What It Means To Have Insomnia¹, Because It Isn’t Just ‘Staying Up Late Sometimes’

失眠意味着什么，因为它不等同于偶尔的熬夜

Insomnia is excruciatingly tiring to deal with. It incapacitates you by making you unable to deal with changes — it took me 2 days to shift my schedule around so that I could have enough time last night to prepare for deep sleep. But all it took was a text message to send my mental state into anxiety, worry, depression, all at once. I laid in bed wide awake for 5 hours and towards the end, thought about how productive I could have been, if I hadn’t spent all this time lying on the bed.

失眠是令人痛苦的。它使你失去处理变化的能力——我花了2天时间改变我的日程安排，才让我昨晚可以有足够的时间为深睡做准备。但只要来一条短信，就能突然使我的精神焦虑，感到担心和抑郁。我躺在床上一直清醒了5个小时，想着如果我没有把所有的时间都躺在床上，我会有多大的效率。

When you don’t get enough sleep, you are never fully present in the moment. Tiredness looms² over your whole presence. Productiveness decreases. You turn up late, or you miss meetings in the morning because that’s the time when you start to fall asleep.

当你得不到足够的睡眠时，你就完全无法把注意力集中到当下。疲倦将笼罩着你的整个身躯，工作效率会下降，你会迟到。或者你可能错过早上的会议，因为那时你开始打瞌睡了。

You feel hopeless, worthless, and cancel on anything that makes you anxious.

你会感到绝望、毫无价值，然后取消任何让你焦虑的事情。

The emotional detriments³ of insomnia is an endless cycle of guilt⁴, tiredness and hopelessness.

失眠的危害是你不断重复地感到内疚、疲倦和绝望。

Wanting to sleep is seen as lazy. Not sleeping earlier is seen as a mismanagement of time.

想睡觉被认为是懒惰。 不早点睡觉被认为是时间管理不善。

They give advice on scented⁵ candles, and classical music, not knowing that you’ve tried even alcohol in desperation. You thank them for their good will, while they walk away wondering why you’re too stubborn to take their advice. They shake their heads at you.

人们会建议你试试香薰蜡烛，但他们不知道你已经绝望到试图用酒精来解决问题了。你感谢他们的好意，而他们走开时，却想知道你为什么如此顽固不接受他们的建议，然后他们对你摇摇头。

But insomnia is not just insomnia. Insomnia is often a symptom of something larger that should be solved. Insomnia is a symptom that aggravates⁶ the already aggravated⁷ situation.

但失眠不仅仅是失眠。失眠往往是一个亟待解决的更大症状。失眠会加重已经不好的情况。

“ Are you going to sleep soon? ”

“你很快就要睡了吗？”

“ I try.”

“我想，但估计办不到。”