文章来源: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/sunday-review/no-time-to-think.html
ONE of the biggest complaints in modern society is being overscheduled, overcommitted and overextended. Ask people at a social gathering how they are and the stock answer is “super busy,” “crazy busy” or “insanely busy.” Nobody is just “fine” anymore.
overscheduled adj. 工作繁忙
stock adj. 古板的，公式化的 n. 股票
现代社会最大的抱怨之一是超额预算，过度使用和过度扩张。 在社交聚会上询问他们是怎么回事，通常的答案是“超级繁忙”，“疯狂忙碌”或“非常忙碌”。没人再“好”了。
When people aren’t super busy at work, they are crazy busy exercising, entertaining or taking their kids to Chinese lessons. Or maybe they are insanely busy playing fantasy football, tracing their genealogy or churning their own butter.
insanely adv. 疯狂地
genealogy n. 家谱
churn vt. 搅动
当人们工作不繁忙时，他们很忙于锻炼，娱乐或带孩子上中文课。 或者他们疯狂地忙着玩幻想足球，追踪他们的家谱或搅动自己的黄油。
And if there is ever a still moment for reflective thought — say, while waiting in line at the grocery store or sitting in traffic — out comes the mobile device. So it’s worth noting a study published last month in the journal Science, which shows how far people will go to avoid introspection.
grocery store 杂货铺
wait in line 排队等候
introspection n. 自我检查
如果还有一段时间需要反思，比如在杂货店排队等候，或者坐在交通中，移动设备就会出现。 因此，值得注意的是上个月在“科学”杂志上发表的一项研究，该研究表明人们将避免反思的程度。
“We had noted how wedded to our devices we all seem to be and that people seem to find any excuse they can to keep busy,” said Timothy Wilson, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and lead author of the study. “No one had done a simple study letting people go off on their own and think.”
弗吉尼亚大学心理学教授，该研究的主要作者Timothy Wilson说：“我们注意到我们似乎都习惯了我们的设备，人们似乎找到了任何可以继续忙碌的借口。” “没有人做过简单的研究，让人们自己去思考。”
The results surprised him and have created a stir in the psychology and neuroscience communities. In 11 experiments involving more than 700 people, the majority of participants reported that they found it unpleasant to be alone in a room with their thoughts for just 6 to 15 minutes.
stir n. 轰动
结果令他惊讶，并在心理学和神经科学界引起了轰动。 在涉及超过700人的11个实验中，大多数参与者报告说，他们发现在一个房间里呆着6到15分钟的时间，他们感到很不高兴。
Moreover, in one experiment, 64 percent of men and 15 percent of women began self-administering electric shocks when left alone to think. These same people, by the way, had previously said they would pay money to avoid receiving the painful jolt.
jolt n. 颠簸
此外，在一项实验中，当独自思考时，64％的男性和15％的女性开始自我管理电击。 顺便说一下，这些人之前曾表示他们会付钱以避免遭受痛苦的颠簸。
It didn’t matter if the subjects engaged in the contemplative exercise at home or in the laboratory, or if they were given suggestions of what to think about, like a coming vacation; they just didn’t like being in their own heads.
contemplative adj. 沉思的, 冥想的
如果受试者在家里或在实验室里进行了沉思的运动，或者他们有什么想法的建议，就像即将到来的假期那样，这并不重要; 他们只是不喜欢在自己的头上。
It could be because human beings, when left alone, tend to dwell on what’s wrong in their lives. We have evolved to become problem solvers and meaning makers. What preys on our minds, when we aren’t updating our Facebook page or in spinning class, are the things we haven’t figured out — difficult relationships, personal and professional failures, money trouble, health concerns and so on. And until there is resolution, or at least some kind of understanding or acceptance, these thoughts reverberate in our heads. Hello rumination. Hello insomnia.
dwell vi. 居住
solver n. 解决者
prey vi. 掠夺
spinning n. 纺织
acceptance n. 接纳，赞同
reverberate vi. 回想
rumination n. 反思
insomnia n. 失眠
这可能是因为当人们独自一人时，往往会纠缠于他们生活中的错误。 我们已经发展成为问题解决者和意义制定者。 当我们没有更新我们的Facebook页面或纺织课程时，我们脑海里浮现的是我们尚未想出的东西 - 困难的关系，个人和专业故障，资金问题，健康问题等等。 直到有解决方案，或者至少某种理解或接受，这些想法才回荡在我们的脑海中。 反思你好。 失眠你也好。
“One explanation why people keep themselves so busy and would rather shock themselves is that they are trying to avoid that kind of negative stuff,” said Ethan Kross, director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan. “It doesn’t feel good if you’re not intrinsically good at reflecting.”
shock vt. 使休克
intrinsically adv. 本质上
密歇根大学情绪与自我控制实验室主任Ethan Kross说：“人们为什么保持自己如此忙碌，宁可让自己震惊的一种解释是，他们试图避免这种负面的东西。” “如果你本质上不善于反思，那感觉不好。”
The comedian Louis C.K. has a riff that’s been watched nearly eight million times on YouTube in which he describes that not-good feeling. “Sometimes when things clear away and you’re not watching anything and you’re in your car and you start going, oh no, here it comes, that I’m alone, and it starts to visit on you, just this sadness,” he said. “And that’s why we text and drive. People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second because it’s so hard.”
喜剧演员Louis C.K. 在YouTube上观看了近800万次的即兴表演，他描述了这种不好的感觉。 “有时候，当事情消失了，你没有看任何东西，而且你在车里，你就开始走了，哦，不，这就来了，我独自一人，它开始拜访你，只是这种悲伤， “ 他说。 “这就是我们发短信和开车的原因。 人们愿意冒险度过一生并毁了自己，因为他们不想一秒独闯一人，因为这太难了。“
But you can’t solve or let go of problems if you don’t allow yourself time to think about them. It’s an imperative ignored by our culture, which values doing more than thinking and believes answers are in the palm of your hand rather than in your own head.
imperative adj. 紧迫的
palm n. 手掌 棕榈
但是如果你没有时间考虑这些问题，你就无法解决或放弃问题。 这是我们文化所忽视的一个迫切需要，它的重要性不仅在于思考，而且相信答案掌握在掌中，而不是掌握在自己的头上。
“It’s like we’re all in this addicted family where all this busyness seems normal when it’s really harmful,” said Stephanie Brown, a psychologist in Silicon Valley and the author of “Speed: Facing Our Addiction to Fast and Faster — and Overcoming Our Fear of Slowing Down.” “There’s this widespread belief that thinking and feeling will only slow you down and get in your way, but it’s the opposite.”
“就像我们都在这个上瘾的家庭里，当这真是有害的时候，所有这些忙碌似乎都是正常的，”硅谷的心理学家斯蒂芬妮布朗说，“速度：快速而快速地面对我们的成瘾 - 并克服我们的 害怕减速。“”人们普遍认为，思维和感觉只会让你放慢速度，阻碍你前进，但事实恰恰相反。“
Suppressing negative feelings only gives them more power, she said, leading to intrusive thoughts, which makes people get even busier to keep them at bay. The constant cognitive strain of evading emotions underlies a range of psychological troubles such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression and panic attacks, not to mention a range of addictions. It is also associated with various somatic problems like eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, inflammation, impaired immunity and headaches.
suppress vt. 压抑
intrusiveadj. 打扰的
bay n. 海湾
cognitive adj. 认知的
strain n. 应变
evade vt. 回避
compulsive adj. 强制的
disorder n. 紊乱
depression n. 沮丧，萧条
syndrome n. 综合征
asthma n. 哮喘
inflammation n. 炎症
抑制消极情绪只会给予他们更多的权力，她说，导致了侵入性的想法，这使得人们变得更忙，让他们陷入困境。 逃避情绪的持续认知压力是一系列心理问题的基础，如强迫症，焦虑，抑郁和惊恐发作，更不用说一系列的成瘾。 它也与各种身体问题如湿疹，肠易激综合征，哮喘，炎症，免疫力受损和头痛有关。
Studies further suggest that not giving yourself time to reflect impairs your ability to empathize with others. “The more in touch with my own feelings and experiences, the richer and more accurate are my guesses of what passes through another person’s mind,” said Giancarlo Dimaggio, a psychiatrist with the Center for Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy in Rome, who studies the interplay of self-reflection and empathy. “Feeling what you feel is an ability that atrophies if you don’t use it.”
metacognitive adj. 元认知的
empathize vi. 同情
atrophies n. 萎缩
研究进一步表明，不给自己时间反映会削弱你对他人的同情心。 罗马元认知人际治疗中心的精神病学家Giancarlo Dimaggio说：“我越是接触自己的感受和经历，越丰富和准确的是我对经过别人的想法的猜测。” 自我反省和同理心。 “如果你不使用它，感觉你的感受是一种萎缩的能力。”
Researchers have also found that an idle mind is a crucible of creativity. A number of studies have shown that people tend to come up with more novel uses for objects if they are first given an easy task that allows their minds to wander, rather than a more demanding one.
crucible n. 坩埚
wander vi. 漫步，徘徊
demanding adj. 严格的
研究人员还发现，闲散的头脑是创造力的坩埚。 大量的研究表明，如果人们首先给予一个容易的任务，让他们的头脑可以流浪，而不是更加苛刻的人，那么人们会想出更多新的用途。
“Idle mental processing encourages creativity and solutions because imagining your problem when you aren’t in it is not the same as reality,” said Jonathan Smallwood, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of York, in England. “Using your imagination means you are in fact rethinking the problem in a novel way.”
英国约克大学认知神经科学家乔纳森斯莫尔伍德说：“空闲的心理加工鼓励创造力和解决方案，因为当你不在身边时想象你的问题与现实不一样。”约克大学认知神经科学家乔纳森斯莫尔伍德说。 “用你的想象力意味着你实际上正在以一种新颖的方式重新思考问题。”
Perhaps that’s why Google offers its employees courses called “Search Inside Yourself” and “Neural Self-Hacking,” which include instruction on mindfulness meditation, where the goal is to recognize and accept inner thoughts and feelings rather than ignore or repress them. It’s in the company’s interest because it frees up employees’ otherwise embattled brain space to intuit end users’ desires and create products to satisfy them.
instruction n. 指令 教学
mindfulness meditation 正念冥想
repress vt. 压抑
intuit n. 意会
desire n. 欲望
也许这就是为什么Google向其员工提供名为“自己搜索”和“神经自我黑客”的课程，其中包括正念冥想教学，目标是识别和接受内心的想法和感受，而不是忽视或压制他们。 这符合公司的利益，因为它可以释放员工在其他方面陷入困境的大脑空间，从而让最终用户的愿望得到满足，并创造出满足他们需求的产品。
“I have a lot of people who come in and want to learn meditation to shut out thoughts that come up in those quiet moments,” said Sarah Griesemer, a psychologist in Austin, Tex., who incorporates mindfulness meditation into her practice. “But allowing and tolerating the drifting in of thoughts is part of the process.” Her patients, mostly hard-charging professionals, report being more productive at work and more energetic and engaged parents.
incorporate vt. 包括
tolerate vt. 容忍
drifting 漂流
engaged parents 给父母赋能
德克萨斯州奥斯汀市的心理学家萨拉格里塞梅说：“我有很多人进来想学习冥想，从而拒绝那些安静的时刻出现的想法，她将正念冥想融入到她的实践中。 “但允许和容忍思维的漂移是这个过程的一部分。”她的病人，大多数是收费很高的专业人士，报告说他们的工作效率更高，父母更有能力和更有活力。
To get rid of the emotional static, experts advise not using first-person pronouns when thinking about troubling events in your life. Instead, use third-person pronouns or your own name when thinking about yourself. “If a friend comes to you with a problem it’s easy to coach them through it, but if the problem is happening to us we have real difficulty, in part because we have all these egocentric biases making it hard to reason rationally,” said Dr. Kross of Michigan. “The data clearly shows that you can use language to almost trick yourself into thinking your problems are happening to someone else.”
get rid of 摆脱
egocentric adj. 自我中心的
biasy n. 偏见
trick vt. 欺骗
为了摆脱情绪静止，专家建议在思考生活中令人不安的事情时不要使用第一人称代词。 相反，在思考自己时，应使用第三人称代词或自己的名字。 “如果一个朋友问你一个问题，很容易指导他们完成，但如果问题发生在我们身上，我们会遇到实际困难，部分原因是因为我们都有这些以自我为中心的偏见，导致很难理性地推理，”博士说。 。密歇根州的克罗斯。 “数据清楚地表明，你可以用语言来欺骗自己，让自己认为你的问题正在发生在别人身上。”
Hard as they sometimes are, negative feelings are a part of everyone’s life, arguably more so if you are crazy busy. But it’s those same deep and troubling feelings, and how you deal with them, that make you the person you are. While busyness may stanch welling sadness, it may also limit your ability to be overcome with joy.
arguably adv. 按理说
尽管他们有时很难，但负面情绪是每个人生活的一部分，如果你疯了，可以说更是如此。 但那是同样深沉和令人不安的感觉，以及你如何处理它们，这使你成为你自己的人。 虽然忙碌可能会伤害到悲伤，但它也可能会限制你快乐地克服的能力。