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). For example, Russians 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.
Russians’ other late nights and early mornings generally correspond 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.
The World Cup is also chiefly responsible for sleep deprivation (缺乏). The worst night for sleep in the UK was the night of the England-Italy match on June 14. The 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 Cup.
It should be made clear that not everyone has a device to record their sleep patterns; in some of these nations, it’s likely that only the richest people do. And people who are elected to track their sleep may try to get more sleep than the average person. Even if that’s the case, though, the above findings are still striking. If the most health-conscious among us have such deep swings in shut-eye levels throughout the year, how much sleep are the rest of us losing?
【小题1】According to the author, what are people’s different sleeping habits connected with?| A．Their enthusiasm for sports. | B．Their schedule during daytime. |
| C．Their needs to catch up on sleep. | D．Their different cultural backgrounds. |
| A．They have the shortest sleep in the world. |
| B．They have earlier mornings in the winter time. |
| C．They have more sleep on some particular festivals. |
| D．Holidays are a reason for the change in their sleep patterns. |
| A．A sports event. | B．The time changes. |
| C．The night phenomenon. | D．The daylight saving time. |
| A．It is important to record sleep every day. | B．Average people probably have deep sleep. |
| C．Average people are losing much sleep nowadays. | D．Almost everyone can record their sleep patterns. |
