阅读理解
Everybody sleeps, but what people stay up
late to catch or wake up early in order not to miss varies by culture.
From data collected, it seems
the things that cause us to lose the most sleep, on average, are sporting
events, time changes, and holidays.
Around the world, people change
sleep patterns thanks to the start or end of daylight-saving time(夏令时间).
Russians, for example, began to wake up about a half-hour later each day after
President Vladimir Putin shifted the country permanently to "winter
time" starting on October 26.
Russia's other late nights and
early mornings generally correspond(相一致)to public holidays. On New
Year's Eve, Russians have the world's latest bedtime, hitting the hay at around
3:30 a. m.
Russians also get up an hour
later on International Women's Day, the day for treating and celebrating female
relatives.
Similarly, Americans' late
nights, late mornings, and longest sleep fall on three-day weekends.
Canada got the least sleep of
the year the night it beat Sweden in the Olympic hockey(冰球)final.
The World Cup is also chiefly
responsible for sleep deprivation. The worst night for sleep in the U.
K. was the night of the England-Italy match on June 14. Brits stayed up a
half-hour later to watch it, and then they woke up earlier than usual the next
morning thanks to summer nights, the phenomenon in which the sun barely sets in
northern countries in the summertime. That was nothing, though, compared to
Germans, Italians, and the French, who stayed up around an hour and a half
later on various days throughout the summer to watch the World Cup.
It should be made clear that
not everyone has a tool to record their sleep patterns; in some of these
nations, it's likely that only the richest people do. And people who elect to
track their sleep may try to get more sleep than the average person. Even if
that's the case, the above findings are still striking. If the most
health-conscious among us have such deep swings(明显改变)in our sleep levels
throughout the year, how much sleep are the rest of us losing?