No Time to Think

没时间去思考

One of the biggest complaintsin modern society is being overscheduled, overcommitted and overextended. Askpeople at a social gathering how they are and the stock answer is “super busy” “crazybusy,” or “insanely busy,” Nobody is just “fine” anymore.

在现代社会，其中最大的一个抱怨就在于过多的计划安排，过多的束缚，过多的承担。在一个聚会中问到人们他们最近怎么样，得到的答案通常是“超级的忙碌”“疯狂的忙碌”或者“忙到精神错乱”，没有任何人感到“还好”。

When people aren’t super busyat work, they are crazy busy exercising, entertaining or taking their kids toChinese lessons. Or maybe they are insanely busy playing fantasy football,tracing their genealogy or churning their own butter.

当人们不在工作中超级忙的时候，他们就疯狂的忙于锻炼，娱乐或者带他们的孩子去上中文课。又或者他们狂暴的忙于玩梦幻足球，追溯他们的家谱或者搅拌自己的黄油。

And if there is ever a stillmoment for reflective thought—say, while waiting in line at the grocery storeor sitting in traffic—out comes the mobile device. So it’s worth nothing astudy published last month in the journal Science, which shows how far peoplewill go to avoid introspection.

而且假如有那么片刻时间可以进行反思性思维的话—比如，当在杂货店排队或者堵车时—就需要远离移动设备。因此上个月在一份学习型科学日报上出版物上面介绍说人们避开反省有多远，这样看来这份资料显得毫无作用。

“We had noted how wedded to ourdevices we all seem to be and that people seem to find any excuse they can tokeep busy,” said Timothy Wilson, a psychology professor at the University ofVirginia and lead author of the study. “No one had done a simple study lettingpeople go off on their own and think.”

“我们注意到我们所有人看起来是如何和我们的手机进行结合的，而且人们可以找到所有的借口去保持忙碌，”帝摩斯.威尔逊说道，他是美国弗吉尼亚大学的心理学教授，并且在研究中属于前沿作者。“没有人可以在离开自己的力量和思考的基础下完成一个哪怕简单的学习。”

The results surprised him andhave created a stir in the psychology and neuroscience communities. In 11experiments involving more than 700 people, the majority of participantsreported that they found it unpleasant to be alone in a room with theirthoughts for just 6 to 15 minutes.

这份结果震惊了他并且在心理学界和神经系统科学内部造成和很大的轰动。在11个包含700人的实验中，大部分的参与者表示他们独自与自己的想法呆在一起6到15分钟就会感觉不舒服。

Moreover, in one experiment, 64percent of men and 15 percent of women began self-administering electric shockswhen left alone to think. These same people, by the way, had previously saidthey would pay money to avoid receiving the painful jolt.

而且，在其中的一项实验中，64%的男士和15%的女士当其始独自思考的时候，开始自己电击自己，顺便一提，他们曾说过他们愿意支付费用以避免受到疼痛的的折磨。

It didn’t matter if thesubjects engaged in the contemplative exercise at home or in the laboratory, orif they were given suggestions of what to think about, like a coming vacation;they just didn’t like being in their own heads.

假设主题是在家或在实验室参与冥想练习，又或者他们是给出关于思考些什么这类的建议，比如一场说走就走的旅行，他们就不愿意在自己头脑中存在。

It could be because humanbeings, when left alone, tend to dwell on what’s wrong in their lives. We haveevolved to become problem solvers and meaning maker. What preys on our minds,when we aren’t updating our Facebook page or in spinning class, are the thingswe haven’t figured out—difficult relationships, personal and professionalfailures, monkey trouble, health concerns and so on. And until there isresolution, or at least some kind of understanding or acceptance, thesethoughts reverberate in our heads. Hello rumination. Hello insomnia.

这源于人性，当独处的时刻，就开始反思自己生命的过失。我们进化成为了问题的解决者和意义的制造者。当我们没有更新我们的Facebook页面或者去上动感单车课程，我们会在脑海中捕捉到的思想多半都是我们尚未计算出来的—复杂的人际关系，个人的或者职业上的错误，猴子问题，健康问题等等。直到有了解决方案，或者至少一些不同的理解或者接纳的出现，这些想法会回荡在我们的脑海之中。你好，沉思，你好，失眠。

“One explanation why peoplekeep themselves so busy and would rather shock themselves is that they aretrying to avoid that kind of negative stuff,” said Ethan Kross, director of theEmotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan. “It doesn’tfeel good if you’re not intrinsically good at reflecting.”

“为什么人们要让自己保持忙碌并且宁愿电击他们自己，其中的一个解释是他们在尝试避免那些消极思想的充满大脑，”伊桑.克洛斯说道，他是密歇根大学情感和自我控制实验室的主管。“如果你没有在反思之中实质的感到舒服，你是不会感觉良好的。”

The comedian Louis.C.K. has ariff that’s been watched nearly eight million times on YouTube in which hedescribes that not-good feeling. “Sometimes when things clear away and you’renot watching anything and you’re in your car and you start going, oh no, hereit comes, that I’m alone, and it starts to visit on you, just this sadness,” hesaid. “And that’s why we text and drive. People are willing to risk taking alife and running their own because they don’t want to be alone for a secondbecause it’s so hard.”

喜剧演员路易斯CK有一个段子在优酷上被重复观看近800万次，在这个段子上他演绎一段不好的感觉。“有时候当事情变得清晰，你没有看到任何事情，你在你的车子里，准备出发，哦，不，这个时候，我感到孤独，孤独在这个时候来拜访你，恰恰如此悲伤，”他说道，“这就是为什么我们发短信或者开车的原因，人们想要在生命中有过冒险并且发展成他们想要的样子，因为他们不愿意哪怕片刻的孤独，因为这太难了。”

But you can’t solve or let goof problems if you don’t allow yourself time to think about them. It’s animperative ignored by our culture, which values doing more than thinking andbelieves answers are in the palm of your hand rather than in your own head.

但是如果你不允许自己花时间去思考，你就解决或清除不了那些问题。在我们的文化中，这是紧急忽视的，这种价值观就是做比思考要多，而且相信这些答案在我们的手中，而不在我们头脑中。

“It’s like we’re all in thisaddicted 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 SlowingDown.” “There’s this widespread belief that thinking and feeling will only slowyou down and get in your way, but it’s the opposite.”

“这就像我们都在这个上瘾的大家庭中，这个家庭中忙碌时正常的即使这件事真的有害，”斯蒂芬妮.布朗说，她是一名在硅谷的心理学家，也是“速度：越来越快的追寻我们的毒品—和过分追求降速的恐惧”的作者。“这种广泛的信赖使得思考和感受都成为降低你效率的一种方法，但是实际上恰恰相反。”

Suppressing negative feelingsonly gives them more power, she said, leading to intrusive thoughts, whichmakes people get even busier to keep them at bay. The constant cognitive strainof evading emotions underlies a range of psychological troubles such asobsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression and panic attacks, not tomention a range of addictions. It is also associated with various somaticproblems like eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, inflammation, impairedimmunity and headaches.

抑制负面情绪只会给这些情绪带来力量，她说道，引导侵入的想法，这些会使人们通过变得更忙，忙到走投无路。这些逃避情绪的恒定认知压力会成为一系类的心理问题的基础，比如强迫症，焦虑症，沮丧以及恐慌袭击，更不必说一系列的成瘾症状。这同时也会与各种身体的问题联系到一起，比如湿疹，肠道过敏综合症，哮喘，炎症，免疫力缺陷以及头疼。

Studies further suggest thatnot giving yourself time to reflect impairs your ability to empathize withothers.”The more in touch with my own feelings an experiences, the richer andmore accurate are my guesses of what passes through another person’s mind,”said Giancarlo Dimaggio, a psychiatrist with the Center for MetacognitiveInterpersonal Therapy in Rome, who studies the interplay of self-reflection andempathy. “Feeling what you feel is an ability that atrophies if you don’t useit.”

进一步学习的建议是不要花费你的时间去反思，这会损害你站在他人的角度去感同身受的能力。“同我自己经验的感受建立越多的连接，就会更加丰富和精确的猜测到其他人的的想法，”詹卡罗.迪马乔说，他是一名罗马元认知人际关系治疗中心的精神病学家，他一直在研究自我反省和换位思考相互影响的课题。“感受自己的感觉是一项不使用就会萎缩的能力。”

Researchers have also foundthat an idle mind is a crucible of creativity. A number of studies have shownthat people tend to come up with more novel uses for objects if they are firstgiven an easy task that allows their minds to wander, rather than a moredemanding one.

研究者发现惰性思想是创造力的严酷考验。大量的学者已经表明人们趋于提出对物体更加新奇的使用，如果他们首先给了一个简单的任务让他们的思想接受，要比给出一个有要求的容易接受。

“Idle mental processingencourages creativity and solutions because imagining your problem when youaren’t in it is not the same as reality,” said Jonnathan Smallwood, a cognitiveneuroscientist at the University of York, in England. “Using your imaginationmeans you are in fact rethinking the problem in a novel way.”

“惰性心理过程可以鼓励创造力和解决方案，因为当你不处于你的问题终想象问题是与现实不一样的，”阿瑞斯题.斯麦尔伍德说，他是英国约克大学的一名神经系统科学家。“使用你的想象力意味着你在现实中使用一种新奇的方法反复考虑问题。”

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 freesup employees’ otherwise embattle brain space to intuit end users’ desires andcreate products to satisfy them.

也许那就是为什么谷歌给自己的雇员提供课程“探寻内在的自己”和“神经系统的自我切割”，这些包括在冥想中警醒，目的是为了认识和接受内在的想法而不是忽略和抑制它们。这成为了公司的有趣之处，因为这解放了雇员原本大脑的空间布局，通过直觉终结使用者的欲望并且创造产品满足他们自己。

“I have a lot of people whocome in and want to learn meditation to shut out thoughts that come up in thosequiet moments,” said Sarah Grisesemer, a psychologist in Austin, Tex., whoincorporates mindfulness meditation into her practice. “But allowing andtolerating the drifting in of thoughts is part of the process.” Her patients,mostly hard-charging professionals, report being more productive at work andmore energetic and engaged parents.

“有很多人来我这里并想要学习冥想去停止脑海中时刻出现的想法，”萨拉.格林斯莫说，他是一名心理学家，她在练习中包含了冥想警醒。“她的患者，大多都是努力进取的专业人士，在工作中报道上多富有成就，并且多有精力充沛且忙碌的父母。

To get rid of the emotionalstatic, experts advise not using first-person pronouns when thinking abouttroubling events in your life. Instead, use third-person pronouns or your ownname when thinking about yourself. “If a friend comes to you with a problem it’seasy to coach them through it, but if the problem is happening to us we havereal difficulty, in part because we have all these egocentric biases making ithard to reason rationally,” said Dr.Kross of Michigan. “The data clearly showsthat you can use language to almost trick yourself into thinking your problemsare happening to someone else.”

为了摆脱情感上的静态，专家建议当在思考你人生的一些困难的时候，不要使用第一人称。在思考自己的事情时，可以替换为第三人称或者自己的名字。“假如一个朋友遇到麻烦来找你，指导他们会显得容易，但是假设这个麻烦发生在自己身上就比较麻烦，部分原因是我们有利己主义的偏见会很难找到一个理性的理由，”密歇根的克洛斯说。“数据清楚的显示当你思考自己的问题时，你差不多能够使用语言欺骗自己，这同样也发生在其他人身上。”

Hard as they sometimes are,negative feelings are a part of everyone’s life, arguably more so if you arecrazy busy. But it’s those same deep and troubling feelings , and how you dealwith them, that make you the person you are. While busyness may stanch wellingsadness, it may also limit your ability to be overcome with joy.

就像他们有的时候的难处，负面情绪是每个人生命的一部分，可论证的尤其是假设你非常忙的时候。但是这同样深刻和麻烦的感觉，并且你怎么处理他们，这些将会塑造你是什么样的人。当忙碌可能会止住涌出悲伤；它也会限制你极度喜悦的能力。

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