解決問題的比較好方法可能是冷靜地考慮一下

解決問題的最好方法可能是冷靜地考慮一下

You have 99 problems. But if sleep isn’t one of them, you might be in luck.

你有99個(gè)問題。但如果睡眠不是其中之一，那你就是幸運(yùn)的。

It may not seem like it, but your brain does some of its best work while you're sleeping. (Photo: Anusorn Nakdee/Shutterstock)

New research from Northwestern University suggests that the best way to solve a problem may be to sleep on it.

美國(guó)西北大學(xué)的一項(xiàng)新研究表明，解決問題的最佳方法可能是睡一覺明天再說。

You probably heard that one before. We’re often told that if we can’t seem to think our way out of a challenge, get a good night’s sleep — and look at it with fresh eyes in the morning. That’s assuming, of course, we can get a good sleep when one of life’s riddles is rattling around in our head.

你可能聽過這個(gè)。我們經(jīng)常被告知，如果我們不能通過思考來解決挑戰(zhàn)，那就睡個(gè)好覺，然后在早上用新的眼光來看待它。當(dāng)然，這是假設(shè)，當(dāng)生活中的一個(gè)謎在我們腦海中縈繞時(shí)，我們可以先睡個(gè)好覺。

Essentially, we take our problems to bed with us. And when we sleep, our brain refines the memory of that problem, bolstering our chances of solving it the next day.

本質(zhì)上，我們把我們的問題帶到床上。當(dāng)我們睡覺的時(shí)候，我們的大腦會(huì)提煉出這個(gè)問題的記憶，增加我們第二天解決它的機(jī)會(huì)。

Deciphering riddles with sound

用聲音破譯謎語(yǔ)

To test that theory, researchers looked at 57 students over the course of three days and two nights. At the outset, they were given a series of demanding problems — spatial and verbal puzzles such as the following, taken directly from the study:

為了驗(yàn)證這一理論，研究人員對(duì)57名學(xué)生進(jìn)行了為期三天兩夜的研究。一開始，他們被要求回答一系列的問題——空間和語(yǔ)言的難題，比如下面這些直接取自研究的問題:

“On a wall outside a closet door are three standard on/off switches. One (and only one) controls a light bulb inside the light-tight, well-insulated closet. The other two switches do nothing. You can only open the closet door once, and cannot change any switches after the door is open (or re-closed, for that matter). Damaging or disassembling the door, walls, or switches is against the rules. Within these constraints, how can you determine with certainty which switch controls the light bulb?”

壁櫥門外的墻上有三個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的開關(guān)。一個(gè)(而且只有一個(gè))控制著一個(gè)燈泡在不透光、絕緣良好的壁櫥里。另外兩個(gè)開關(guān)什么也不做。您只能打開壁櫥門一次，并且在門打開(或重新關(guān)閉)后不能更改任何開關(guān)。損壞或拆卸門、墻或開關(guān)是違反規(guī)定的。在這些限制條件下，你如何確定哪個(gè)開關(guān)控制燈泡?”

Don’t worry if you’re already stumped. That’s the idea with this, along with the more than 40 other riddles presented to students.

如果你已經(jīng)被難住了，不要擔(dān)心。這就是這個(gè)謎語(yǔ)的想法，還有其他40多個(gè)謎語(yǔ)呈現(xiàn)給學(xué)生。

Crucially, each of those puzzles was presented with a unique snippet of sound. Participants were asked to not only solve each puzzle, but recall the sound that accompanied it.

最重要的是，每個(gè)謎題都有一個(gè)獨(dú)特的聲音片段。參與者被要求不僅要解決每個(gè)難題，還要回憶伴隨它的聲音。

In all, they managed to decipher all but six puzzles. Those are the ones they went to bed with. They also lugged home sleep-monitoring equipment and a sound system designed to play music while they slumbered. Some of the tracks corresponded with the problems they couldn’t figure out that day.

他們一共破解了6個(gè)謎題，是那些帶著問題去睡覺的人。他們還隨身攜帶了睡眠監(jiān)測(cè)設(shè)備和一個(gè)設(shè)計(jì)用來在他們睡覺時(shí)播放音樂的音響系統(tǒng)。有些軌道與那天他們無法解決的問題相對(duì)應(yīng)。

When they woke up, it seemed their brain had spent much of the night weighing those unsolved riddles. The experiment, repeated over the next two days, yielded an eye-opening conclusion:

當(dāng)他們醒來時(shí)，他們的大腦似乎花了一晚上的大部分時(shí)間來思考那些未解之謎。在接下來的兩天里，這個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)重復(fù)了一遍，得出了一個(gè)讓人大開眼界的結(jié)論:

he students were 55% more likely to solve puzzles on their second attempt when they heard the sound clip that was linked to it in their sleep It didn’t matter the kind of puzzle either. Both spatial and verbal riddles were solved at the same success rate.

當(dāng)學(xué)生們?cè)谒瘔?mèng)中聽到與之相關(guān)的聲音片段時(shí)，他們?cè)诘诙螄L試中解決問題的可能性要高出55%?？臻g謎語(yǔ)和口頭謎語(yǔ)都以相同的成功率被解決。

You probably won't make much progress on that problem by staring at it all night. (Photo: DimaBerlin/Shutterstock)

The key may be that stretch of sleep when the brain enters the slow-wave stage — the deepest phase of non-rapid eye movement. That’s long been considered the time when the brain organizes its filing cabinet of memories. It may be a time when the brain takes a fresh approach to a new memory, as it tries to file it in that cabinet.

關(guān)鍵可能是當(dāng)大腦進(jìn)入慢波期——非快速眼球運(yùn)動(dòng)的最深階段——睡眠的延長(zhǎng)。長(zhǎng)久以來，人們一直認(rèn)為這是大腦整理記憶的時(shí)間。這可能是大腦對(duì)新記憶采取新方法的時(shí)候，因?yàn)樗噲D把它歸檔。

We know that fresh eyes can solve a particularly confounding problem. But if their research holds true, those eyes may not even have to be open.

我們知道，新鮮的眼光可以解決一個(gè)特別復(fù)雜的問題。但如果他們的研究是正確的，這些眼睛可能甚至不必睜開。

“This study provides yet more evidence that brain processing during sleep is helpful to daytime cognition,” study co-author and psychology professor Mark Beeman notes in the release.

該研究的合著者、心理學(xué)教授馬克·比曼在新聞稿中指出:“這項(xiàng)研究提供了更多的證據(jù)，證明睡眠期間的大腦處理有助于白天的認(rèn)知。”

“In this case, if you want to solve problems or make the best decisions, better to sleep on it than to be on Twitter at 3 a.m.”

“在這種情況下，如果你想解決問題或做出最好的決定，最好是先睡一覺，而不是凌晨3點(diǎn)還瀏覽Twitter。”