It's more effective than drinking coffee or taking a nap.

這個方法比喝咖啡或打盹還有效。

It's drinking coffee and then taking a nap.

就是喝咖啡「然後」打盹一下。

It's called a coffee nap.

這叫做「咖啡覺」。

It might sound kind of crazy because most people realize that caffeine interferes with sleep.

這聽起來可能有些瘋狂，因為大部分的人都知道咖啡因會干擾睡眠。

But it takes a little while for the caffeine to affect you.

但咖啡因其實需要花上一些時間才會對你產生作用。

The caffeine has to go into your small intestine, pass into your bloodstream, and enter your brain. That takes about 20 minutes.

咖啡因必須進入你小腸、通過血液循環，之後才會進入你的大腦。整個過程大概需要二十分鐘。

If you spend those 20 minutes unconscious, you're going to wake up feeling pretty great.

如果你花那二十分鐘讓自己進入無意識狀態，醒來後你便會感到精神飽滿。

And to understand why, it helps to know what's making you feel groggy in the first place.

要了解原因，首先要知道究竟是什麼原因讓你感到昏沈想睡。

So there's a molecule inside your brain called adenosine, and it plugs into little receptors inside your brain cells and makes you feel tired.

你的大腦裡有一種叫做腺甘酸的分子，它會依附在大腦裡的受體上，讓你感到昏昏欲睡。

Adenosine is a by-product of brain activity, so it builds up through the day and starts to slow down your neurons.

腺甘酸是腦部活動所產生的副產物，所以它會隨著你一整天的腦活動而逐漸累積起來，並開始讓你的神經細胞變慢。

Caffeine chemically looks a whole lot like adenosine.

咖啡因在化學上看起來與腺甘酸長得非常像。

And when you ingest caffeine and it enters your brain, it blocks adenosine from fitting into those receptors.

當你攝取咖啡因並進入大腦，咖啡因會阻擋腺甘酸依附在那些受體上。

A lot of people have said that this is like taking a car and putting a block of wood underneath the brake pedals.

很多人曾比喻這就像開車時放個木塊卡在煞車底下一樣。

Caffeine keeps your brain from slowing itself down.

咖啡因能夠阻止你的腦袋運作速度變慢。

The great thing about coffee naps is that sleep naturally clears out adenosine from the brain.

而咖啡覺的好處是，睡眠本來就會自然而然清除掉大腦中的腺甘酸。

So the caffeine doesn't even need to compete with the adenosine to fit into those receptors.

所以咖啡因根本不需要與腺甘酸競爭，就可以依附在那些受體上。

So what's the evidence that this really works?

那有什麼證據證明這方法真的有效呢？

There're not a huge body of work but there are a few different studies.

雖然沒有大量的研究結果，但仍有一些不同的實驗可以參考。

When people took a 15-minute coffee nap, they went on to commit fewer errors in a driving simulator than when they only drank coffee or only took a nap.

在人們睡了一場十五分鐘的咖啡覺後，他們在模擬駕駛器上所犯下的失誤，比只喝咖啡或只打盹時還少。

As the test subjects were doing this really boring driving simulation, they were asked every 3 minutes to report their sleepiness level.

當這些受測者在做這個很無聊的駕駛模擬時，他們被要求每三分鐘要回報他們想睡覺的程度。

And the coffee nap group was consistently more alert.

而咖啡覺得這組人始終保持更為警覺。

Meanwhile, a Japanese study found that people who took a caffeine nap performed a lot better on a series of memory tests.

同時，一個日本的研究發現，睡了咖啡覺的人們在一系列的記憶測驗中表現更好。

The challenge of the coffee nap is to time it just right.

進行咖啡覺的難點在於要計時準確。

You want to drink it quickly, so it—maybe you could do espresso shots or iced coffee if that makes it easier.

你想喝快一點的話，也許你可以喝義式濃縮或冰咖啡會容易一些。

And then set an alarm before you fall asleep to wake up within 20 minutes,

然後睡前設一個鬧鐘，在二十分鐘內起來，

because if you nap too long, you're much more likely to enter deeper stages of sleep, and you'll have what scientists call sleep inertia, which is basically grogginess.

因為如果你睡得太久，你很可能會進入更深層的睡眠階段，並產生了科學家們所稱的「睡眠惰性」，基本上就是頭腦昏沈的狀況。

If you have trouble falling asleep that quickly, the studies found that you can still benefit from the coffee nap.

如果你很難迅速入睡，研究顯示你還是可以從咖啡覺獲得好處。

Even just drinking the caffeine and getting a few minutes of restful half-sleep half-awakeness is going to make you feel more alert when you do get up 20 minutes later.

即使只是攝取咖啡因然後休息幾分鐘、半睡半醒，二十分鐘起來後也會讓你更為清醒。