Could you pack more into each day if you did everything at the optimal time?
如果任何事情都是在最佳时间去做，你的每一天是否就能加进更多的活动？
A growing body of research suggests that paying attention to the body clock, and its effects on energy and alertness, can help pinpoint the different times of day when most of us perform our best at specific tasks, from resolving conflicts to thinking creatively.
越来越多的研究表明，多加重视生物钟及其对人的精力和清醒度的影响有助于我们精确找到大多数人一天中从事具体活动──无论是解决矛盾还是创造性思维──的最佳时间。
Alertness tends to slump after eating a meal, Dr. Matchock found. Sleepiness also tends to peak around 2 p.m., making that a good time for a nap, says Martin Moore-Ede, chairman and chief executive of Circadian, a Stoneham, Mass., training and consulting firm.
马丘克博士发现，清醒度在饭后往往会迅速降低。马萨诸塞州斯通哈姆市（Stoneham）Circadian培训咨询公司的董事长兼首席执行长马丁•摩尔艾德（Martin Moore-Ede）说，困顿感也往往是在下午两点左右达到顶峰，这是进行午休的好时候。
Surprisingly, fatigue may boost creative powers. For most adults, problems that require open-ended thinking are often best tackled in the evening when they are tired, according to a 2011 study in the journal Thinking & Reasoning. When 428 students were asked to solve a series of two types of problems, requiring either analytical or novel thinking, their performance on the second type was best at non-peak times of day when they were tired, according to the study led by Mareike Wieth, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Albion College in Michigan. (Their performance on analytical problems didn't change over the course of the day.) Fatigue, Dr. Wieth says, may allow the mind to wander more freely to explore alternative solutions.
让人意想不到的是，疲劳可以增加创造力。2011年《思考与推理》（Thinking & Reasoning）杂志上刊登的一篇研究论文指出，对多数成年人来说，需要开放性思维来思考的问题，其最佳处理时间是在晚上他们感到疲劳的时候。密歇根阿尔比恩学院（Albion College）心理学助理教授马雷克•维斯（Mareike Wieth）牵头的这项研究显示，当428名学生被要求解决一系列要么需要分析能力要么需要创新思维的两种类型的问题时，他们解决第二类问题时的最好表现出现在一天中他们感到疲劳的非高峰时段。（他们解决分析性问题的表现在一整天的过程中没有变化。）维斯博士说，疲劳可以让思维得到更自由的发散，去寻找不同的解决方案。
Of course, everyone's body clock isn't the same, making it even harder to synchronize natural rhythms with daily plans. A significant minority of people operate on either of two distinctive chronotypes, research shows: Morning people tend to wake up and go to sleep earlier and to be most productive early in the day. Evening people tend to wake up later, start more slowly and peak in the evening.
当然，每个人的生物钟不尽相同，这使得日常计划与生理节奏同步难上加难。研究表明，有极少数人做事时属于两种独特的时间类型：早上型的人一般比一般人更早睡早起，一天中工作最有成效的时间是在早上；晚上型的人往往醒来较晚，启动工作较慢，最佳表现时间是在晚上。
Communicating with friends and colleagues online has its own optimal cycles, research shows. Sending emails early in the day helps beat the inbox rush; 6 a.m. messages are most likely to be read, says Dan Zarrella, social-media scientist for HubSpot, a Cambridge, Mass., Web marketing firm, based on a study of billions of emails. 'Email is kind of like the newspaper. You check it at the beginning of the day,' he says.
iStockphotoHubspot的研究表明，晚上八点左右发表到Facebook上的帖子得到“喜欢”评价的最多。研究表明，在网上与朋友和同事交流也有最优周期。大清早发送电子邮件有助于避开收件高峰期。马萨诸塞州剑桥市（Cambridge）HubSpot网络营销公司的社交媒体科学家丹•萨瑞拉（Dan Zarrella）在对数十亿封电子邮件进行研究之后表示，早晨六点发送的信息被阅读的可能性最大。他说，“电子邮件有点类似报纸，查阅的时间在一日之初。”
Reading Twitter at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. can start your day on a cheery note. That's when users are most likely to tweet upbeat, enthusiastic messages, and least likely to send downbeat tweets steeped in fear, distress, anger or guilt, according to a study of 509 million tweets sent over two years by 2.4 million Twitter users, published last year in Science. One likely factor? 'Sleep is refreshing' and leaves people alert and enthusiastic, says Michael Walton Macy, a sociology professor at Cornell University and co-author of the study. The cheeriness peaks about 1-1/2 hours later on weekends -- perhaps because people are sleeping in, Dr. Macy says.
在早上八点或九点阅读推特（Twitter）上的微博信息可以让你心情轻松地开始新的一天。去年其论文发表在《科学》(Science)杂志上的一项研究对240万推特用户在两年时间里发表的5.09亿条微博信息进行了研究，结果显示这个时间是微博用户最可能发布乐观向上、热情洋溢的信息的时候，发送恐惧、悲痛、愤怒或者内疚这些悲观情绪的可能性则最小。一个可能的因素是什么？研究论文的共同作者、康奈尔大学（Cornell University）社会学教授迈克尔•沃尔顿•梅西（Michael Walton Macy）说，“睡眠可以让人恢复精神”，让人头脑清醒、充满热情。梅西博士说，周末时，这种开心情绪的高峰时间比平时要晚一至一个半个小时──也许是人们要睡懒觉的缘故。
Other social networking is better done later in the day. If you want your tweets to be re-tweeted, post them between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., when many people lack energy to share their own tweets and turn to relaying others' instead, Mr. Zarrella says. And posts to Facebook at about 8 p.m. tend to get the most 'likes,' after people get home from work or finish dinner. At that time of day, they're likely to turn to Facebook feeling less stressed. 'You have less stuff to do and more time to give,' says Mr. Zarrella.
萨瑞拉说,其它网络社交活动在晚些时候开展更好。如果你想让你发表的微博被人转发，那就在下午三点到六点之间发布，这个时候很多人都没有精力发表自己的微博，而更倾向于转发别人的微博。晚上八点左右发表到Facebook上的帖子得到“喜欢”评价的最多，这时人们已经下班回家或吃完晚饭，他们很可能是在没有太大压力的情况下登录Facebook的。萨瑞拉说，“你没有太多的事情要做，可以支配的时间较多。”
Late-night drama can be found on Twitter, where emotions heat up just before bedtime, between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., says Scott Andrew Golder, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University and co-author of the Twitter study. At that time, people tended to send more emotion-laden tweets, both positive and negative. Tired out by the workday, but also freed from its stresses and demands, people become 'more alert and engaged, but also more agitated,' Dr. Macy says.
前述推特研究项目的联合作者之一、在康奈尔大学攻读Ph.D.学位的斯科特•安德鲁•高德（Scott Andrew Golder）说，就在就寝前的10点至11点之间，推特可能会变成一个深夜剧场，人的情感在这里升温。在这个时间段，人们往往会发表更多富含感情的微博，积极的和消极的都有。梅西博士说，一天的劳累之后，卸下工作压力和要做的事情之余，人们变得“更敏感更专注，但是也会更焦躁不安。”
When choosing a time of day to exercise, paying attention to your body clock can also improve results. Physical performance is usually best, and the risk of injury least, from about 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., says Michael Smolensky, an adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, and lead author with Lynne Lamberg of 'The Body Clock Guide to Better Health.'
在选择体育锻炼时间的时候，关注一下生物钟也可以提高锻炼效果。德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校（University of Texas, Austin）的生物医学工程兼职教授迈克尔•斯莫伦斯基（Michael Smolensky）说，身体活动能力最强、受伤危险最小的时候通常在下午三点到六点之间。他与琳•蓝柏（Lynne Lamberg）合着了《生物钟健康指南》（The Body Clock Guide to Better Health）一书，他是第一作者。
Muscle strength tends to peak between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. at levels as much as 6% above the day's lows, improving your ability to grip a club or racquet. Another boost for physical strength comes from the lungs, which function 17.6% more efficiently at 5 p.m. than at midday, according to a study of 4,756 patients led by Boris Medarov, an assistant professor of medicine at Albany Medical College in New York.
iStock研究称，练习自由搏击的最佳时间是下午晚些时候。肌肉力量一般在下午两点到六点之间达到最高值，比一天中的低值时候高出6%，这时候抓握球棒或球拍的能力更强。另一个增强体力的因素是肺。根据纽约州奥尔巴尼医学院（Albany Medical College）医学助理教授鲍里斯•美达洛夫（Boris Medarov）牵头的针对4,756名病人进行的一项研究，肺在下午五点时的效率比中午时分要高17.6%。
Eye-hand coordination is best in late afternoon, making that a good time for racquetball or Frisbee. And joints and muscles are as much as 20% more flexible in the evening, lowering the risk of injury, Dr. Smolensky says.
眼手配合最好的时候是在傍晚，这时打壁球或玩飞盘非常合适。斯莫伦斯基博士说，关节和肌肉在晚间的灵活度比其它时候高20%，受伤的几率会少一些。
These body rhythms hold true regardless of how much you've slept or how recently you've eaten. In a 2007 study at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, 25 experienced swimmers did six timed trials while sticking to an artificial schedule that controlled for variables like sleep, diet and other factors. The swimmers' performance still varied by time of day, peaking in the evening and hitting bottom at around 5 a.m.
Getty Images扔飞盘也是一样。不管你睡了多久或者离吃饭时间有多近，这些机体节律都是不变的。在南卡罗来纳大学哥伦比亚分校（University of South Carolina at Columbia）2007年进行的一项研究中，25名经验丰富的游泳选手接受了六次计时测试，测试期间他们严格遵守人为制定的日程安排，对睡眠、饮食和其它变量因素进行了控制。结果游泳选手们的成绩还是因时间不同而产生了差异，晚间的成绩最好，凌晨五点左右成绩最差。
Is there a best time to eat? To keep from packing on pounds, experts say, limit food consumption to your hours of peak activity. A study in Cell Metabolism last May linked disruptions of the body clock to weight gain. Researchers put two groups of mice on the same high-calorie diet. One group was allowed to eat anytime; the other group was restricted to eating only during an eight-hour period when they were normally awake and active. The mice that ate only while active were 40% leaner and had lower cholesterol and blood sugar.
有没有最佳的吃饭时间？专家说，为了避免体重增加，进食的时间要限制在活动最多的时间段。去年5月刊登在《细胞代谢》（Cell Metabolism）杂志上的一篇研究论文指出，生物钟的紊乱与体重增加有关系。研究人员让两组老鼠进食相同的高热量食物，其中一组可以在任何时候进食，另一组进食的时间限制在通常清醒活跃的八个小时内。只在活跃时间内进食的老鼠脂肪要少40%，胆固醇和血糖含量也都更低。
While more research is needed on humans, Dr. Kay says, the research suggests that 'we are not only what we eat, we are when we eat.'
凯博士说，虽然还需要针对人类做更多的研究，但是这项研究表明，“不仅吃什么与我们的体重有关，什么时候吃也很有关系。”