消極思考讓你大腦緊繃,如何改變?Here's how to change it

消極思考讓你大腦緊繃,如何改變?Here's how to change it

04:02

當你總是消極地思考時,你的大腦運作會變慢並且降低小腦的活躍度,你將在解決問題時產生困難。那當我們正處於負面狀況時,我們應該怎麼做呢?

Okay, so you got a new sweater。

比如你剛買了一件毛衣。

It looks great and you‘re getting tons of compliments。

這件毛衣很漂亮,你因此收到了很多讚美的話。

But then just one person says something snarky about it and even though you got all that praise you, can’t help but stew over the negative comment。

但此時有個人說了相反的話,縱使你得到了那麼多稱讚,但還是不禁為這種負面評論苦惱。

Why is that?

為什麼會這樣?

Why does our mind seem to dwell on the negative?

為什麼我們的大腦會很在意負面的東西?

“A lot of my research focuses on how people tend to get stuck in particular ways of thinking and what enables them to get unstuck”。

“我的很多研究集中在人們如何傾向於陷入某種特定的思維方式,以及是什麼使他們打破這種思維方式。”

Alison Ledgerwood is a psychology professor at UC Davis。

Alison Ledgerwood是加州大學戴維斯分校的心理學教授。

“I get to study how humans think and how we could maybe think better”。

“我在研究人類是如何思考的,以及我們如何才能更好地進行思考。”

We all know the expression about seeing a glass as half-full or half-empty。

我們都知道,一個杯子是半滿的,同時我們也可以說它是半空的。

It isn‘t just what you see but how you see it。

這種表達並非取決於我們看到的結果,而取決於我們看的方式。

And the way describe that glass to people can really change how they feel about it。

而向人們描述這個杯子的方式可以真正改變他們對它的感覺。

Alison wanted to know what happens when you try to switch your way of thinking from the positive frame to the negative frame — or vice versa。

Alison想研究的是當人們試著將思維方式從積極向消極轉變的時候會發什麼,反之亦然。

Her research team brought two groups of people into the lab and told them about a new surgical procedure。

她的研究團隊把兩組人帶到實驗室,告訴他們一種新的外科手術。

Group one was told that the procedure has a 70% success rate。

他們告訴第一組手術成功率為70%。

For group two, they framed it as a 30 percent failure rate。

告訴第二組的是失敗率為30%。

“It’s the same exact procedure and they‘re giving you the exact same information, but one doctor is focusing on the part of the glass that’s full and the other doctor is focusing on the part of the glass that‘s empty”。

“一樣的手術,人們得到的資訊也相同,但(不同的是)一個醫生把注意力集中在‘半滿的杯子’,另一個醫生的注意力則在‘半空的杯子’上”。

So, no surprise: People like the procedure when it’s described in positive terms and they don‘t like it when you focus on the failure rate, but then the researchers pointed it out to the first group that you could also think of the procedure as failing 30% of the time。

所以,很正常,病人喜歡醫生用積極的話向他們描述手術過程,他們不喜歡醫生說到失敗率,但隨後研究人員向第一組人補充道,你也可以認為手術有30%失敗的風險。

Suddenly people didn’t like it anymore。

突然,人們就不喜歡這種說法了。

And when they tried a similar thing with group two, pointing out that the procedure had a 70% success rate, people didn‘t change their mind。

當他們在第二組的人們身上做類似的實驗,指出這個手術有70%的成功率時,人們並沒有改變他們的想法。

“And over and over again in studies like that we find that people seem to get stuck in the negative way of thinking about it and it’s hard for them to flip and focus on the positive”。

“在這樣的研究中,我們一次又一次地發現,人們似乎陷入了消極的思考方式中,他們很難轉過來關注積極的一面。”

So once you frame something negatively, it really sticks。

所以你一旦有了消極的想法,它就會被牢牢地記住。

“It makes sense from an evolutionary or functional perspective that our minds are built to look for negative information in the environment and to hold on to it once we find it”。

“從進化或功能的角度來看,我們的大腦天生就會從環境中尋找負面資訊,一旦找到就會牢牢記住。這是有道理的。”

Imagine your prehistoric ancestors。

想象一下我們史前的祖先。

You don‘t want to forget that there might be a predator lurking around。

你肯定不想忘記可能有捕食者潛伏在附近。

“In many situations, we want our minds to be grabbed by the negative information so that we can fix problems when they’re there”。

“在許多情況下,我們希望自己的思想被負面資訊所佔據,這樣當問題出現時,我們就能解決問題。”

But then there are other situations, where we want to get over some small imperfection or a bit of bad news, when it‘s not helpful to fixate on the negative。

但也有其他的情況,當我們想完善一些瑕疵或消除一點壞訊息時,專注於消極的東西是無益的。

What do we do then?

那我們該做些什麼呢?

“What I really take away from this research for my own life is that it’s difficult to see the upside and that it takes work, literally, that we have to put effort into looking at the bright side of things。

”我從這項研究中真正體會到的是,人們很難看到好的一面,這需要努力,字面意思就是我們必須努力去看事物光明的一面。

So we can‘t assume that our mind is just going to do that automatically and that it’s very easy to just keep tilting back towards the negatives“。

所以我們無法假設大腦會主動這麼做,並且它很容易就會不斷地向消極的一面傾斜。”

And this is something you can counteract with practice。

這是可以透過練習來克服的。

Like, spending a few minutes each day thinking about the things you‘re grateful for。

比如,每天花幾分鐘想想你感激的事情。

Doing this regularly can help it become a habit。

經常這樣做可以使之成為一種習慣。

And it turns out that this negative bias can change over time。

事實證明,這種消極的偏見會隨著時間的推移而改變。

Remember when you were younger and any bad experience felt like the end of the world?

還記得你年輕的時候,任何糟糕的經歷都會讓你感覺像是世界末日嗎?

“So this kind of pervasive negativity bias starts to diminish and so in our research we’ve we find that the stickiness of a negative frame seems to disappear entirely by the time people are in their seventies。

”所以這種普遍存在的消極偏見開始消失。在我們的研究中我們發現,消極思想的粘性似乎會在人們70多歲的時候完全消失。“

”They seem to flow back and forth between negatives and positives much more easily“。

”人們的思想似乎更容易在積極和消極之間來回流動。“

So maybe that‘s something we can all be grateful for — that there are actually some good things about getting older。

所以,也許這是我們都應該感激的事情——變老確實有一些好處。

How do you get out of negative ways of thinking?

你如何擺脫消極的思維方式?

Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out our other video all about the teenage brain。

請在下面的評論中告訴我們,要記得觀看我們的另一個關於青少年大腦的影片哦。

Remembering all the things you did as a teenager might make you cringe but neuroscientists are learning that some of the most puzzling teenage behavior may actually serve an evolutionary purpose。

把青少年時期做過的所有事情全部記住可能會讓你產生畏縮情緒,但是神經科學家們瞭解到,青少年時期一些最令人困惑的行為實際上可能是出於進化的目的而做出的。