如何預測棒球比賽成績？

If youre a true sports fan， youve probably lost sleep wondering if jet lag affects the performance of your favorite teams.

Youre not the only one. To answer this important question， scientists analyzed three years of major league baseball games to see if they could find a link between jet lag， and home field advantage.

They discovered that baseball teams playing at home won over half the time. However， if the visiting team had just traveled eastward， say， from L.A. to New York， the home team scored more runs. If the visiting team had just traveled west， this didnt affect the point spread.

These findings support other studies that show that traveling east is harder on your body than traveling west.

Why？ Well， your body is tuned to what are called circadian rhythms which determine things like when you fall asleep， and when you wake up. If you lived under a rock， your bodys natural cycles would be slightly longer than 24 hours.

However， exposure to factors like daylight， temperature， and other people fine-tunes your bodys cycles to your local time zone. When you travel， this tuning is thrown out of whack， and it takes your body time to readjust. This adjustment is easier if youre heading west because this lengthens your day in the natural direction of your internal clock. However， if youre heading east， youre compressing your day， and working against your internal clock， which makes adjustment more difficult.

While none of this bodes well if youre a die-hard Dodgers fan， it may be worth remembering the next time you participate in the office pool.

如果你是鐵桿體育迷，你可能會通宵熬夜，想要知道時差是否會影響你所喜愛的球隊的表現。

許多人和你一樣。為了回答這個重要的問題，科學家們分析了職業棒球大聯盟三年的比賽，看看能否找出時差和主場優勢之間的聯系。

他們發現主場比賽的棒球隊贏的次數超過半數。然而，如果客隊是剛剛去過東部，比如說從洛杉磯去紐約，主隊會多贏幾輪。如果客隊去過西部，則不會影響比分。

這些發現支持了其他一些研究，即向東旅行對身體的的負擔要比向西重。

這是為什么呢？身體遵循生理節律，比如它決定你何時入睡，何時醒來這樣的事情。如果你活得與世隔絕，你身體的自然周期要比24小時略長一點。

然而，受到像陽光、溫度和人群這些因素的影響，你的身體循環會與本地時區同步。當你去旅行時，調節變得紊亂，身體要花費時間重新調整。如果你是朝西走，調整會容易一點，因為這會延長你在自然走向下的生物鐘。但是如果是朝東走，你就是在壓縮一天的時間，與生物鐘相逆，這會使調整更困難。

不過，如果你是死硬的道奇隊的粉絲，這些都不是好兆頭，倒是可以成為下次下注時的參考。