Thirty-nine per cent of adults get less than the recommended 8 hours of sleep a night. Women are two times more likely to have insomnia¹ than men - this may be due to hormonal² changes. And tiredness peaks at 2am and 2pm, according to scientists. Here an expert nutritionist and a sleep psychologist give us some unusual ways to get a better night's kip...

39%的成年人的夜间睡眠时间少于专家建议的8小时。女性失眠的可能性是男性的2倍--可能是因为荷尔蒙变化所致。凌晨2点和下午2点是人们疲倦的时候，科学家表示。一位营养专家和一位睡眠心理学家给出了一些不同寻常的建议，帮助我们一夜好眠。

1. Avoid stress-inducing food

1. 不要吃引发压力的食物

"Food intolerances are a relatively³ little-known contributor to sleep problems," explains Alexandra. "When you eat something you are intolerant to, your immune system thinks it's a foreign invader⁴ and reacts by triggering inflammation and the production of stress hormones⁵." These raised stress hormones lead to increased heart rate and alertness - the last thing you need as you're trying to drift off.

"很少有人知道食物不耐性是导致睡眠的一个原因，"亚历山德拉解释道。"当你吃了不耐受的食物时，你的免疫系统会将其视作外来入侵者，并通过引发炎症、分泌压力激素而做出应对。"压力激素增加会导致心跳加快，也会使你更加警觉--而我们就怕临睡前变得警觉。

If you think you have a food intolerance, keep a food diary for a few weeks, and note down how you feel after eating various foods. If you suspect a food might be giving you nasty side effects like bloating, diarrhoea, indigestion, or itchy rashes, cut it out of your diet for a couple of weeks before reintroducing it gradually.

如果你认为自己有食物不耐受症状，那就试着写几周关于食物的日记，记下吃完每种食物的感受。如果你怀疑某种食物会给你带来不好的副作用，比如胀气、腹泻、消化不良或发痒、皮疹，那就试着先不吃这些食物，几周之后再慢慢加入到饮食中。

2. How about a bedtime story?

2. 睡前听个故事咋样？

Two thirds of adults say reading before bed helps them to sleep. There's a good reason for this: according to neuropsychologists, reading reduces stress levels by 68%.

三分之二的成年人认为临睡前阅读有助于他们入睡。这是有原因的：神经心理学家表示，阅读可减少68%的压力。

"When our mind is full of the facts and thoughts of the day, stories can help us shift down a gear before bed," says Hope Bastine, psychologist for sleep technology brand Simba. "Entering into a literary world distracts us from daily stresses, releasing the muscular heart tension and lowering the breathing rate."

"当我们的大脑想的都是白天发生的事情时，故事可帮助我们做好入睡准备，"Simba睡眠技术品牌的心理学家Hope Bastine说道。"进入文学世界能帮助我们从日常压力中抽离、释放肌肉紧张、降低呼吸频率。"

"Reading fiction helps build the bridge toward creative dreaming," says Hope. In the dreaming part of the sleep cycle, REM, we dream in pictures, not words. So anything that switches on the image centres of our brain is a good way to prepare the mind for deep sleep.

"阅读小说有助于打造通往创意性梦境的桥梁，"Hope说道。在睡眠周期的梦境部分，我们的梦境以图片形式展开，而非语言文字。所以任何切换大脑影像中心的东西都是为深度睡眠做准备的好方法。