双语：夫妻分床睡 身体更健康婚姻更和睦

Separate beds aren’t a sign of marital strife — they’re the key to better health and a happier relationship.

分床睡并不代表婚姻不和睦，反而对更加健康和幸福的婚姻关系至关重要。

Or so suggests a survey, which showed that one in six couples has resorted to sleeping apart not because they can’t stand each other, but because they’re desperate for a decent night’s sleep.

一项调查显示，六分之一的伴侣之所以选择分床睡，并不是因为他们无法忍受对方，而是因为他们渴望睡个好觉。

One party’s snoring, fidgeting, or simply the fact that they crawl in at midnight when the other person bedded down hours before, can leave couples craving what’s been emotively dubbed a ‘sleep divorce’.

一方打鼾、不停翻身，或者仅仅是因为对方在几小时前就上床睡觉了，而他们却在半夜爬进被窝，这些都会导致伴侣们想要“分床睡”。

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the report was conducted by a mattress company — but some experts agree with its findings.

该报告是由一家床垫公司发布的，这或许并不令人意外，但一些专家也表示认同该调查结果。

Not only that, they say breaking up a relationship at bedtime should be encouraged. Dr Neil Stanley has been conducting sleep research for 35 years — and sleeping not just in a separate bed, but in a different room, from his partner for almost as long. ‘I’m the world’s leading advocate of separate beds,’ says Dr Stanley.

不仅如此，他们还表示应该鼓励分床睡。尼尔·斯坦利博士研究睡眠已经有35年了，在几乎同样长的时间里，他不仅和伴侣分床睡，而且分房睡。斯坦利博士说：“我是世界上分床睡的主要倡导者。”

In 2005, he co-authored a study in which couples wore a device as they slept that monitored waking and motion: the results showed that when one partner stirred, the other did, too. ‘In fact, a third of your sleep disturbance is caused by your partner,’ he says.

2005年，他与人合作开展了一项研究，在该研究中，夫妻在睡觉时佩戴一种设备，监测他们的清醒状态和动作：结果显示，当一方在睡觉时动弹，另一方也会动。他说：“事实上，你三分之一的睡眠障碍是由你的伴侣造成的。”

The impact of this disturbance on your health, and the health of your relationship, can be huge.

这种睡眠障碍对身体健康和婚姻和谐的影响非常大。

A 2016 analysis of previous studies by Paracelsus Medical University in Germany showed that sleep issues and relationship problems tend to occur simultaneously.

2016年，德国帕拉塞尔苏斯医科大学对以往研究的分析表明，睡眠问题和婚姻关系问题往往同时发生。

Research also suggests those who sleep poorly have higher rates of divorce — and if a person sleeps badly, they lack empathy and are more argumentative. (Plus, just one bad night’s sleep makes you four times more likely to catch a cold, according to a 2015 study in the journal Sleep.)

研究还表明，睡眠不好的人离婚率更高，如果一个人睡眠不好，他们缺乏同理心，更爱争论。（此外，根据《睡眠》杂志2015年的一项研究，一个晚上睡不好会让你患感冒的几率增加四倍。）

‘Poor sleep affects your performance, relationships, increases your risk of accidents and, in the long term, is associated with an increase in weight, type 2 diabetes and depression,’ adds Dr Stanley.

斯坦利博士补充道：“睡眠不好会影响你的工作表现、人际关系、增加你发生意外的风险，而且从长远来看，睡眠不好还会导致体重增加，并增加2型糖尿病和抑郁症的患病几率。”

This is because each cell in the body has its own ‘clock’, so prolonged disruption to these rhythms through lack of sleep has a knock-on effect on every cell.

这是因为人体的每个细胞都有自己的生物钟，因此，睡眠不足对生物钟节律的长期破坏会对每个细胞产生连锁反应。

‘Sleep is vitally important, and there’s no reason to compromise it for the sake of an unscientific social construct of sleeping together,’ insists Dr Stanley.

斯坦利博士坚持认为，“睡眠是至关重要的，没有理由为了一个不科学的夫妻同床而睡的社会认知而牺牲睡眠”。

In a book published earlier this year, Professor Hilary Hinds, a researcher at Lancaster University, explains that until the 1950s, sharing a bed was not considered desirable at all — separate bedrooms were the long-established preference of the upper classes, while the middle classes first took to twin beds in the late Victorian era, initially for health reasons.

在今年早些时候出版的一本书中，兰卡斯特大学研究员希拉里·海因兹教授解释说，直到20世纪50年代，人们都不推崇夫妻同床，上层社会一直更偏爱夫妻分房睡。而中产阶级在维多利亚时代晚期才开始睡在卧室的两张单人床上，最初是为了健康考虑。

‘The predominant theory of disease transmission at the time was that illness would generate spontaneously in foul air,’ Professor Hinds explains. ‘So there was an anxiety that if you were to inhale the exhaled breath of your fellow bed partner, you were putting yourself at risk.’

海因兹教授解释说：“当时关于疾病传播的主要理论是，疾病会在污浊的空气中自然产生。所以有人担忧，如果你吸入同床共枕者呼出的气息，你就是在把自己置于危险之中。”

‘Yet even when this idea was superseded by a more accurate understanding of how germs were passed on, twin beds didn’t disappear, ’ adds Professor Hinds.

海因兹教授补充说：“然而，即使人们之后对细菌如何传播有了更准确的理解，夫妻睡在两张单人床的情况并没有消失。”

‘It then became more a matter of getting away from the snoring or the less than fresh breath of your fellow sleeper,’ she says.

她说：“在这之后，人们分床睡更多的是为了远离鼾声，或者远离伴侣不那么清新的气息。”

‘I traced twin beds through to their demise in the post-War period, when you see a new emphasis on togetherness in marriage and a move away from twin beds back into the double beds for sleeping couples.’

“战后，伴侣们不再睡在两张单人床上，我对此进行了追溯，你会发现当时人们重新强调婚姻的亲密，伴侣们不再使用两张单人床，而重新使用双人床。”

Now, after our 20th-century flirtation with the double bed, we seem to be moving back towards the preferences of the upper classes throughout history. ‘Certainly, there is a growing trend for building houses with two master bedrooms,’ says Dr Stanley.

如今，在经历了20世纪对双人床的偏好之后，我们似乎又回到了历史上上层阶级的偏好。斯坦利博士说：“当然，现在越来越多的房子都有两间主卧。”

But what if separate rooms aren’t an option? Not everyone can afford an extra bedroom.

但是如果不能分房睡呢？不是每家都有足够的卧室。

‘At the least, two adults should have a 6ft-wide bed, a super king, because then you have 3ft to yourself as you would in a single bed; that would be a start,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘Twin beds are better, so you can have the mattress and duvet thickness that suits you.

斯坦利博士说：“至少，两个成年人应该有一张6英尺（约合1.8米）宽的床，一个超级大床，因为那样你就有3英尺的空间，就像你在一张单人床上一样，这将是一个开始。两张单人床更好，这样你可以选择合适厚度的床垫和羽绒被。”

‘After all, sleep is the most selfish thing that we can do. You can’t share your sleep with anybody, so why share your bed?’

“毕竟，睡觉是我们能做的最自私的事情。你不能和任何人分享你的睡眠，那么为什么要和别人分享你的床呢？”