【推荐1】Are you having difficulty falling asleep? Try drinking a glass of warm milk. If that doesn't work, listen to beautiful soft music. Still no luck? Try thinking about sheep jumping over a fence. If you are still awake, take a sleeping pill. But people who take pills often become dependent on the drugs. So you lie awake knowing that the new workday will soon arrive. If you have been in such condition for at least one month, you may have primary insomnia（失眠症）.

A new study has found that you might fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep longer if you try "cerebral hypothermia". It is not a complex medical process. It just means cooling down your brain. Eric Nofzinger and Daniel Buysse from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School led the study. They examined twelve people who had sleeping problems. Twelve others had no sleeping problems. Each of them wore a soft plastic cap on their head at bedtime.

The caps had tubes inside filled with water. The researchers moved the water through the tubes and then changed the temperature of the water. Other studies showed that people who had sleeping problems often had more chemical reactions in the front of their brains. The researchers thought cooling down the brain might help.

On the first two nights of testing, the patients wore caps with no water. On the next two nights, the caps were worn, but the water was not cooled. Then the researchers cooled the water a little for another two nights. On the final two nights of the study, the temperature of the water was made much cooler.

The researchers found that the water caps didn't help the patients until the temperature was about 14℃. Most of the patients fell asleep faster and slept better when the coolest water was moving around their heads.

Dr. Nofzinger and Dr. Buysse noted that this was only the beginning of the brain temperature study. But they believed they had discovered something important that needed more research.

【推荐2】Three minutes of looking at red light once a week may help our eyesight, new research suggests. The findings show that red light might be a cheap and easy treatment for declines (衰退) in color vision (视力) as we get older.

Last year, researchers from University College London did a study on red light therapy (疗法). 24 healthy volunteers, aged between 28 and 72, were asked to look at red light for three minutes every day for two weeks. Tests later found that the eyesight of people over the age of 40 improved.

To test the possible weak points of their therapy, they did a new study this year. Instead of using the light every day, they used it once a week. The new study included 20 volunteers, aged between 34 and 70, all with healthy vision. Some received red light therapy in the morning, and others received it in the afternoon. They were then tested on their color vision up to a week later.

On the whole, those who got the treatment in the morning showed a 17% improvement in their color vision, even a week later. Those who got the treatment in the afternoon did not have any improvement.

“We’ve found that one single treatment in the morning can greatly improve declining vision.” said lead author Glen Jeffrey.

The findings do support their earlier work, and they might make the treatment more practicable, since a once-weekly treatment is easier to stick to than a daily one. But the team’s promising results are still drawn on small numbers of healthy volunteers Larger studies would be needed to show the help of red light therapy.

“In the near future, a once-a-week three-minute treatment could be done while making a coffee or listening to a song, and such a simple thing could change eye care and vision around the world,” Jeffrey said.

Given its low cost (as little as $15) per machine, and simplicity, the team is excited about the future of their therapy.