——选自World Economic Forum 网站（吉玛译）
Why haven't our brains learnt to get rid of negative emotions? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
为什么我们的大脑仍未学会摆脱负面情绪呢?最初知乎出现的原因:让人们可以在知乎上获得和分享知识，向他人学习，更好地了解世界。
Answer by , Investor & Accidental Podcaster, on Quora:
知乎上的投资者和播客回答如下:
Why haven't our brains learnt to get rid of negative emotions?
为什么我们的大脑仍未学会摆脱负面情绪呢?
I have studied questions like this deeply and interviewed tons of experts from psychologists to neuroscientists (and much more) - and I think I can help shed some light on why this question is a bit misguided and also give you some simple and easy tools to help deal with negative emotions.
我有深入研究这样的问题,并采访了大量的专家，从心理学家、神经科学家(以及更多), 我认为我可以帮助解释为什么这个问题具有误导性,也给你一些简单和容易的工具来帮助你处理负面情绪。
Evolutionary Psychology
进化心理学
For starters - this question misunderstands how evolution works. Our brains don't evolve towards some pre-defined end [1]. Evolution is a process that simply selects genetic trains based on reproductive capacity - what that literally means is that when someone reproduces, they pass on their traits because, by definition, those traits got them to the point of being able to reproduce. Over time, this shapes populations towards certain behavior types and trends - the ingrained behaviors and biases that happen to lead to reproduction. That's it. The people who didn't make it to reproductive age and actually reproduce, whether they had low sex drive, weren't afraid of danger, didn't care about foraging for food, etc. - simply never reproduced and so their genes never got passed along.
首先，这个问题误解了进化作用。我们的大脑并没有进化到某种预先定义的终点。进化是一个根据生殖能力来简单选择基因训练的过程，——从字面上来说，这意味着当有人繁殖时，他们会传递他们的特征，因为这些特征使他们达到了繁殖的目的。随着时间的推移，这种行为会影响到某些行为类型和趋势——这种根深蒂固的行为和偏见会导致繁殖。就是这样。那些没有达到生育年龄和生育能力的人，无论他们的性欲有多低的，多么不害怕危险，不关心食物的觅食，等等，——那么他们就无法繁殖，他们的基因无法遗传。
Our brains aren't evolving to make us happier and more content, if anything, the crucible of evolution evolved us to be constantly worried, thinking about dangers and problems, and being anxious . This is an oversimplification - but think about it - 500,000 years ago - who was more likely to reproduce - the person who was fearless and went out into the wild every day staring danger in the face - or the person who was scared to leave camp? The hero ended up getting eaten by a lion and the person who was scared at camp ended up procreating and passing along their genes.
我们的大脑并没有进化到让我们更快乐、更满足，如果有的话，进化的考验使我们不断地担心，思考危险和问题，焦虑。这是一种过于简单化的想法——但想想50万年前——谁更有可能繁衍后代——一个无所畏惧，每天都去野外面对危险的人——或者是害怕离开营地的人?英雄最后被狮子吃掉了，而害怕离开营地的人最终生育，并传递了他们的基因。
In fact - your brain is a 2 million year old piece of hardware that was programmed to live in a world where we face real physical threats, like tigers and lions and starvation - not a world where the biggest danger posed to us comes in the from of an email from our boss. And that's not changing any time soon - because there is essentially no evolutionary pressure on humans - we aren't really evolving towards anything anymore.
事实上,你的大脑就像一个拥有两百万年历史的硬件编程，规划着如何在一个需要面对各种人生威胁的世界里生存,例如老虎和狮子和饥饿——而不是在一个给我们带来最大的威胁仅仅只是一封老板的的邮件的世界。这种情况不会很快改变——因为人类基本上没有进化上的压力——我们真的没有什么可进化的了。
Negative Emotions
负面情绪
But what about these negative emotions? The notion that negative emotions are bad for you is also not really the right way to look at it. Here are a few key things to understand about negative emotions.
但是这些负面情绪呢?负面情绪对你有害。这一观点也不是看待它的正确方式。这里有一些关于消极情绪的关键信息。
(1) Negative emotions are unavoidable.
(1)负面情绪是不可避免的。
You cannot avoid experiencing negative emotions - and by trying to or by pushing them down, ignoring them, and distracting yourself - you are actually causing these emotions to intensify and become greater. Trying to avoid experiencing negative emotions, paradoxically, makes you experience them more frequently and with more intensity.
你无法避免经历负面情绪——通过尝试或克服、忽略它们、分散注意力——实际上你只能让这些情绪变得更强烈。矛盾的是，试图避免经历负面情绪，会让你更频繁地经历这些情绪，并使你的情绪更加强烈。
Tal Ben Shahar - who taught the most popular class in Harvard's history which was on Happiness - famously says that only two types of people never experience negative emotions - psychopaths and dead people. He has also shared a number of paradoxical strategies to embrace and accept negative emotions and improve your happiness.
班夏哈——在哈佛教授历史上最受欢迎的关于“快乐”课程——只有两种人从来没有经历过负面情绪——精神病患者和死人。他也分享了一些矛盾的策略来面对和接受负面情绪并提高你的幸福感
Emotional perfectionism - or the idea that you should always be in positive emotional states - can cause some serious problems - and worsen the experience of going through negative emotions. Cultivating self compassion and a more realistic perspective that negative emotions are inevitable and natural helps tremendously.
情感完美主义——或者你认为应该一直处于积极情绪状态的想法——会导致一些严重的问题，并使你经历更加糟糕的消极情绪。培养自我同情心，和培养自己的用现实的观点去看待负面情绪是不可避免的，自然的帮助是巨大的。
Your emotions are messengers trying to send you information. The sooner you accept that and listen to what they are saying, the better off you will be.
你的情绪是传递信息的信使。你越早接受并倾听他们，你的生活就会越好。
(2) Negative emotions aredata, not direction.
(2)负面情绪是信息，不是方向。
Negative emotions provide you with meaningful and relevant information that you can use to make decisions, prioritize, and understand that something is going on in your life. Listen to that message. But also know that emotions aren't necessary correct or right - they don't mean you have to go in that particular direction, but they are providing you with incredibly useful information that you should listen to and incorporate into your behavior.
消极的情绪为你提供了相关且有意义的信息，你可以用其来做决定，优先考虑，并且了解你生活中正在发生的事情。听着。但也要知道，情绪并不一定是正确的——它们并不意味着你必须走到那个特定的方向，但它们为你提供了非常有用的信息，你应该倾听并将其融入到你的行为中。
In fact, when you look at high stakes performers like stock traders and professional poker players - they don't try to remove emotion from the equation - they leverage their emotions to improve their decision-making process.
事实上，当你看到像股票交易员和职业扑克玩家这样的高股权表演者时，他们不会试图从等式中消除情绪——他们利用情绪来改善决策过程。
Consider Meditation & Mindfulness
冥想和专注力
With that said - there are some tools you can use to more effectively harness your negative emotions and productively learn from them.
照这样说，你可以利用工具来更有效地治愈负面情绪，并从中中吸取教训。
The first and most obvious is meditation. While evolution certainly isn't coming to the rescue any time soon, meditation is proven again and again in the science (here is an overview and a ton of scientific studies about meditation and its power) to be one of the most effective paths of dealing with anxiety, stress, and negative emotions.
首要也是最明显的工具就是冥想。进化不是每次能快速的救援,然而科学一次一次的证明(根据概述和大量关于冥想和它的力量的科学研究)，冥想是处理焦虑,压力和负面情绪最有效路径。
In a recent interview I did with Dr. Rick Hanson, author of the bookBuddha's Brain, which is about the neuroscience behind meditation,he shares a number of insights into how meditation helps deal with stress and anxiety.
克·汉森博士是《佛陀的大脑》一书的作者，这本书讲述了冥想的神经系统科学。在最近一次访谈中，就冥想如何帮助缓解压力和焦虑，他分享了一些见解。
Very closely related is the concept of self compassion. This helps combat emotional perfectionism and build an understanding that it's OK to experience negative emotions. I highly recommend checking out as well as
自我同情的概念是密切相关。有助于对抗情感完美主义，并建立一种理解，即经历负面情绪是可以接受的。我也强烈建议去了解下。
原文The real reason why it's hard to be happy, according to the science.
