公共英語四級閲讀文章《睡眠》

睡眠是高等脊椎動物週期性出現的一種自發的和可逆的靜息狀態，表現為機體對外界刺激的反應性降低和意識的暫時中斷。關於睡眠，你瞭解多少?下面，我們不妨一起去看看這篇公共英語四級閲讀文章吧。

Sleep is part of a person's daily activity cycle. There are several different stages of sleep, and they too occur in cycles. If you are an average sleeper, your sleep cycle is as follows. When you first drift off into slumber, your eyes will roll about a bit, your temperature will drop slightly, your muscles will relax, and your breathing well slow and become quite regular. Your brain waves slow down a bit too, with the alpha rhythm of rather fast waves predominating for the first few minutes. This is called stage 1 sleep. For the next half hour or so, as you relax more and more, you will drift down through stage 2 and stage 3 sleep. The lower your stage of sleep, the slower your brain waves will be. Then about 40 to 60 minutes after you lose consciousness you will have reached the deepest sleep of all. Your brain waves will show the large slow waves that are known as the delta rhythm. This is stage 4 do not remain at this deep fourth stage all night long, but instead about 80 minutes after you fall into slumber, your brain activity level will increase again slightly. The delta rhythm will disappear, to be replaced by the activity pattern of brain waves. Your eyes will begin to dart around under your closed eyelids as if you were looking at something occurring in front of you. This period of rapid eye movement lasts for some 8 to 15 minutes and is called REM sleep. It is during REM sleep period, your body will soon relax again, your breathing will grow slow and regular once more, and you will slip gently back from stage 1 to stage 4 sleep - only to rise once again to the surface of near consciousness some 80 minutes later.

睡眠是人每天日常活動循環的一部分。人的睡眠分幾個階段，而這些階段也是循環發生的。如果你是一個正常的睡眠者，你的睡眠循環會這樣進行。在你開始昏昏入睡時，你的眼睛會滾動幾下，體温略有下降，肌肉放鬆，呼吸變得緩慢而有節奏。除了開始幾分鐘 比較快的α節奏外，腦電波也稍有減緩。這被稱為第一階段睡眠。 在隨後約半小時內，你進一步放鬆，進入第二和第三階段睡眠。睡眠越深入，腦電波就越緩慢。大約在開始睡眠 後的 40 到 60 分鐘，你將進入沉睡狀態。這時的腦電波表現為巨大的緩波，被稱為δ節奏。這就是第四階段睡眠。但你並不是整夜都保持這種沉睡狀態。入睡後約 80 分鐘左右，你的大腦運動水平會再度略有提高。δ節奏消失，並被腦電波的.運動圖形取代。你的眼睛會在閉着的眼瞼下迅速轉動，就好象你在看着眼前發生的什麼事情。 這種迅速的眼球運動持續約 8～15 分鐘，這一階段睡眠被稱之為快速眼動(REM)睡眠。在REM 睡眠階段，你的肢體會很快再度放鬆，呼吸也再次放慢並變得有節奏，你會輕鬆地從第一階段滑入第四階段睡眠-直到大約80 分鐘後重新接近清醒狀態。