来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2021年5月6日
本文适合英语二考生
Worrying about jet lag could actually make it worse, so try to relax on your next long-haul flight. Eva Winnebeck at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and her colleagues have looked at potential psychological causes of jet lag – the temporary impact of a long flight in which someone feels out of sync with the new time zone. They may struggle to sleep, feel tired and have trouble concentrating.
担心时差实际上会让情况更糟，所以试着在下一次长途飞行中放松。德国慕尼黑大学的伊娃·温尼贝克和她的同事们研究了引起时差反应的潜在心理原因。时差反应是指人们在长途飞行中感到与新时区不同步而产生的暂时影响。他们可能难以入睡，感到疲倦，难以集中注意力。
“In biology when we think about a topic, we often think about what we can measure – like a molecule or something,” says Winnebeck. “But a psychologist would think about the world very differently… what you think about a disease can have a huge impact on it.”
温尼贝克说：“在生物学中，当我们思考一个话题时，我们通常会考虑我们可以测量的东西——比如分子或其他东西。但心理学家对世界的看法会非常不同……你对一种疾病的看法会对疾病本身产生巨大的影响。”
The team asked 90 people to keep a sleep diary for a week before and after a long-haul flight in 2018. Before the flight, they were also asked whether they expected to get jet lag and how bad they thought it would be. After the flight, they were asked to detail what their jet lag was like every day for a week by quantifying symptoms on a 60-point scale.
研究小组让90人在2018年的一次长途飞行前后一周时间里记录睡眠日记。在飞行前，他们还被问及是否会有时差反应，以及他们认为会有多严重。飞行结束后，他们被要求详细描述一周内每天的时差情况，并以60分的标准来量化症状。
The researchers also took into account whether the participants were travelling east or west and how many time zones they were due to cross – six, on average.
研究人员还考虑了参与者是向东旅行还是向西旅行，以及他们将穿越多少个时区——平均有6个时区。
The team found that, on average, jet lag lasted for around four days, but that it was less common than people thought it would be. More than 75 per cent of the participants said they expected to get jet lag, but only 54 per cent did.
研究小组发现，平均来说，时差反应会持续四天左右，但并不像人们想象的那么普遍。超过75%的参与者表示，他们预计会有时差反应，但只有54%的人出现了市场反应。
The direction of travel and the number of time zones crossed had no notable effect on the extent of jet lag. The researchers did find that people travelling from west to east took longer to go to sleep in the week post-flight, though this group didn’t say that their jet lag felt worse compared with those who travelled the other way. Previous research has shown that flying east has a bigger impact on sleep because it means having to try to nod off earlier than you are used to, which is harder than staying awake for longer.
旅行方向和跨越时区的数量对时差反应的程度没有显著影响。研究人员确实发现，从西向东旅行的人在飞行后的一周内需要更长的时间才能入睡，尽管这组人并没有说他们的时差反应比那些从西向东旅行的人更剧烈。先前的研究表明，向东飞行对睡眠的影响更大，因为这意味着你必须试着比平时早睡，这比保持清醒更困难。
Instead, the researchers found that a person’s expectation of how bad their jet lag would be was the strongest predictor of how they said they felt. For every extra day someone expected their jet lag to last, the peak intensity of how bad they actually felt post-flight increased by a small amount. For example, someone who expected five days of jet lag reported a peak intensity nearly twice as high as someone expecting just one day.
相反，研究人员发现，一个人对时差反应有多糟糕的预期是他们表达自己感受的最有力的预测因素。当人们预计他们的时差反应每多出一天，他们在飞行后的糟糕感受的峰值强度就会小幅增加。例如，预期会有五天时差反应的人报告的峰值强度几乎是预期只会有一天时差反应的人的两倍。
This could be a form of “nocebo” effect in which the expectation of harm can lead to a greater negative outcome, says Winnebeck. “It could also be that the people who didn’t worry about jet lag just went about their normal lives after their flight – which helped the body get in sync quickly,” she says.
Winnebeck说，这可能是一种“反安慰剂”效应，即对伤害的预期可能导致更大的负面结果。她说：“也可能是那些不担心时差反应的人在飞行后就开始了他们的正常生活，这有助于身体迅速同步。”