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LeBron James and Stephen Curry are ahead of the NBA sleep curve.
勒布朗 - 詹姆斯和斯蒂芬 - 库里比联盟中其他人都要睡得好。
The worst sleep LeBron James has ever had in his 13 years in the NBA was in the aftermath of the 2011 Finals. James had joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami to form a super team that was destined to win "not one, not two, not three ..." championships, and so on.
在2011年总决赛结束后的一段日子里,勒布朗-詹姆斯经历了自己进入联盟13年以来最糟糕的睡眠。赛季开始前,詹姆斯与韦德和克里斯-波什在迈阿密携手聚义,组成了一支超级球队,天命注定他们要在一起赢得多个总冠军,而且“一个不够,两个嫌少,三个还要......”剧本就应该照此写下去。
It was going to be "easy," LeBron said. But on their first try against the Dallas Mavericks, the Big Three swung ... and missed.
勒布朗说:这本应该会是“手到擒来的事情”。但在三巨头的第一次争冠中,面对达拉斯小牛队,他们出师不利,错失冠军。
"I just felt like sleep wasn't important and the only thing that mattered to me was how I was going to try to get back up there and win," James told CBS Sports. "It was very difficult to get sleep, because my mind was racing so much that it didn't allow me to go at ease.
詹姆斯告诉CBS体育频道:“当时我觉得睡眠不是那么重要,我只想着如何去重振旗鼓,回到赛场,夺得胜利。我脑子里思绪万千,根本得不到片刻放松,这种情况下我很难入睡。”
"This game right here," he said, "it does stuff to your mind, man."
他说:“比赛的场面还历历在目,在你的脑海里挥之不散。”
So does sleep deprivation, which has become a way of life in the NBA.
睡眠不足已经成为NBA中的一部分。
Eighty-two regular-season games. Back-to-backs. Four games in five nights. Crisscrossing multiple time zones. NBA players are paid millions of dollars to push the limits of human performance, only to neglect the simplest and most effective tool.
82场常规赛,背靠背比赛,五晚打四场,还有在多个时区间飞来飞去。NBA球员们领着数百万美元的工资是为了打出超越人类极限的表现,然而他们却忽视了那个最简单和最有效的方法。
Until now.
直到现在,事情有了转变。
"Sleep is the most important thing when it comes to recovery," James said. "And it's very tough with our schedule. Our schedule keeps us up late at night, and most of the time it wakes us up early in the morning. ... There's no better recovery than sleep."
詹姆斯说:“对身体恢复最重要的事情就是睡觉,但按照我们的赛程,这是件很困难的事情。比赛会让我们直到深夜还保持清醒,而为了下场比赛我们多半又得一大早起来......没有比睡觉更好的恢复方式了。”
Scientists are in agreement that even one sleepless night is the equivalent of having a few alcoholic drinks; 22 hours without sleeping has been shown to cause cognitive and reactive impairment comparable to being legally drunk.
科学家们一致认为:一个晚上不睡觉,就相当于你摄入了一些量的酒精,而连续22个小时不睡觉会对人体的认知和反应能力造成损害,相当于是醉酒。
In the NBA, trainers, coaches and the billionaires who pay millionaires to play basketball for them are only now beginning to realize how poor sleep habits can devastate performance and perhaps even affect longevity and injury rates. They can be damaging to the bottom line, too.
在NBA,训练师们,教练们和那些为球员支付数百万美金的亿万富翁大老板们直到现在才开始认识到,糟糕的睡眠习惯会严重损害到球员们的赛场表现,甚至还可能会影响球员的运动寿命和伤病率,就连球队的(赚钱)底线可能也在受到侵犯。
One sports performance expert who has consulted with the NBA said the cost of a star player suffering a significant injury is close to $100 million when factoring in lost ticket revenue and merchandise sales.
一位曾在联盟中担任顾问的运动表现专家表示,算上球票和商品销售的损失,一个明星球员受到一次重大伤病的代价接近于1亿美元。
"Keeping those players healthy and keeping them visible is critical to this league," the person said.
这位专家说:“对于联盟来说,让这些明星球员保持健康并出现在球场之上是至关重要的事情。”
And basketball players are not alone.
另外,并不只有篮球运动员存在睡眠问题。
From military combat forces to high-octane executives and working parents, sleep deficit is an epidemic. In the general population, it has been linked to higher rates of illness, disease and obesity, as well as declines in cognitive function and job performance. For NBA players, research is beginning to show correlations between sleep debt and statistical production, and some studies have begun to connect the dots between sleep and injury rates.
从参加作战的军事人员到精力充沛的管理人员再到上班族的父母,睡眠不足是一个通病。对于普通人,睡眠不足会导致到患病率和肥胖率的上升,同时还会造成认知能力和工作效率的下降。对于NBA球员,有调查开始表明睡眠不足会关系到球员的数据表现,还有一些研究已经开始寻找睡眠和伤病率之间的联系。
"People are living beyond their means in terms of sleep," said Jason Donahue, sleep specialist for Jawbone, whosewrist-mounted sleep trackeris among a growing inventory of wearables helping the Golden State Warriors (and weekend warriors) monitor and improve their sleep habits.
来自卓棒(Jawbone)的睡眠专家杰森-多纳修表示:“人们为了睡个好觉想尽了各种方法。”卓棒(Jawbone)公司的睡眠跟踪手环是越来越受市场欢迎的可穿戴式设备之一,它帮助金州勇士的球员们(以及预备役军人们)对睡眠习惯进行监视和改善。
Jawbone Up2 是一个用于跟踪睡眠的手环。萨拉 - 图 /CNET
The breakthrough study was a 2011 trial led by Stanford's Cheri Mah, one of the world's top experts on the effects of sleep on sports performance. Over several weeks, the nightly sleep of 11 Stanford men's basketball players was increased, with a goal of spending 10 hours per night in bed. At the end of the trial, faster sprint times were recorded, and free-throw accuracy increased 9 percent while 3-point accuracy improved 9.2 percent.
2011年,世界上研究睡眠对运动成绩影响的顶尖专家之一,来自斯坦福大学的切利-玛牵头了一次试验,这次试验是具有突破性意义。在数周内,研究人员延长了11名斯坦福大学男子篮球运动员每晚的睡眠时间,目标是最终每晚让他们睡上10个小时。在试验结束的时候,球员们的短跑速度变得更快了,罚篮命中率增加了9%,三分命中率提高了9.2%。
Long-term effects of sleep debt on athletes have been documented, too. A 2010-12 trial involving 80 Major League Baseball players from three teams led by Christopher Winters of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, showed a correlation between daytime sleepiness and career longevity. Over the three-year period, 72 percent of players reporting lower levels of sleepiness were still in the league, compared to 39 percent of those reporting to be twice as sleepy and 14 percent of those with Epworth Sleepiness scores that were three times as high.
睡眠不足对运动员造成的长期影响也有相关记录。在2010~12年期间,来自维吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔市玛莎杰弗森医院睡眠医学中心的克里斯多夫-温特斯领导了一次试验,该试验邀请了80名来自三支美国职业棒球大联盟球队的球员参加,试验结果表明白天嗜睡和职业生涯的寿命存在联系。试验使用艾普沃斯嗜睡评分来测量球员白天的嗜睡程度,在三年时间里,79%得分较低的球员仍然在联盟中效力,相比之下,在得分是他们两倍的球员中,只有39%的人在继续职业生涯,而对于得分是三倍的球员,更是只有14%的人留了下来。
"Start 'em young" is what parents say about kids and sports, but it's true with sleep, too. In a 2014 study involving 160 middle school athletes by the Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics, those who slept less than eight hours per night were 1.7 times more likely to have an injury than those who slept for eight hours or more.
父母们在谈及孩子们和体育运动时常说“要从娃娃抓起”,这句话也可以用在睡眠上。在2014年,《少儿骨外科日志》进行了一次研究,邀请了160名中*运学**动员参加,结果表明,每天晚上睡眠时间少于8小时的运动员受伤概率是那些每天晚上睡眠时间超过8小时的运动员的1.7倍。
"Of course, on the basketball side, you have to fine tune your skills," Thunder forward Kevin Durant told CBS Sports. "But on the other side, you have to fine tune your body. There's a lot of remedies you can use as a basketball player to get better, but the easiest thing you can do is go to sleep."
雷霆队的前锋凯文-杜兰特告诉CBS体育频道:“毫无疑问,就篮球而言,你必须要花时间去锤炼自己的技术,但在另一方面,你也必须要调整好自己的身体。作为一名篮球运动员,你有很多改良方法来让自己变得更好,但最简单的方法就是睡个好觉。”