Office lighting experiment suggests workers sleep longer when exposed to more daylight

办公室照明实验表明，员工在日光下工作时间越多，睡眠时间越长

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. has found that office workers sleep more hours each night when exposed to more sunlight during the day. In their paper published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the group describes their experiments in real office buildings and what they learned from them.

隶属于美国多个机构的一组研究人员发现，上班族在白天暴露于更多阳光下时，每晚就会睡更长时间。该小组在《国际环境研究与公共卫生杂志》上发表的论文中，描述了他们在真实办公楼中进行的实验以及他们从中得出的结论。

Prior research has shown that when office workers are exposed to minimal natural light during their shifts, they tend to sleep less at night than people who are exposed to more sunlight during the day—they also tend to perform less well on cognitive tests. Prior research has also shown that children exposed to more sunlight during the day tend to sleep longer than those who see little daylight. In this new effort, the researchers sought to learn more about the sunlight/sleep connection by carrying out an experiment in two adjacent offices in an office building in Durham, North Carolina.

以往的研究表明，当上班族在轮班期间暴露于最低限度的自然光下时，他们晚上往往要比白天暴露在较多阳光下的人睡眠更少，在认知测试中的表现也会较差。以往的研究还表明，白天暴露在更多阳光下的孩子比那些很少看到阳光的孩子睡眠时间更长。在这项新的研究中，研究人员通过在北卡罗来纳州达勒姆市一栋办公楼的两个相邻办公室中进行实验，试图了解阳光和睡眠之间的联系。

The experiments involved testing the differences in sleep patterns for people working in nearly identical office environments situated right next to each other—the only real difference was the lighting. One office had the traditional blinds that obscure much of the sunlight coming through the large glass windows. In the other office, the windows were treated with electrochromic glazing technology that allows more sunlight to pass through while still minimizing glare. For the experiment, typical office workers were asked to work in both offices for one week. At the end of the week, the workers were asked to trade offices where they worked for another week. Also, each of the workers was fitted with a wrist actigraph that measured and recorded how long the wearer was asleep each night.

这些实验涉及检测在几乎完全相同的办公环境中工作的人的睡眠模式的差异，办公环境紧密相连，唯一真正的区别是照明。一个办公室有传统的百叶窗，遮挡了从大玻璃窗射入的大部分阳光。 而在另一间办公室中，窗户采用电致变色玻璃技术进行处理，可让更多的阳光通过，同时仍能最大限度减少眩光。在实验中，典型的办公室员工被要求在两个办公室工作一周。一周结束后，员工会调换到另一个办公室再工作一周。另外，每个员工都配有腕部活动记录仪，测量并记录佩戴者每晚睡眠的时间。

The researchers found that both groups of workers slept longer when they worked in the office with more natural lighting—on average 37 minutes longer. The researchers found that the positive effects of sunlight grew as the week wore on—scores on cognitive tests improved each day. By the end of the week, the workers scored 42 percent higher. The researchers suggest their findings show that lighting should feature more prominently in the workplace, and that doing so would benefit both workers and those who employ them.

研究人员发现，当两组工人在采光更自然的办公室中工作时，他们的睡眠时间更长——平均多37分钟。他们还发现，阳光的积极影响随着一周时间的推移而增加——认知测试的分数每天都在提高。到了周末，员工的得分提高了42％。研究人员认为，他们的发现表明，照明应该在工作场所更突出地发挥作用，这样做对员工和雇佣者都有好处。

翻译：MS小冰晶