AMANDA SCHUPAK2026年4月20日Q. I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety lately and am having a hard time sleeping. What can I do to get some rest?问：我最近一直被严重的焦虑困扰，睡眠也很差。有什么办法能让我好好休息吗？According to recent polling from the American Psychiatric Association, Americans are feeling anxious — about current events, job security, finances, the future.美国精神病学协会近期的调查显示，美国人普遍感到焦虑——焦虑时事、工作保障、财务状况，也焦虑未来。You don’t have to be in the center of a storm (proverbial or literal) to be affected by it, said Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychology, public health and medicine at the University of California, Irvine. Distressing news, coming at us constantly through our phones, TVs and radios, can be associated with anxious thoughts, she said.加州大学欧文分校心理学、公共卫生与医学教授罗克珊·科恩·西尔弗表示，即便你没有身处风暴中心（无论是比喻意义还是字面意义上的），也可能受到它的影响。那些令人不安的新闻通过手机、电视和广播不断向我们涌来，往往会催生焦虑的想法。And those thoughts can interfere with sleep, said Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School who specializes in stress and burnout. “The human brain was not designed for this constant fire hose” of news.哈佛医学院专攻压力与职业倦怠的教员阿迪蒂·内鲁卡尔博士说，这些思绪会干扰睡眠。“人类的大脑本就不是为了应对这种源源不断的新闻洪流而设计。”We spoke with four experts on stress and sleep about how to tamp down the worry that’s keeping you up.我们采访了四位压力与睡眠领域的专家，探讨如何平息那些让你辗转难眠的担忧。A Perpetual Cycle of Stress, Scrolling and Sleeplessness压力、刷手机与失眠的恶性循环Dr. Silver has spent the last 25 years studying how news of traumatic events, such as the Sept. 11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing, can affect people who didn’t experience them in person.过去25年里，西尔弗博士一直在研究9·11恐怖袭击、波士顿马拉松爆炸案等创伤性事件的新闻会对并未亲身经历者产生怎样的影响。Her research has found that the more people were exposed to graphic stories and images of those events through televisions, newspapers, online news sources or social media, the more they reported post-traumatic stress symptoms like intrusive thoughts, feeling on high alert and trouble sleeping.她的研究发现，人们通过电视、报纸、网络新闻或社交媒体接触到的这些事件的血腥报道和画面越多，报告出现侵入性思维、高度警觉、睡眠困难等创伤后应激症状的比例就越高。In some cases, repeatedly reading about or watching footage of tragic events was associated with more stress than seeing them firsthand, Dr. Silver said. Getting upset by what you see in the media and seeking it out creates a cycle, she said, “more media, more distress, more distress, more media.”西尔弗博士说，在某些情况下，反复阅读或观看悲剧事件的相关内容带来的压力甚至比亲身经历还要大。她表示，因媒体内容感到心烦意乱，又忍不住去主动寻找更多相关信息，就会形成一个恶性循环：“看的媒体内容越多，越痛苦；越痛苦，就越想看更多媒体内容。”When this happens at night, your stress response can overpower your drive to sleep, said Norah Simpson, a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine. That’s helpful from an evolutionary perspective — if you were, say, dozing in a cave when a predator attacked — but not when you’re fretting about the state of the world and need to be up for a 9 a.m. meeting.斯坦福大学医学院精神病学与行为科学临床教授诺拉·辛普森说，当这种情况发生在夜间，压力反应就会压倒睡眠的欲望。从进化的角度来看，这原本是有益的——比如你在洞穴里打盹时遭遇捕食者袭击，但如果你只是在为世界局势发愁，第二天早上九点还要开会，这就毫无用处了。Your amygdala, a region of the brain that responds to threats and regulates emotions like fear and anxiety, “doesn’t know the difference between something happening 5,000 miles away, or in another city or in your backyard,” Dr. Nerurkar said. Seeing something scary on social media can cause you to actively scan the environment (that is, your phone) for threats, prompting you to engage even more. Giving in to that “primal urge to scroll” while in bed, she said, can put you in a heightened state of alertness when you should be winding down.内鲁卡尔解释说，大脑中负责应对威胁、调节恐惧和焦虑等情绪的区域杏仁核“分不清某件事是发生在5000英里以外、在另一个城市，还是在你家后院”。在社交媒体上看到可怕的内容会让你主动扫描周围环境（也就是你的手机）以寻找威胁，进而陷入更深的沉迷。她说，躺在床上时屈服于这种“刷手机的原始冲动”会让你在本该放松入睡的时候进入高度警觉状态。Those precious moments before you go to sleep might be the only quiet parts of your day, said Aric Prather, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. If you use that time to engage with stressful content, your mind will become filled with anxious thoughts.加州大学旧金山分校精神病学与行为科学教授埃里克·普拉瑟说，睡前的宝贵时光可能是你一天中唯一安静的时刻。如果你用这段时间接触压力性内容，大脑就会被焦虑的想法填满。How to Quiet the Noise如何屏蔽干扰Many of Dr. Prather’s patients benefit from setting a curfew for engaging with any media that might make it hard to sleep — such as no news or scrolling social media within an hour or two of bedtime. Some people find it helps to put time limits on apps like Instagram, Threads and X through their phone’s settings. Dr. Nerurkar puts her phone on grayscale at night; the lack of color makes it less engaging and therefore easier to put down.普拉瑟的许多患者都受益于为可能影响睡眠的媒体使用设定“宵禁”：比如睡前一到两小时内，不看新闻、不刷社交媒体。有些人发现，通过手机设置给Instagram、Threads和X等应用设置使用时长限制也很有帮助。内鲁卡尔会在晚上把手机调成灰度模式；没有了鲜艳的色彩，手机的吸引力会大大降低，也就更容易放下。Dr. Prather recommended creating a calming, news-free evening routine that helps you wind down for sleep. That might include meditating, reading or watching something funny or mindless — and not bringing your phone into bed, which can condition your brain to associate your bed with feeling anxious.普拉瑟建议建立一个平静且远离新闻的晚间例行程序，帮助你为入睡做好准备。可以包括冥想、阅读，或者看一些轻松搞笑、不用动脑的内容——而且绝对不要把手机带上床，这会让你的大脑把床和焦虑联系起来。Breathing exercises can help, too, Dr. Simpson said. One example is the 4-4-8 technique, where you inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds and then exhale for eight seconds. Cognitive shuffling, in which you focus your mind on words that have nothing to do with one another, can also help clear your mind, making it easier to fall asleep, Dr. Simpson said.辛普森说，呼吸练习也很有帮助。比如4-4-8呼吸法：吸气四秒，屏息四秒，然后呼气八秒。她还推荐认知重组法：把注意力集中在一些毫无关联的词语上，这能帮助清空大脑，让你更容易入睡。If you’re going to be on your phone, she suggested sticking with innocuous content like puppy videos or cooking blogs. Dr. Prather’s patients have had success listening to podcasts that are intentionally dull and designed to lull people to sleep. Some give verbal tours of castles or laundromats, or read books that people find boring.如果实在忍不住要看手机，她建议只看一些无害的内容，比如小狗视频或者美食博客。普拉瑟博士的患者中，有人收听那些故意做得枯燥、旨在让人昏昏欲睡的播客，感觉效果不错，这些播客有的用语音带你游览城堡或自助洗衣店，有的会朗读一些非常枯燥的书籍。Actively engaging with your worries during the day may help with sleep by reducing anxiety and giving your brain a chance to quiet down at night, Dr. Prather said. Dr. Simpson suggested scheduling 10 or 15 minutes in the morning or afternoon to really think about what’s making you anxious.普拉瑟博士说，白天主动处理自己的担忧能减轻夜间的焦虑，让大脑在晚上得以平静，从而有助睡眠。辛普森博士建议，每天在上午或下午专门留出10到15分钟，认真思考那些让你焦虑的事情。Then, when distressing thoughts crop up at night and you’re about to spiral, you can tell yourself, “‘I spent some time working on that earlier today, and I’m going to pick it up again tomorrow,’” she said.这样一来，当令人不安的想法在夜间冒出来，你即将陷入情绪漩涡时，就可以告诉自己：“我今天已经花时间处理过这个问题了，明天再继续想吧。”翻译：晋其角点击查看本文英文版。