One half of the brain remains on high alert (警觉) during the first night of sleep in a new place, according to a new study.

Over the course of three experiments on 35 young, healthy volunteers, researchers measured (测量) brain activity during two nights of sleep. They found that part of the left side of the brain remained more active than the right side only on the first night, specifically during a deep sleep stage.

“When you sleep in a new place for the first time, a part of one side of the brain seems to stay awake, so you could wake up faster if something dangerous should happen,” said senior study author Yuka Sasaki of Brown University.

While this may be bad news for business travelers who regularly make brief overnight trips, it may not be as troublesome for people who go away for longer periods of time, Sasaki added.

To see how being in a strange place affects sleep, Sasaki and colleagues performed lab tests on their subjects.

When they stimulated (刺激) the left side of the brain with sounds in the right ear during deep sleep on the first night, that led to greater possibility of waking and faster action upon waking, than if sounds were played in the left ear to affect the right side of the brain. On the second night, there wasn’t any difference in reactions to tests between the left and right sides of the brain. This suggests there is a first-night-only effect in one side of the brain during deep sleep, the authors conclude.

One problem with the new study is its focus (重点) on healthy volunteers, which means the results may not apply to people with sleep disorders, the authors note.

While it is possible that the findings may explain poor sleep among frequent travelers, the study wasn’t designed to test whether these “first night effects”continue to happen to people every time they hit the road, said Patrick Finan, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

We’re all familiar with the feeling―it usually starts with a little itch (痒) deep inside the nose. Next comes the awareness that it’s going to happen. Then, achoo! Air rushes out of our nose at a shocking 100 miles per hour, bursting out whatever was causing the itch. The high-pressure from a sneeze (喷嚏) has led some people to think that if we didn’t close our eyes, they could be pushed out.

For decades, countless people have tested the theory. When finding it almost impossible to keep their eyes open while sneezing, many have concluded that the theory must be true. If you try it yourself, the possibilities are that your eyes are still where they belong. That’s because they are held firmly by the muscles in the eyes. Furthermore, increased pressure from sneezing actually builds up in the blood vessels (血管), which may cause vessels to break but may not be possible to push the eyeballs out.

Why did this theory start, anyway? Some say that it all began in 1882, when the New York Times reported an incident of a woman who burst one of her eyeballs during a sudden sneeze. Others point at the fact that different high-pressure experiences, such as childbirth, can cause blood vessels in the eyes to break out. Still others say that closing our eyes when we sneeze shows the theory is true. Scientists, on the other hand, explain that we close our eyes for the same reason we sneeze ― to prevent unwanted things from entering our bodies. Either way, as far as we know, there are no actual recorded cases of anyone losing an eyeball because of a sneeze, so don’t lose any sleep over it!

Scientists, psychologists and English academics at Liverpool University have found that reading the works of the classical writers like Shakespeare and Wordsworth has a great effect on the mind, catches the reader’s attention and triggers moments of self-examination.

Using a special machine, they monitored the brain activity of 30 volunteers as they read works by William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, T.S. Eliot and others.

In the first part of the research, the brain activity of 30 volunteers was monitored as they read passages from Shakespeare’s plays, including King Lear, Othello, Coriolanus and Macbeth, and again as they read the text rewritten in a simpler form or modern language.

While reading the common texts, normal levels of electrical activity were shown in their brains. When they read the works of Shakespeare, however, the levels of activity jumped because of his use of words which were unfamiliar to them. The result of the test showed that the more challenging passages cause a greater degree of electrical activity in the brain than the common ones.

Scientists went on to study the brain activity as it responded to each word and recorded how it lit up as the readers came across unusual words, surprising phrases or difficult sentences in the classical works. As a result, this lightening up process of the mind lasted longer than that when volunteers read common texts, encouraging further reading.

The research also found that reading poetry especially increases activity in the right hemisphere (半球) of the brain, an area connected with “autobiographical memory”, driving the readers to think carefully about their own experiences based on what they have read. The academics said this meant the classical works of literature are more useful than self-help books.

Philip Davis, an English professor who has worked on the study in the university’s magnetic resonance center, announced this week: “Classical literature acts like a rocket-booster to the brain, which provides extra power for the brain. You may never imagine how powerful it is. The research shows such kind of literature can create new thoughts and connections in the young and the old.”