Link: A simple way to break a bad habit
Transcript
When I was first learning to meditate, the instruction was to simply pay attention to my breath, and when my mind wandered, to bring it back.
Sounded simple enough. Yet I'd sit on these silent retreats（静修处）, sweating through T-shirts in the middle of winter. I'd take naps every chance I got because it was really hard work. Actually, it was exhausting. The instruction was simple enough but I was missing something really important.
So why is it so hard to pay attention? Well, studies show that even when we're really trying to pay attention to something -- like maybe this talk -- at some point, about half of us will drift off（渐渐如梦） into a daydream, or have this urge to check our Twitter feed （Twitter Feed“推特简讯、提要”）.
So what's going on here? It turns out that we're fighting one of the most evolutionarily-conserved learning processes currently known in science, one that's conserved back to the most basic nervous systems known to man.
Remark：开始学习冥想时发现，保持精神集中其实也是很难的，这是因为我们对抗的是进化最保守的学习过程，深深地铭刻在人类最基本的神经系统上。
This reward-based learning process is called positive and negative reinforcement, and basically goes like this. We see some food that looks good, our brain says, "Calories! ... Survival!" We eat the food, we taste it -- it tastes good. And especially with sugar, our bodies send a signal to our brain that says, "Remember what you're eating and where you found it." We lay down this context-dependent memory and learn to repeat the process next time. See food, eat food, feel good,repeat. Trigger, behavior, reward.
Remark：这个基于奖励的学习过程也叫作正负强化，简单来说，当我们看到食物，大脑就会立刻反映出“火锅、米饭、大盘鸡”“生存”之类，we eat and have a taste，感觉pretty nice！大脑会可以让你记住你吃了啥?在哪拿的？也就是TRIGGER->BEHAVIOR->REWARD
Simple, right? Well, after a while, our creative brains say, "You know what? You can use this for more than just remembering where food is. You know, next time you feel bad, why don't you try eating something good so you'll feel better?" We thank our brains for the great idea, try this and quickly learn that if we eat chocolate or ice cream when we're mad or sad, we feel better.
Same process, just a different trigger. Instead of this hunger signal coming from our stomach, this emotional signal -- feeling sad -- triggers that urge to eat.
Remark：OK，那你下次不开心时候就，就会想:为啥不吃点好吃的呢？ 同样的过程，但是不一样的trigger
Maybe in our teenage years, we were a nerd at school, and we see those rebel kids outside smoking and we think, "Hey, I want to be cool." So we start smoking. The Marlboro Man wasn't a dork, and that was no accident. See cool, smoke to be cool, feel good. Repeat. Trigger, behavior, reward. And each time we do this, we learn to repeat the process and it becomes a habit. So later,feeling stressed out triggers that urge to smoke a cigarette or to eat something sweet.
Now, with these same brain processes, we've gone from learning to survive to literally killing ourselves with these habits. Obesity and smoking are among the leading preventable causes of morbidity and mortality in the world.
So back to my breath. What if instead of fighting our brains, or trying to force ourselves to pay attention, we instead tapped into （进入）this natural, reward-based learning process ... but added a twist?What if instead we just got really curious about what was happening in our momentary experience?
Remark：年轻的时候，觉得抽烟很酷，就去抽烟了，这基本都是同一个流程。OK还记得刚说过冥想的事吗？，我们别逼着自己对抗大脑了，而去尝试利用一下这个奖励机制呢？但是要扭一下。我们多多好奇一下,怎么样？
其实就是大脑给我们带偏了，由于某些原因，我们接触了甜食，烟草，带给我们好的感觉。但是我们完全忘了是为什么要做这件事，只记得结果貌似是不错的，或者就是不错的，以后不论遇到什么不开心的，难过的，都想用这种办法解决掉。然而并没有什么直接关系。
I'll give you an example. In my lab, we studied whether mindfulness training could help people quit smoking. Now, just like trying to force myself to pay attention to my breath, they could try to force themselves to quit smoking. And the majority of them had tried this before and failed -- on average, six times.
Now, with mindfulness training, we dropped the bit about forcing and instead focused on being curious. In fact, we even told them to smoke. What? Yeah, we said, "Go ahead and smoke, just be really curious about what it's like when you do."
And what did they notice? Well here's an example from one of our smokers. She said, "Mindful smoking: smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals, YUCK!" Now, she knew, cognitively that smoking was bad for her, that's why she joined our program. What she discovered just by being curiously aware when she smoked was that smoking tastes like shit.
Now, she moved from knowledge to wisdom. She moved from knowing in her head that smoking was bad for her to knowing it in her bones, and the spell of smoking was broken. She started to become disenchanted with her behavior.
我们的志愿者用这种正念练习仔细的想，用力的想，你现在抽烟是啥赶脚？有点恶心，像臭奶酪，像粑粑！！嗯这样的话就理智多了，她从简单地从脑中觉得抽烟不好，变成深入骨髓的觉得抽烟有害！看! 她开始对抽烟的感觉失望了。（杀人诛心！）
这么做就是为了改变你神经系统形成以久的条件反射，利用你的好奇心，变化成另一种反射。想一下，抽烟什么感觉，恶心，很臭，时间长了就会记在心里，从而对抗你之前的想法。
Now, the prefrontal cortex, that youngest part of our brain from an evolutionary perspective, it understands on an intellectual level that we shouldn't smoke. And it tries its hardest to help us change our behavior, to help us stop smoking, to help us stop eating that second, that third, that fourth cookie. We call this cognitive control. We're using cognition to control our behavior.Unfortunately, this is also the first part of our brain that goes offline when we get stressed out, which isn't that helpful.
我们的前额皮质从认知层面上来说知道我们不应该抽烟，我们称它为“认知控制”。不幸的是，稍微压力大点，这个功能就掉线了，力不从心啊~~~
Now, we can all relate to this in our own experience. We're much more likely to do things like yell at our spouse or kids when we're stressed out or tired, even though we know it's not going to be helpful. We just can't help ourselves.
When the prefrontal cortex goes offline, we fall back into our old habits, which is why this disenchantment (清醒的大脑) is so important. Seeing what we get from our habits helps us understand them at a deeper level -- to know it in our bones so we don't have to force ourselves to hold back or restrain ourselves from behavior. We're just less interested in doing it in the first place.
And this is what mindfulness is all about: Seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught up in our behaviors, becoming disenchanted on a visceral（出自内心的） level and from this disenchanted stance, naturally letting go.
要发自内心的认识到，深入骨髓的意识到。
This isn't to say that, poof, magically we quit smoking. But over time, as we learn to see more and more clearly the results of our actions, we let go of old habits and form new ones.
The paradox here is that mindfulness is just about being really interested in getting close and personal with what's actually happening in our bodies and minds from moment to moment. This willingness to turn toward our experience rather than trying to make unpleasant cravings go away as quickly as possible. And this willingness to turn toward our experience is supported by curiosity,which is naturally rewarding.
这里的悖论是，正念就是对我们身体和大脑中每时每刻发生的事情感兴趣。这种转向体验的意愿，而不是试图让不愉快的渴望尽快消失。这种转向体验的意愿是由好奇心支撑的，好奇心自然是有回报的。
What does curiosity feel like? It feels good. And what happens when we get curious? We start to notice that cravings are simply made up of body sensations -- oh, there's tightness, there's tension,there's restlessness -- and that these body sensations come and go. These are bite-size pieces of experiences that we can manage from moment to moment rather than getting clobbered by this huge, scary craving that we choke on.
我们开始注意到渴望只是由身体的感觉组成的，我们可以管理每一刻，而不是被这种巨大的，可怕的渴望，令我们窒息而死。
In other words, when we get curious, we step out of our old, fear-based, reactive habit patterns,and we step into being. We become this inner scientist where we're eagerly awaiting that next data point.
Now, this might sound too simplistic to affect behavior. But in one study, we found that mindfulness training was twice as good as gold standard therapy at helping people quit smoking. So it actually works.
And when we studied the brains of experienced meditators, we found that parts of a neural network of self-referential processing called the default mode network were at play. Now, one current hypothesis is that a region of this network, called the posterior cingulate cortex, is activated not necessarily by craving itself but when we get caught up in it, when we get sucked in, and it takes us for a ride.
当我们研究有经验的冥想者的大脑时，我们发现自我参照处理神经网络的一部分，即默认模式网络在起作用。目前的一个假设是，这个神经网络的一个区域，叫做后扣带皮层，并不一定是由渴望本身激活的，而是当我们陷入其中，当我们被吸进去的时候，它会带我们出去兜风。
In contrast, when we let go -- step out of the process just by being curiously aware of what's happening -- this same brain region quiets down.
Now we're testing app and online-based mindfulness training programs that target these core mechanisms and, ironically, use the same technology that's driving us to distraction to help us step out of our unhealthy habit patterns of smoking, of stress eating and other addictive behaviors.
Now, remember that bit about context-dependent memory? We can deliver these tools to peoples' fingertips in the contexts that matter most. So we can help them tap into their inherent capacity to be curiously aware right when that urge to smoke or stress eat or whatever arises.
So if you don't smoke or stress eat, maybe the next time you feel this urge to check your email when you're bored, or you're trying to distract yourself from work, or maybe to compulsively respond to that text message when you're driving, see if you can tap into this natural capacity, just be curiously aware of what's happening in your body and mind in that moment. It will just be another chance to perpetuate one of our endless and exhaustive habit loops ... or step out of it.
Instead of see text message, compulsively text back, feel a little bit better -- notice the urge, get curious, feel the joy of letting go and repeat.
深深的体会下，如果你不抽烟或者一压力大就吃东西，那么你可能一无聊就去check email，或者开车的时候强迫症似的回短信，看看你能不能知晓你的内心此时此刻正在发生什么。
