英译汉

Imagine that you could rewind the clock 20 years, andyou’re 20 years younger. How do you feel? Well, if you’re at all like thesubjects in a provocative experiment by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, youactually feel as if your body clock has been turned back two decades. Langerdid a study like this with a group of elderly men some years ago, retrofittingan isolated old New England hotel so that every visible sign said it was 20years earlier. The men – in their late 70s and early 80s – were told not toreminisce about the past, but to actually act as if they had traveled back intime. The idea was to see if changing the men’s mindset about their own agemight lead to actual changes in health and fitness.

想象一下你可以回到20年前，你年轻了20岁。你感觉怎么样呢？好吧， 如果你像所有的哈佛心理学家艾琳兰格实验里的对象，你会真的感觉像年轻了20岁。兰格和一群老年男士做了一个像这样的研究， 改装一个孤立的新英格兰旅馆以至于每一个能看到的信号都在说它像20年前一样新。这些男士——在他们的70多岁末80多岁初——被告知不要去回忆过去，而失去像回到了过去一样行动。这个想法是想探究改变人关于自己年龄的心态是否能改变健康。

Langer’s findings were stunning: After just one week, themen in the experimental group (compared with controls of the same age) had morejoint flexibility, increased dexterity and less arthritis in their hands. Theirmental sensitivity had risen measurably, and they had improved posture.Outsiders who were shown the men’s photographs judged them to be significantlyyounger than the controls. In other words, the aging process had in somemeasure reversed.

兰格的发现令人震惊。仅仅一个月之后，在心理实验小组的人（和相同年龄的控制组进行比较）有更多共同的灵活性和敏捷性和更少的手部关节炎。他们的心理灵活性也发生了可衡量的提高，他们的精气神提升了。外部人判断照片里的人明显地比控制组的人更年轻。换言之，衰老的过程在一定程度上是相反的。

Though this sounds a bit woo-wooey, Langer and herHarvard colleagues have been running similarly inventive experiments fordecades, and the accumulated weight of the evidence is convincing. Her theory,argued in her new book,Counterclockwise, is that we are allvictims of our own stereotypes about aging and health. We mindlessly acceptnegative cultural cues about disease and old age, and these cues shape ourself-concepts and our behavior. If we can shake loose from the negative clichésthat dominate our thinking about health, we can “mindfully” open ourselves topossibilities for more productive lives even into old age.

虽然这听起来有点儿不可思议。兰格和她的哈佛同事已经组织这种相似的有创新性的实验几十年了，不断积累的证据越来越有说服力。在她的新书《逆时针》中，她的理论说我们都是自己关于年龄和衰老的陈旧观念的受害者。我们无心地接受关于疾病和年老的消极的文化提示，这些提示塑造了我们的自我概念和行为。如果我们能从消极的决定我们关于健康的思考的陈旧观念中解放出来，我们就能在心理上让自己向在老年时更多产的生活的可能性敞开。

Consider another of Langer’s mindfulness studies, thisone using an ordinary optometrist’s eye chart. That’s the chart with the huge Eon top, and descending lines of smaller and smaller letters that eventuallybecome unreadable. Langer and her colleagues wondered: what if we reversed it?The regular chart creates the expectation that at some point you will be unableto read. Would turning the chart upside down reverse that expectation, so thatpeople would expect the letters to become readable? That’s exactly what theyfound. The subjects still couldn’t read the tiniest letters, but when they wereexpecting the letters to get more legible, they were able to read smallerletters than they could have normally. Their expectation – their mindset –improved their actual vision.

考虑另一个关于兰格的正念研究，这一个用了一个普通的验光师的视力检查表。那是种巨大的E在最顶端，下面的越来越小直至看不见。兰格和她的同事思考：如果我们反过来这个表呢？这个常规的表创造了在某个点你可能看不见的期望。把表颠倒过来会不会颠覆那个观念？人们会我期望自己字母能看清吗？这就是他们的发现。这些被试者仍然看不清最小的字母，但是当他们期望字母能被看清的时候，他们能够看清比他们正常看的时候更小的字母。这种期望——他们的心态——改善了实际的情况。