爲什麼睡前你老覺得餓要吃東西？

If you’re at all like me, you’ve eaten a lot of junk food late at night.
是不是有小夥伴和我一樣，晚上很晚的時候還要吃很多垃圾食品呢。

One explanation for those late-night slices of pizza or burgers has to do with alcohol, which has a disinhibiting effect that makes us crave fat and salt.
有一個解釋就是那些我們晚上吃的披薩和漢堡都含有酒精，而酒精則可以使我們更加渴望脂肪和鹽。

But an increasing body of research suggests that exhaustion, too, plays a role — that the “sleep munchies” are real, at least in cases when people didn’t get enough sleep the night before.
但是越來越多的研究表明，疲憊也會使人養成睡前吃東西的習慣，尤其是那些前一晚沒有充足睡眠的人。

A study in the journal Sleep in which participants were put on normal sleep or sleep-restricted schedules while their calories were carefully monitored.
《睡眠》期刊中記錄了一項實驗，參與者分別被分到正常睡眠組和限制性睡眠組，並且詳細監測了他們體內的卡路里。

Allison reports:The new study, based on blood samples, documents a novel finding: The daily rhythm of a particular endocannabinoid is altered by a lack of sleep.
阿里森說這一基於血液試樣的研究證明了一個新的發現：人體內的花生四烯酸甘油的含量會因缺乏睡眠而改變。

And these changes “could be driving intake for more palatable foods,” Erin Hanlon, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told us.
“而這些變化就是驅使人對美食嚮往的元兇。”芝加哥醫療中心大學的神經系統科學家艾瑞森·漢龍告訴我們。

“We found that sleep restriction boosts a signal that may increase the hedonic aspect of food intake,” says Hanlon.
漢龍說，缺乏睡眠會促使人們增加對美味食物的享受。

In other words, being sleep deprived may produce a stronger desire to eat.
換言之，睡眠不好會讓人更加想吃東西。

We’re still a long way from understanding the connections between sleeplessness, stress, and, well, gluttony.
或許我們尚未研究清楚睡眠、壓力以及暴飲暴食之間的關係。

But knowing that the “sleep munchies” are probably a real thing with an explainable physical cause can only help those of us trying to improve our droopy-eyed eating habits.
但瞭解睡前飢餓感的原因至少可以幫助我們改善睡眼惺忪還得吃東西的習慣。