a highly individual experience. Like our appetite for different types of food, we all have our own gourmet sleeps. Here are 10 to savour.
1. THE AFTERNOON NAP
According to the wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the pearl of slumbers was the afternoon nap. "You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed."
2. THE WEARY PARENT
For the sleep-starved parent, it can feel as though they've given birth to a temperamental air-raid siren. Their sleep fantasy is nothing more elaborate than a night alone and a long luxurious morning when they can wake up undisturbed. Maybe they could warm the room with a bonfire of all those smug-faced sleep training manuals.
3. HOTEL SCHADENFREUDE
There are few more succulent slices of sleep than the first morning of a holiday. No alarm clock, no rushing for the train, no playing hunt the other sock, no making sandwiches for the kids. What makes it even sweeter is the thought of everyone else back at work toiling over a hot computer.
4. THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Sleeping outside has a particular grass-scented pleasure, whether it's drowsing on a sunny afternoon in the back garden, on the beach or in the park. Looking up at the clouds creates that feeling of getting back to nature.
Fresh-air sleeping has a long tradition. Alice Ravenhill, an Edwardian authority on rearing children, ordered that bedroom windows should be always fully open, apart from in the severest cold spells. In summer, she recommended sleeping on the porch.
Modern hotels say they pitch their optimum room temperature for sleeping at 18 degrees. It must have been all the other ones I've stayed in that are hotter than the Gobi desert, with the windows bolted shut.
5. COMFY PILLOW
Pillows now come with almost as much science as hair conditioner. And there are versions with in-built speakers to play sleep-inducing sounds such as a heart beat or soothing music.
This would not have impressed the Elizabethan writer, William Harrison, who attacked the young men of the 1580s for being so soft that they used pillows to help them sleep. In his day, real men slept on wooden logs or hairy sacks. Allergenic or non-allergenic sack, sir?
6. KEPT IN THE DARK
For a city dweller, used to a constant fog of light, it can be a rare treat to sleep in undisturbed treacly darkness. It's becoming more and more difficult to find. There are light polluted skies outside - and the insides of homes are overflowing with light-emitting gadgets. Kielder in Northumberland is claimed as having the darkest skies left in England.
7. SNEAKY CINEMA SNORING
We've all been there. It's warm, it's dark, the mobile is switched off and you're watching a film or a play, and you feel an irresistible urge to close your eyes. It's been a long day and your body is crying out for a delicious moment of rest. The innovative Japanese have recognised a gap in the market and run "sleep concerts", in which rows and rows of exhausted salarymen cheerfully snore while the musicians play.
8. NIGHT MUSIC
Who wouldn't enjoy being lulled to sleep by music? Or else the music is so dull that staying awake becomes impossible. Interpret this either way, but a study for the hotel chain Travelodge says that Coldplay and James Blunt are the most sleep-inducing musicians. Guests also like "unchallenging" reads, with the literary works of Jordan and David Beckham topping the sleep chart.
9. DREAMING OF FOOD
The Christmas sleep, after a big dinner, is a classic of its kind. But different types of food have associations with inducing sleep. The NHS recommends eating bananas. Since the Romans, lettuce has been a persistent ingredient in sleep recipes. Less attractive is the use of dormouse fat, as used by the Elizabethans. The Victorians recommended top quality champagne as an insomnia cure. Even if you didn't get to sleep, it would still have been a good party.
10. WEEKEND LIE-IN
Going home on Friday, the weekend stretches out alluringly. The first pleasure is the morning lie-in, that extra hour or so when everything seems possible. You lie there planning that great novel, dipping in and out of sleep. Nathaniel Hawthorne caught this perfectly: "You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction."
Maybe we're not bad at sleep, just out of practice.
据上周的一项调查称，英国是欧洲睡眠质量最差的国家。该调查是关于失眠情况以及日常对抗眼睛疲劳的情况。
要想睡个好觉可是有法可循的。
据未来基金会的健康运动研究项目《睡得好 活得好》称，有五分之一的人夜间睡眠时间不足7小时。其中很多人因疲惫而感到紧张和不快乐。
但如果从另一角度看这个问题又会怎样呢？如果睡眠不足或者睡眠中断会影响我们的健康--那么什么样的睡眠才算是质量好的睡眠呢？怎么才能睡个完美的觉呢？
伦敦圣托马斯医院睡眠障碍中心的阿德里安威廉斯博士提出了一些基本规则。
威廉姆斯博士的建议包括：下午2点之后不要喝咖啡，下午4点到7点间做会儿运动，上床睡觉前喝杯牛奶、洗个澡，尽量让卧室里没有噪音和灯光。
但是睡觉很大程度上依赖于个人经验。就像我们都有自己喜欢的食物，我们也有自己喜欢的睡眠方式。这里有十种方法你可以试试。
1.午后小睡一会儿
对战时首相温斯顿丘吉尔来说，最美妙的睡眠就是午后小睡。"在午饭与晩饭之间，你一定要小睡片刻，除下你的衣服走上床吧！"
2.疲惫的父母
对那些睡眠不足的父母们，他们可能会觉得自己生下的是个喜怒无常的防空警报铃。他们唯一的梦想就是能够单独呆一晚上，并能够享受一下悠长、奢侈的自然醒，不受孩子们的打扰。或许他们还可以根据睡眠手册上的方法，在屋子里点个篝火，让屋子暖和起来。
3.躲在酒店里幸灾乐祸
没有哪天的睡眠比假期第一天早上更美好了。没有闹铃，不用急着赶火车，不用匆匆忙忙的满地找袜子，不用给孩子们做三明治。而让这一天显得更美好的就是想到其他那些回到工作岗位的人正面对着大计算机辛辛苦苦地工作。
4.享受一下美好的户外环境
睡在外面能够给人一种特殊的快乐感，不论是午后睡在花园里、海滩上或者公园里。仰望着天上的云朵会让人觉得回到了大自然。
在户外睡觉有很悠久的历史。爱丽丝 雷勒诺，爱德华七世时代的儿童抚养专家，要求除了有最寒冷的日子外，其他时间里卧室的窗户必须保持全开。夏天，她建议睡在门廊里。
现代酒店都将最佳睡眠温度设为18度。我住过的酒店肯定不是这样的酒店，因为它们都要比戈壁沙漠还是炎热，而且窗子全都关的紧紧地。
5.找个舒服的枕头睡觉
现在枕头就像护发素一样讲究科学。有的枕头内置扬声器播放能诱使睡眠的声音，比如心跳声或者舒缓的音乐。
不过这肯定对伊丽莎白时代的作家威廉哈里逊没用，他因为16世纪80年代的年轻人使用非常软的枕头帮助睡眠而批判他们。在他那个时代，真正的男人要睡在原木枕头上或者毛茸茸的麻袋上。麻袋有没有过敏和防过敏之分，先生？
6.保持睡眠空间的黑暗
城市里到处都是霓虹灯，所以对于城市居民要想睡在完全黑暗的环境中可是很不容易。这种环境越来越难找到。屋子外面有灯光照亮天空，而屋子里面也有一些小工具在闪闪发光。据称，英格兰最黑暗的天空在诺森伯兰的基德。
7.在电影院里偷偷睡觉
我们都到那里去过。电影院里温暖、黑暗，等都被关掉了，你在看电影或者演出，然后你有一种不可抗拒的感觉想要闭上眼睛。你已经度过了漫长的一天，你的身体正在大声疾呼要享受一下这美妙的休息时刻。具有创新精神的日本已经注意到了这个试场缺口，并已开始运作一种叫做"睡眠音乐会"的商业活动，在这种音乐会上成排成排疲惫的上班族在音乐家的演奏中快乐的打着鼾。
8.听听小夜曲
谁会不喜欢在音乐声里睡去呢？要不就是音乐声实在太沉闷了，让你不睡都不可能。不管是哪一种方式，反正根据对旅游连锁酒店做的一项研究显示，酷玩乐队和詹姆斯·布朗特的音乐最能够诱使人们睡觉�？腿嗣且蚕不�"没有挑战性"的阅读，而关于乔丹和大卫贝克汉姆的文学作品就不适合用来睡前读。
9.吃些能帮助睡眠的食物
典型的就是圣诞节大餐后的睡眠。但是不同类型的食物对睡眠的诱导作用不同。英国本地医疗体系NHS 建议睡前吃香蕉。而从罗马时代开始，人们就知道生菜含有诱导睡眠的成分。像伊丽莎白那样使用睡鼠脂肪帮助睡眠的方法就没那么有吸引力了。而维多利亚香槟酒被认为对治疗失眠最有效。即使它没让你睡着，至少你还能有个快乐的聚会。
10.周末睡个懒觉
周五回到家就意味着周末已经充满诱惑的向你伸开了双臂。最让人高兴的就是早上可以睡上几小时的懒觉，不管外面发生了什么。你躺在那里享受着这美妙的一刻，时断时续的睡着。纳撒尼尔霍索恩对这一时刻有个完美的表述："You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction."
或许我们并不是睡不好，而是不知道该怎么睡。
