Men, sharing your bed reduces brainpower

Sharing your bed can reduce your brain power - but only if you are a man, say scientists.

When men spend the night in the same bed with someone else their sleep patterns are disturbed, even if they do not make love, new research shows.

And this leads to poorer performance in mental agility tests the next day.

However women do not suffer the same problem. They too have disturbed sleep if they share a bed, but tend to get better quality rest when they do finallydrop off. This means their brain power remains undiminished.

The finding suggests that if a man has an important day ahead he would be best to head off to thespare roomto sleep rather than sharing the marital bed.

A team led by Professor Gerhard Kloesch at the University of Vienna recruited eight unmarried, childless couples in their twenties for their study.

He asked them to spend 10 nights sleeping apart and ten together while he monitored their rest patterns at night through wrist monitors and sleep diaries.

The next day he gave them mental ability or 'cognitive' tests.

Even without having sex, everyone had more disturbed sleep when sharing a bed than alone but the effects of this on the brain only affected the men, according to the finding.

According to the research report, lack of sleep led to increased stress hormone levels in men and reduced their ability to perform simple cognitive tests the next day.

However women seemed to show no such ill-effects even if their sleep was just as disturbed. The researchers found women were more refreshed than men even when they slept the same number of hours and so concluded they must sleep more deeply.

The study also found sharing a bed can impact on dreams. Typically women remembered more of their dreams after sleeping alone while men recalled the most after sex.

科学家提示：如果你是男性，和伴侣同床共枕会使你的脑力下降。

一项最新研究表明，如果男性和伴侣同床而眠，即使不做爱，他们的睡眠模式也会被打乱。

这会导致他们在第二天的大脑反应灵敏度下降。

然而，女性却不会受到这个问题的困扰。当然，她们和伴侣同床时，睡眠也会受到影响，但她们一旦睡着了，身体就会得到很好的休息。这就意味着她们的脑力没有下降。

研究结果建议，如果第二天有重要的事情要做，男性在前一天晚上最好去客房睡，而不要和伴侣睡在一起。

维也纳大学的这个研究小组由杰哈德·克罗奇教授担任组长，共招募了8对20多岁的未婚无子女情侣作为研究对象。

杰哈德·克罗奇教授让他们分床睡10个晚上，再同床睡10个晚上，与此同时，他通过调查对象的手腕监视器和睡眠日记来监视他们晚上的睡眠状态。

第二天，再让他们做脑力或"认知"测试。

结果表明，即使没有性生活，每个人和伴侣同床而睡时，睡眠质量都要比单独睡时差。但只有男性的大脑会因此受到影响。

调查报告称，缺乏睡眠会导致男性体内应激激素水平升高，从而使他们第二天应付简单认知测试的能力下降。

然而，女性的睡眠即使受到影响，她们却没有类似的不良反应。研究人员们还发现，女性和男性睡眠时间相同的情况下，她们的精力会更充沛，由此推论，女性的睡眠要比男性深。

此外，研究发现，同床而睡还会对做梦产生影响。女性在单独睡觉后，往往会更清楚地记得梦的内容，而男性则是在做爱后，能清楚的回忆起梦的内容。

Vocabulary:
drop off: 睡觉
spare room: 客房；空房