At M.I.T.’s Media Lab,the digital futurist playground, David Rose is investigatingswaddling, bedtime stories andhammocks, as well as lavender oil and cocoons.Mr. Rose, a researcher, an inventor-entrepreneur and the author of “Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and the Internet of Things,”and his colleagues have been road-testing weighted blankets to induce a swaddling sensation and listening to recordings of Icelandic fairy tales — all research into an ideal sleep environment that may culminate in a nap pod,or, as he said, “some new furniture form.”

* swaddlingn.襁褓v.用襁褓包裹（swaddle的ing形式）

* hammock n.吊床、吊铺、吊带

*culminate  vi.到绝顶；达到高潮；达到顶点vt.使结束、使达到高潮

*pod  n.n.蚕茧；豆荚

在麻省理工学院的媒体实验室——一个未来主义数字乐园，戴维·罗斯（David Rose）正在研究襁褓、睡前故事和吊床以及薰衣草精油和蚕茧。罗斯是一名研究员、发明家和创业者，也是《魔法物品：设计、人类欲望与物联网》（Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and the Internet of Things）一书的作者。他和同事们在试验用厚重的毯子创造出婴儿襁褓的感觉，同时聆听冰岛童话的录音——这些研究都是为了创造出一种理想的睡眠环境，可能最终做出一个小睡舱，或者正如他说的，“某种新型的家具”。

“For me, it’s a swinging bed on ascreened porchin northwestern Wisconsin,” he said. “You can hear the loons and the wind through the fir trees, and there’s the weight of 10 blankets on top of me because it’s a cold night. We’re trying a bunch of interventions.”

Meanwhile, at the University of California, Berkeley, Matthew P. Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology and the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory there, is working on direct current stimulation as a cure for sleeplessness in the aging brain. Dr. Walker is also sifting through the millions of hours of human sleep data he has received fromSense, a delicately lovelypolycarbonateglobe designed to look like the National Stadium in Beijing that measures air quality and otherintangiblesin your bedroom, then suggeststweaksto help you sleep better.

* screened porch凉亭、门廊、露台、阳光房 （如下图）

*polycarbonate聚碳酸酯

*intangible adj.无形的、捉摸不透的

*tweak v.扭、捏、拧； 对...稍作调整。n.扭、拧、焦急、微调。

“我的设定是在威斯康辛西北部一个装有纱窗的门廊里装一个吊床”，他说，“能听见潜鸟和风掠过冷杉林。我身上盖着10条毯子，因为晚上很冷。我们正尝试各种干预措施。与此同时，加州大学伯克利分校的神经科学与心理学教授、睡眠与神经影像学实验室主任马修·P·沃克（Matthew P. Walker）正在研究利用直流电刺激治疗衰老大脑的失眠问题。沃克博士还在筛选他通过Sense收集的数百万小时的人类睡眠数据。Sense是一个精巧可爱的聚碳酸酯球，外观像北京的国家体育场，可以用于检测卧室空气质量等无形的东西，然后提出一些调整建议，帮你拥有更好的睡眠。

“I’ve got a mission,” he said. “I want to reunite humanity with the sleep it is sobereftof.” Sense is the first product made by Hello Inc., a technology company started by James Proud, a British entrepreneur, for which Dr. Walker is the chief scientist.

* bereft of缺少，剥夺

“我有一个使命”，他说“我想用睡眠重新团结人类，人们现在严重缺乏睡眠。”Sense是英国创业者詹姆斯·普劳德（James Proud）创立的科技公司Hello Inc.制造的第一款产品。沃克博士是该公司的首席科学家。

n Paris, Hugo Mercier, a computer science engineer, has invested in sound waves. He has raised over $10 million to create a headband that uses them to induce sleep. The product, calledDreem, has been beta-tested on 500 people (out of a pool of 6,500 applicants, Mr. Mercier said) and will be ready for sale this summer.

在巴黎，计算机学科工程师雨果·默西埃（Hugo Mercier）已在声波方面进行投资。他募集了1000万美元，创造了一款利用声波诱导睡眠的头戴式耳机。这款名叫Dreem的产品，据默西埃称，已在由6500名申请者中遴选出的500人身上进行了β测试，将于今夏上市。

That is when Ben Olsen, an Australian entrepreneur, hopes to introduceThim, agadgetyou wear on your finger that uses sound to startle you awake every three minutes for an hour, just before you go to sleep. Sleep disruptions, apparently, can cure sleep disruption (and Mr. Olsen, like all good sleep entrepreneurs, has the research to prove it). It is his second sleepcontraption. His first, theRe-Timer, a pair ofgogglesfitted with tiny green-blue lights that shine back into your eyes, aims to reset your body’s clock. He said that since 2012, he had sold 30,000 pairs in 40 countries.

* gadget小玩意儿

* contraption奇妙的装置；精巧的设计

* goggle护目镜，风镜；眼睛睁视

澳大利亚企业家本·奥尔森（Ben Olsen）也希望于今夏推出Thim,它是一种可以带在手指上的小装置，它在一小时内每隔三分钟会发出响声，在你即将入睡时将你惊醒。很显然，睡眠中断能治疗睡眠中断(和所有的优秀睡眠创业者一样，奥尔森也有相关研究作为依据）。这是他的第二款睡眠装置。第一款产品Re-timer， 是一副配置小小的绿蓝光的护目镜，发出的绿蓝色光可以射向你的眼睛，重置你的生物钟。他说，2012年以来，他在40个国家销售了3万副眼镜。

For years, studies upon studies have shown how bad sleep weakens the immune system, impairs learning and memory, contributes to depression and other mood and mental disorders, as well as obesity, diabetes, cancer and an early death. (Sedated sleep — hello Ambien — has been shown to be as deleterious as poor sleep.)

多年来，许多研究表明糟糕的睡眠会使免疫力低下，损害学习和记忆能力，导致抑郁等情绪和精神障碍，造成肥胖、糖尿病、癌症和过早死亡。（使用镇静剂助眠——hello Ambien——已被证实和睡眠不良一样有害。）

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention callssleeplessnessa public health concern. Good sleep helps brainplasticity, studies in mice have shown; poor sleep will make you fat and sad, and then will kill you. It is also expensive: Last year, the RAND Corporation publisheda studythat calculated the business loss of poor sleep in the United States at $411 billion — a gross domestic product loss of 2.28 percent.

*Plasticity n.可塑性。

联邦疾病控制与预防中心将失眠列为公共健康问题。在小鼠身上的实验表明良好的睡眠有助于大脑的可塑性；糟糕的睡眠会使人肥胖沮丧，并可导致死亡。它让我们付出了很大的代价：去年，兰德公司公布了一项研究，在美国，因睡眠不良造成的商业损失高达4110亿美元——占GDP的2.28%。

Companies now fight “presenteeism,” aneologismthat describes thelacklusterperformance of foggy-brained, sleep-deprived employees, with sleep programs likeSleepio, an online sleep coach, andsleep fairs,like the one hosted last month in Manhattan by Nancy H. Rothstein, director of Circadian Corporate Sleep Programs and otherwise known as theSleep Ambassador, for LinkedIn.For the last few years, Ms. Rothstein has been designing sleep education and training programs for a number of Fortune 500 companies. At the LinkedIn sleep fair, she taught attendees how to make a bed (usehospital corners, please) and gave out analog alarm clocks.(It was her former husband’s snoring, she said, that led her to a career as a sleep evangelist.)

很多公司现在通过一些睡眠项目来对抗“出勤主义”。这是一个新词，用以描述那些昏头昏脑、睡眠不足的雇员们泛善可陈的工作表现。这些睡眠项目诸如Sleepio（一种在线睡眠教练）和睡眠博览会会（如南希·H·罗斯坦上个月在曼哈顿举办的那场）。南希·罗斯坦是生理节奏公司睡眠项目的总监，她也是领英公司的睡眠大使。过去的几年间，罗斯坦为许多财富500强的企业设计睡眠教育和培训项目。在领英的睡眠博览会上，她向与会者介绍如何铺床（使用医院床单折角铺叠法），并分发了模拟闹钟（她说是前夫的鼾声让她走上了睡眠传道者的道路。）

If sleep used to be the new sex, as Marian Salzman, atrend spotterand chief executive ofHavas PR North America, proclaimed 10 years ago, today it is a measure of success — a skill to be cultivated and nourished — as a “human potential enhancer,” as one West Coast entrepreneur told me, and life extender.

正如潮流预测者，哈瓦斯北美公关公司首席执行官玛丽安·萨尔茨曼10年前宣布的那样，曾经的说法是睡眠是一种新性感，那么如今，睡眠就是衡量成功的指标——一种需要培养的技能。正如西海岸一名创业者接收采访时所说的，它是能提高人类潜能，延长人类的寿命。

“Sleep is the single most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and body,” Dr. Walker of U.C. Berkeley said. “We have a saying in medicine: What gets measured, gets managed.”

“睡眠是重置你大脑和身体最有效的方法”，加州大学伯克利分校的沃克博士如是说，“我们医学界有一句俗语，能测量的就能被管理。”

Sleep entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley and beyond have poured into the sleep space, as branders like to say — a $32 billion market in 2012 — formerly inhabited by old-style mattress and pharmaceutical companies.

硅谷等地的睡眠企业家已经涌入睡眠这个领域，如品牌推广者所说，2012年，这个市场的价值为320亿美元，过去它由老式的床垫和制药公司主导。

But the growing pile of apps,gizmosandgurus— some from unlikely corners — has led to“pandemoniumin the bedroom,” Ms. Rothstein said.

*pandemonium大混乱

不过罗斯坦说，越来越多的应用程序、小设备和大师，有些来自意想不到的领域，已经导致卧室一片混乱。

Mr. Mercier sent me his Dreem headset, a weighty crown of rubber and wire that he warned would be a tad uncomfortable. The finished product, about $400, he said, will be much lighter and slimmer. But it wasn’t theheftof the thing that had me pulling it off each night. Itskeeved(?)me out that it was reading — and interfering with — my brain waves, a process I would rather not outsource.

*heft重量

默西埃给我寄来了他的Dreem头戴式耳机，是个由橡胶和线组成的沉重的皇冠，他提醒我说会有些不舒服。他表示，成品会轻巧一些，售价为400美元。但是，每天晚上我并不是因为沉重而把它取下来，令我不安的是，它在读取和干扰我的脑电波，而我并不想把这个过程外包出去。

I was just aswaryof the Re-Timer goggles, $299, which make for agoofy/spookyselfie in a darkened room. Myeye socketsglowed a deep fluorescent green, and terrified the cat.

我对售价299美元的Re-timer眼睛同样保持警惕，带上它在黑暗的房间里能拍出傻乎乎或吓人的自拍。我的眼窝里发出深色的荧光绿，吓坏了我的猫。

The Ghost Pillow, $85, has “patent-pending thermo-sensitivity technology” designed to keep your head cool. It is wildly comfy, but when I read what it is made from, apolyurethanefoam, I lost sleep. I bought a Good Night Light LED Sleep bulb, $28, which comes with its own “patented technology” to support your body’smelatoninproduction. I can’t tell if that’s what happened, but since the bulb is too dim for my middle-aged eyes, I struggled to read my go-to sleep aid, a worn copy of “The Pursuit of Love,” by Nancy Mitford, and knocked off a good half-hour earlier than usual. I was up again at 3 a.m., however, as my new Sense pod alerted me the next day, through an app on my phone. And again at 5 a.m., when the cat swatted the pod off the night stand and it glowed red in protest. “There was a noise disturbance,” the app explained.

Melatonin n.褪黑素

85美元的“幽灵枕头”拥有“专利待审的热感技术”，旨在保持头部凉爽。它特别舒适，但当我看到它的材质是聚氨酯泡沫时我就失去了睡意。我花28美元买了一个拥有专利技术的“晚安LED光源睡眠灯泡”，能促进褪黑素生成。我也不知道是怎么回事，但对于我这个中年人的眼睛来说，灯泡的光太昏暗，所以我在阅读我的助眠工具，一本破旧的南希·米特福德的《爱的追求》时，觉得很吃力。比平时早半小时入睡。但我在凌晨3点有醒来了，因为我的新Sense设备通过手机上的应用提醒我。早上五点我又醒了，因为猫碰倒了床头柜上的设备，它发出红光抗议，应用程序解释说“有噪音干扰”。

My so-called sleep summary, as provided by Sense, was bothcompellingandoff-putting.Why is my air quality “not ideal”? And how comfortable am I sharing my sleep habits with a Silicon Valley start-up?

Compelling adj.令人信服的。

Off-putting adj.令人不愉快的；老是推托的

Sense提供的我所谓的睡眠总结，既令人信服又令人不快。为什么我的空气质量不是很理想？我对与硅谷初创公司分享我的睡眠习惯感觉良好？

Ms. Rothstein taught me her relaxation recipe, a practice that mixed gratitude with body awareness and breathing. Start with your toes, she said, and thank your body parts for their hard work. (My favorite: “Knees, I know it’s not always easy for you. You can rest now.”)

罗斯坦教给我她的放松方法，就是把感激与身体意识和呼吸相结合。她说，从你的脚趾开始，谢谢你的身体部位付出的辛劳（我最喜欢的一句是，“膝盖，我知道对你来说很不容易，你可以现在可以休息了。”）

Still, the best sleep I’ve had in weeks cost $22, and lasted 33 minutes. It was a Deep Rest “class” atInscape,a meditation studioin the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattandesigned by Winka Dubbeldam, the sought-after Dutch architect, to evoke the temple at Burning Man,and other esoteric spaces, and created by Khajak Keledjian, a founder, with his brother, Haro, of Intermix,which they sold to the Gap for $130 million in 2013.

不过，几周里我拥有的最好的睡眠耗资22美元，持续了33分钟。那就是Inscape的深度休息“课堂”。Inscape是曼哈顿切尔西区的一个冥想工作室和其他的神秘空间，工作室由备受追捧的荷兰建筑师温卡·杜贝尔丹设计，让人想起了火人节的庙宇。这个工作室的是由卡雅卡·克勒德吉安和他的兄弟哈罗创建的，他们也是Intermix公司的创始人。2013年，他们将自己的公司Intermix以1.3美元卖给了Gap。

Mr. Keledjian, a meditator, aims to make the practice both secular and modern: a “mindfulluxury,” he said. Though there are human “facilitators” in each class, who gently touch the feet of snoring attendees if they get too loud,the practice is guided by a recording made by an Australian female member of Mr. Keledjian’s company.“We call her ‘Skye,’” he said. It was lunchtime on a rainy Tuesday, and I settled onto a soft mat outfitted with abolster, a pillow and a cozyfleeceblanket. “Skye” urged me to stay awake, and then delivered a script like Ms. Rothstein’s, inmellifluousantipodean tones.I drifted once or twice, and from themuffledsnorts of the other attendees, they did too.That night, I slept until dawn.

Bolstern.支持；长枕

Fleecen.羊毛

mellifluousadj.甜美的

muffledadj.闷闷的

克勒德吉安是一位冥想者，他的目标是让这个联系既世俗又现代，他称之为用心的奢侈品。虽然每节课都有真人辅导员，如果参加者鼾声太响，辅导员会轻轻地触碰一下他们的脚，但课程练习都是跟着克勒德吉安公司的一个澳大利亚女性成员录音进行的。“我们叫她Skye”，他说。那是一个下雨的周二午餐时分，我躺在一个软垫上，配有长枕、枕头和舒适的羊毛毯。Skye唤我保持清醒，然而用悦耳的澳大利亚口音说了一段与罗斯坦的指导类似的话。我迷迷糊糊睡了一两次，从其他参与者深沉的鼻息声来看，他们也睡着了。那天晚上我，我一觉睡到了天亮。