The weekend looms, and that means a lie-in for many - though with the clocks going forward there'll be an hour's less shut-eye on Sunday morning. But, says Sean Coughlan, there's more to getting a really good kip than just shutting your eyes.

    Britons are the worst sleepers in Europe, claimed a survey last week, depicting a nation starved of sleep and facing a daily battle against red-eyed exhaustion.

    Notice in boarding house

    One in five of the population sleeps for fewer than seven hours a night, according to research from the Future Foundation for the health campaign Sleep Well Live Well. Many of these tired souls reported feeling stressed and unhappy.

    But how about looking at the question from another direction? If insufficient or disrupted sleep is bad for our health - then what would be the ingredients of a really good night's sleep? What makes a perfect sleep?

    Dr Adrian Williams of the Sleep Disorders Centre at St Thomas's Hospital in London sets out a few ground rules.

    Don't have any caffeine drinks after 2pm, exercise some time between 4pm and 7pm, have a milky drink and a bath before bedtime and try to exclude noise and light from the bedroom, recommends Dr Williams.

    But sleep is a highly individual experience. Like our appetite for different types of food, we all have our own gourmet sleeps. Here are 10 to savour.

    1. THE AFTERNOON NAP

    According to the wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the pearl of slumbers was the afternoon nap. "You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed."

    2. THE WEARY PARENT

    For the sleep-starved parent, it can feel as though they've given birth to a temperamental air-raid siren. Their sleep fantasy is nothing more elaborate than a night alone and a long luxurious morning when they can wake up undisturbed. Maybe they could warm the room with a bonfire of all those smug-faced sleep training manuals.

    3. HOTEL SCHADENFREUDE

    There are few more succulent slices of sleep than the first morning of a holiday. No alarm clock, no rushing for the train, no playing hunt the other sock, no making sandwiches for the kids. What makes it even sweeter is the thought of everyone else back at work toiling over a hot computer.

    4. THE GREAT OUTDOORS

    Sleeping outside has a particular grass-scented pleasure, whether it's drowsing on a sunny afternoon in the back garden, on the beach or in the park. Looking up at the clouds creates that feeling of getting back to nature.

    Fresh-air sleeping has a long tradition. Alice Ravenhill, an Edwardian authority on rearing children, ordered that bedroom windows should be always fully open, apart from in the severest cold spells. In summer, she recommended sleeping on the porch.

    Modern hotels say they pitch their optimum room temperature for sleeping at 18 degrees. It must have been all the other ones I've stayed in that are hotter than the Gobi desert, with the windows bolted shut.

    5. COMFY PILLOW

    Pillows now come with almost as much science as hair conditioner. And there are versions with in-built speakers to play sleep-inducing sounds such as a heart beat or soothing music.

    This would not have impressed the Elizabethan writer, William Harrison, who attacked the young men of the 1580s for being so soft that they used pillows to help them sleep. In his day, real men slept on wooden logs or hairy sacks. Allergenic or non-allergenic sack, sir?

    6. KEPT IN THE DARK

    For a city dweller, used to a constant fog of light, it can be a rare treat to sleep in undisturbed treacly darkness. It's becoming more and more difficult to find. There are light polluted skies outside - and the insides of homes are overflowing with light-emitting gadgets. Kielder in Northumberland is claimed as having the darkest skies left in England.

    7. SNEAKY CINEMA SNORING

    We've all been there. It's warm, it's dark, the mobile is switched off and you're watching a film or a play, and you feel an irresistible urge to close your eyes. It's been a long day and your body is crying out for a delicious moment of rest. The innovative Japanese have recognised a gap in the market and run "sleep concerts", in which rows and rows of exhausted salarymen cheerfully snore while the musicians play.

    8. NIGHT MUSIC

    Who wouldn't enjoy being lulled to sleep by music? Or else the music is so dull that staying awake becomes impossible. Interpret this either way, but a study for the hotel chain Travelodge says that Coldplay and James Blunt are the most sleep-inducing musicians. Guests also like "unchallenging" reads, with the literary works of Jordan and David Beckham topping the sleep chart.

    9. DREAMING OF FOOD

    The Christmas sleep, after a big dinner, is a classic of its kind. But different types of food have associations with inducing sleep. The NHS recommends eating bananas. Since the Romans, lettuce has been a persistent ingredient in sleep recipes. Less attractive is the use of dormouse fat, as used by the Elizabethans. The Victorians recommended top quality champagne as an insomnia cure. Even if you didn't get to sleep, it would still have been a good party.

    10. WEEKEND LIE-IN

    Going home on Friday, the weekend stretches out alluringly. The first pleasure is the morning lie-in, that extra hour or so when everything seems possible. You lie there planning that great novel, dipping in and out of sleep. Nathaniel Hawthorne caught this perfectly: "You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction."

    Maybe we're not bad at sleep, just out of practice.

    據(jù)上周的一項調(diào)查稱，英國是歐洲睡眠質(zhì)量最差的國家。該調(diào)查是關(guān)于失眠情況以及日常對抗眼睛疲勞的情況。

    要想睡個好覺可是有法可循的。

    據(jù)未來基金會的健康運動研究項目《睡得好 活得好》稱，有五分之一的人夜間睡眠時間不足7小時。其中很多人因疲憊而感到緊張和不快樂。

    但如果從另一角度看這個問題又會怎樣呢？如果睡眠不足或者睡眠中斷會影響我們的健康--那么什么樣的睡眠才算是質(zhì)量好的睡眠呢？怎么才能睡個完美的覺呢？

    倫敦圣托馬斯醫(yī)院睡眠障礙中心的阿德里安威廉斯博士提出了一些基本規(guī)則。

    威廉姆斯博士的建議包括：下午2點之后不要喝咖啡，下午4點到7點間做會兒運動，上床睡覺前喝杯牛奶、洗個澡，盡量讓臥室里沒有噪音和燈光。

    但是睡覺很大程度上依賴于個人經(jīng)驗。就像我們都有自己喜歡的食物，我們也有自己喜歡的睡眠方式。這里有十種方法你可以試試。

    1.午后小睡一會兒

    對戰(zhàn)時首相溫斯頓丘吉爾來說，最美妙的睡眠就是午后小睡。"在午飯與晩飯之間，你一定要小睡片刻，除下你的衣服走上床吧！"

    2.疲憊的父母

    對那些睡眠不足的父母們，他們可能會覺得自己生下的是個喜怒無常的防空警報鈴。他們唯一的夢想就是能夠單獨呆一晚上，并能夠享受一下悠長、奢侈的自然醒，不受孩子們的打擾。或許他們還可以根據(jù)睡眠手冊上的方法，在屋子里點個篝火，讓屋子暖和起來。

    3.躲在酒店里幸災(zāi)樂禍

    沒有哪天的睡眠比假期第一天早上更美好了。沒有鬧鈴，不用急著趕火車，不用匆匆忙忙的滿地找襪子，不用給孩子們做三明治。而讓這一天顯得更美好的就是想到其他那些回到工作崗位的人正面對著大計算機辛辛苦苦地工作。

    4.享受一下美好的戶外環(huán)境

    睡在外面能夠給人一種特殊的快樂感，不論是午后睡在花園里、海灘上或者公園里。仰望著天上的云朵會讓人覺得回到了大自然。

    在戶外睡覺有很悠久的歷史。愛麗絲 雷勒諾，愛德華七世時代的兒童撫養(yǎng)專家，要求除了有最寒冷的日子外，其他時間里臥室的窗戶必須保持全開。夏天，她建議睡在門廊里。

    現(xiàn)代酒店都將最佳睡眠溫度設(shè)為18度。我住過的酒店肯定不是這樣的酒店，因為它們都要比戈壁沙漠還是炎熱，而且窗子全都關(guān)的緊緊地。

    5.找個舒服的枕頭睡覺

    現(xiàn)在枕頭就像護發(fā)素一樣講究科學(xué)。有的枕頭內(nèi)置揚聲器播放能誘使睡眠的聲音，比如心跳聲或者舒緩的音樂。

    不過這肯定對伊麗莎白時代的作家威廉哈里遜沒用，他因為16世紀(jì)80年代的年輕人使用非常軟的枕頭幫助睡眠而批判他們。在他那個時代，真正的男人要睡在原木枕頭上或者毛茸茸的麻袋上。麻袋有沒有過敏和防過敏之分，先生？

    6.保持睡眠空間的黑暗

    城市里到處都是霓虹燈，所以對于城市居民要想睡在完全黑暗的環(huán)境中可是很不容易。這種環(huán)境越來越難找到。屋子外面有燈光照亮天空，而屋子里面也有一些小工具在閃閃發(fā)光。據(jù)稱，英格蘭最黑暗的天空在諾森伯蘭的基德。

    7.在電影院里偷偷睡覺

    我們都到那里去過。電影院里溫暖、黑暗，等都被關(guān)掉了，你在看電影或者演出，然后你有一種不可抗拒的感覺想要閉上眼睛。你已經(jīng)度過了漫長的一天，你的身體正在大聲疾呼要享受一下這美妙的休息時刻。具有創(chuàng)新精神的日本已經(jīng)注意到了這個試場缺口，并已開始運作一種叫做"睡眠音樂會"的商業(yè)活動，在這種音樂會上成排成排疲憊的上班族在音樂家的演奏中快樂的打著鼾。

    8.聽聽小夜曲

    誰會不喜歡在音樂聲里睡去呢？要不就是音樂聲實在太沉悶了，讓你不睡都不可能。不管是哪一種方式，反正根據(jù)對旅游連鎖酒店做的一項研究顯示，酷玩樂隊和詹姆斯·布朗特的音樂最能夠誘使人們睡覺。客人們也喜歡"沒有挑戰(zhàn)性"的閱讀，而關(guān)于喬丹和大衛(wèi)貝克漢姆的文學(xué)作品就不適合用來睡前讀。

    9.吃些能幫助睡眠的食物

    典型的就是圣誕節(jié)大餐后的睡眠。但是不同類型的食物對睡眠的誘導(dǎo)作用不同。英國本地醫(yī)療體系NHS 建議睡前吃香蕉。而從羅馬時代開始，人們就知道生菜含有誘導(dǎo)睡眠的成分。像伊麗莎白那樣使用睡鼠脂肪幫助睡眠的方法就沒那么有吸引力了。而維多利亞香檳酒被認(rèn)為對治療失眠最有效。即使它沒讓你睡著，至少你還能有個快樂的聚會。

    10.周末睡個懶覺

    周五回到家就意味著周末已經(jīng)充滿誘惑的向你伸開了雙臂。最讓人高興的就是早上可以睡上幾小時的懶覺，不管外面發(fā)生了什么。你躺在那里享受著這美妙的一刻，時斷時續(xù)的睡著。納撒尼爾霍索恩對這一時刻有個完美的表述："You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction."

    或許我們并不是睡不好，而是不知道該怎么睡。