Have you ever had trouble sleeping in a new place?
Lots of people do. And now researchers from Brown University in Rhode Island think they know why. They found that one half of the brain "remains more awake" than the other half when people are trying to sleep in a new place.
The findings were reported m Current Biology by Brown University. In their report, the researchers said many people say they have a harder time sleeping the first night at a hotel or other places outside their homes. They call it "first-night influence". "In Japan, they say. If you change your bed, you can't sleep." said Yuka Sasaki, one of the reporters.
The researchers measured (测量) brain waves for 35 volunteers over two nights in a laboratory. The two nights were a week apart (间隔). They found during the first night the left half of the brain was more active than the right half. This was during the first deep-sleep period, the researchers said.
Sasaki said a lot of questions still remain. Researchers did not keep measuring brain waves all night long. So they don't know if the left half keeps "watch" all night, or whether it "works in shifts (轮换) with the right half later in the night". They also do not know why brain activity, at least during the first period of deep sleep, is always on the left half.
For some, this research may be culming It is good to know that our brain is "looking out for us" in a new place. But it may not help with sleep. That brain activity, at least according to this new research, makes it harder to get the sleep people wake up feeling well-rested in the morning.
