中英文稿

我和我的雙胞胎哥哥一起長大， 他是個富有愛心的好兄弟。 要知道，作為雙胞胎，你很快 就在一件事上成為專家， 就是注意到偏愛。 如果他的餅干比我的大 哪怕一點點，我就會質(zhì)疑。 當(dāng)然我也沒被餓著。 當(dāng)我成為一個心理學(xué)家，我開始 注意到另一種不同的偏愛， 那就是我們賦予我們的身體 比精神更多的價值。 我花了九年時間 獲得心理學(xué)博士學(xué)位， 但不知道有多少人看了我的名片說， “哦，心理學(xué)家， 原來不是真正的醫(yī)生?！?就好像我的名片上就該明確說明似的。 這種對身體多于精神的偏愛隨處可見。

我最近在朋友家， 他們五歲的小孩準備上床睡覺。 他站在小凳子上， 在水池邊刷牙， 然后他滑了一下， 摔倒的時候刮了他的腿。 他哭了一下， 隨后就爬起來了， 站回小凳子上，拿了一個創(chuàng)可貼 貼在他的傷口上。 這孩子剛學(xué)會系鞋帶兒， 但他都知道要保護傷口以免感染， 同時還要一天刷兩次牙來保護牙齒。 我們都知道怎樣保持身體的健康 還有怎樣保持牙齒衛(wèi)生，對不對？ 我們從五歲起就知道這些東西了。 但是我們知道怎樣 保持精神上的健康嗎？ 完全不知道。 我們教給孩子們情緒保健嗎？ 完全沒有。 為什么我們花在牙齒的時間 比花在精神的時間上還多呢？ 為什么我們那么重視身體健康 遠遠多于心理健康呢？

我們承受心理上的傷害 比身體上的多得多， 例如失敗，被拒絕，孤獨。 如果我們忽視它們， 情況也會惡化， 它們同樣會給我們的生活 帶來重大的影響。 然而，雖然有科學(xué)證實的療法 來幫助我們治療 這些心理上的傷害， 我們卻不采取行動。 我們甚至都沒意識到 我們應(yīng)該采取行動。 “哦，你感到抑郁么？ 別去想了，都在你腦袋里?！?你能想象對一個 骨折了的人說這樣的話嗎？ “哦，走走就好了，都在你腿上?！??我們應(yīng)該消除這種對身體和 精神健康的區(qū)別對待。 應(yīng)該把兩者對等起來， 像雙胞胎一樣。

說起雙胞胎， 我哥哥也是個心理醫(yī)生。 所以他也不是真正的醫(yī)生。 ?我們不是在一起上的學(xué)。 事實上，我這輩子 經(jīng)歷過的最困難的事 就是跨過大西洋搬到紐約 來讀心理學(xué)的博士學(xué)位。 那是我們倆第一次分隔兩地， 這個分離對我倆來說都很殘酷。 當(dāng)他和家人朋友一起時， 我卻孤單的在一個新的國度。 我們都非常想念對方， 但那時候國際長途都很貴 我們一周只打的起五分鐘的電話。 當(dāng)我們生日快到了的時候， 那是我們第一個 沒在一起過的生日。 我們決定奢侈一把， 在那個星期聊上十分鐘。 我那天早上在房間里踱來踱去， 等著我哥哥給我打過來 － 我等啊等啊，電話就是不響。 由于時差的關(guān)系，我就想， “好吧，他一定是和朋友在一起， 他晚點兒會打來的。” 那時候也沒有手機。 但他始終沒打來。 我開始意識到， 在我離開十個月以后， 他不再像我想他那樣想我了。 我知道他早上會打來， 但那一晚是我一生中 最傷心，最漫長的一晚。 第二天一早醒來， 我瞅了一眼電話，我意識到, 來回踱步時 我把電話線踹下來了 我迷迷糊糊的跳下床， 我剛把電話插回接口， 一秒鐘之后電話就響了。 是我哥哥，他可氣壞了。 （笑聲） 那也是他一生中 最傷心漫長的一夜。 當(dāng)我跟他解釋事情的經(jīng)過，他說， “我不明白。你看我沒給你打， 你為什么不打給我呢？” 他說的對。 我為什么不打給他呢？ 我當(dāng)時無法解釋， 但我現(xiàn)在明白了， 非常簡單的原因：孤獨。

孤獨導(dǎo)致深重的心理創(chuàng)傷， 扭曲我們的感知能力， 剝奪我們的思考能力。 它使我們相信 身邊的人不再在乎我們。 它使我們不敢與人聯(lián)絡(luò)， 為什么給自取其辱被拒絕呢？ 你的心痛的還不夠多么？ 我那個時候被孤獨緊緊包裹著， 但我總和別人在一起， 我自己都沒意識到。 但孤獨是完全從主觀上定義的。 它完全取決于你是否覺得 在情緒上或是交際上 和你周圍的人相隔絕。 我當(dāng)時是這樣的。 我們有很多關(guān)于孤獨的研究， 都很可怕。 孤獨不僅讓你覺得凄慘， 它還可能致死。 我可不是開玩笑。 長期的孤獨 會增加你早逝的可能性 高達14%之多。 孤獨可能導(dǎo)致 高血壓，高膽固醇。 它甚至?xí)绊懩愕拿庖呦到y(tǒng)， 使你容易患上各種疾病。 事實上，科學(xué)家已經(jīng)得出結(jié)論， 長期的孤獨對你的健康和長壽 的負面影響比抽煙還要糟。 香煙的包裝上還有 “吸煙致命”的警句。 可孤獨沒有。 這就是我們?yōu)槭裁?要重視心理健康， 要注意保持情緒健康。 因為，你無法治愈心理上的創(chuàng)傷， 如果你都不知道 自己受到了傷害的話。 孤獨不是唯一 可能扭曲及誤導(dǎo) 我們的心理創(chuàng)傷。

失敗也有同樣效果。 我曾訪問過一個幼兒園， 在那兒我觀察了三個兒童, 在玩完全一樣的塑料玩具。 你得把一個紅色的鈕滑開， 然后一個可愛的小狗就會跳出來。 一個小女孩 對紫色的鈕又拉又按， 然后她就坐下來，瞧著那盒子， 下嘴唇開始發(fā)顫。 她旁邊的一個小男孩 看到這一幕， 再看著他的盒子， 都沒動手就哇哇大哭了。 與此同時， 另一個小女孩試了各種方法 直到她滑動了那個紅鈕， 可愛的小狗跳了出來， 她開心的叫了起來。 同樣的塑料玩具 給了這三個幼兒， 但他們對失敗的反應(yīng)截然不同。 前兩個小孩完全 有能力滑動那個紅鈕。 唯一阻止他們成功的因素 就是他們被自己 做不成的想法給騙了。 成年人也經(jīng)常中這樣的圈套。 事實上，我們都有 一個固定的思維感知模式， 每當(dāng)我們感到沮喪，受到挫折， 我們便會進入這個模式。

你清不清楚你是怎么對應(yīng)失敗的？ 你應(yīng)該清楚。 因為如果你的頭腦告訴你 你不能做成什么事 而你相信了的話， 你就會像那前兩個小孩似的， 開始感到無助 然后你很快就放棄了， 甚至都不去試一下。 然后你就更加確信你成功不了。 你看，這就是為什么那么多人 都無法充分發(fā)揮他們的潛能。 因為不一定在什么地方， 有那么一次失敗 讓他們認定了自己不能成功。

我們一旦被某件事說服， 往往就很難改變主意。 我十幾歲的時候，和我哥哥一起， 吃了點苦頭才明白這道理。 有一天晚上，我倆和朋友們 在一條很黑的路上開著車。 一輛警車把我們攔下了。 附近發(fā)生了搶劫， 警察在追蹤嫌犯。 警察走到車邊， 對司機晃了晃手電筒， 又照了照坐在副駕駛的我哥哥， 然后照到了我。 他瞪大了眼睛說得， “我在哪兒見過你？” ?我說，“副駕駛座上。” ?但對他來說， 我的回答莫名其妙。 所以他認為我嗑了藥。 于是他把我拖出車子， 又搜了我的身， 他把我押到警車那兒， 直到他驗證了 我并沒有犯罪記錄， 我才有機會解釋 我和副駕駛座位上的是雙胞胎。 但是直到我們開走了， 你仍可以看到他的表情 他認定我一定干了什么壞事。

一旦我們認定了的事情， 我們很難改變看法。 所以當(dāng)你失敗了， 感覺士氣低落是很自然的。 但是你不能允許自己 相信你不可能成功。 你要和那種無助的感覺斗爭。 你要重新控制局面。 而且你必須在 這種負能量循環(huán)開始前打破它。 我們的想法和感覺， 它們不是像我們想象的 那么忠誠的朋友。 它們更像是一個非常情緒化的朋友， 有時非常支持你， 而有時令人不愉快。 我以前的一個女同事 她結(jié)婚20年之后離婚了， 婚離的很慘烈， 然后她終于準備好 開始新的約會了。 她在網(wǎng)上認識了這個男的。 他看上去人很好，也很成功， 最重要的是， 他似乎對她非常感興趣。 她非常興奮， 還為約會買了新裙子， 然后他們約在紐約的 一個高級酒吧里喝一杯。 約會才進行了10分鐘， 那位男士站起來說， “我沒興趣了，” 然后就走了。 被拒絕是極其痛苦的。 這位女士非常受傷，以致于都動不了了。 于是她給一個朋友打電話。 她朋友是這樣說的： “那你還想怎樣？ 你又胖又沒有什么好聊的， 為什么任何一個英俊的成功男士 會和你這樣的失敗者約會呢？“ 太不像話了，是不是， 朋友怎么可以這樣冷酷無情？ 這或許聽上去不太過分， 要是我告訴你 這話不是朋友說的。 這其實是那位女士 對她自己說的。 我們都干過這事兒， 尤其是被拒絕之后。 我們開始去想 我們犯的錯，我們的缺點， 我們要是這樣就好了， 我們要是不那樣就好了， 我們給自己起外號。 也許程度不同， 但我們都干過這事。 我們?yōu)槭裁磿@樣做。 我們的自尊已經(jīng)被傷害了。 為什么我們要進一步傷害它呢？ 要是身體受傷了， 我們不會故意去把它弄的更糟。 你要是胳膊上有個傷口， 你不會說，“啊，我知道！ 我要拿刀看我到底能捅多深?！?/p>

但是我們經(jīng)常如此對待心理傷害。 為什么？由于糟糕的心理保健意識。 因為我們不重視心理健康。 很多研究表明， 如果你的自尊心低落， 你就更容易感到壓力和焦慮， 失敗和拒絕會傷害你更深， 你也需要更多的時間復(fù)原。 所以如果你被拒絕了， 首要的事情是應(yīng)該 重新激活你的自尊心，而不是 去拳擊俱樂部打拳來發(fā)泄。 當(dāng)你在經(jīng)歷感情上痛苦， 像一個真正的好朋友那樣同情你自己。 我們需要改變 不健康的心理習(xí)慣。 最常見又最不健康的習(xí)慣之一 就是窮思竭慮。 就是事后反復(fù)咀嚼回味一件事。 比如你的老板沖你發(fā)脾氣了， 或是教授在課上讓你感到愚蠢， 或是你和好朋友吵架了， 然后你不斷的在腦海里 回放當(dāng)時的情況，好幾天， 甚至好幾個禮拜都不停。 反復(fù)回味不愉快的事 很容易變成習(xí)慣， 而這個習(xí)慣代價很大。 因為當(dāng)你在不愉快和 負面的事情上花這么多時間， 你把自己放在一個非常危險的境地， 可能誘發(fā)抑郁癥，酗酒，飲食失調(diào)， 甚至心血管疾病。

問題在于那種反復(fù)回味的需要 會變得非常強烈，非常緊迫， 所以這種習(xí)慣會很難打破。 我知道事實如此， 因為就在一年多以前， 我自己就經(jīng)歷了這個習(xí)慣。 我的雙胞胎哥哥 被確診為三期非霍奇金淋巴瘤。 他的癌癥來勢洶洶。 全身都有看得到的腫瘤。 他要做一輪大劑量的化療。 我情不自禁去想 他所經(jīng)歷的這一切。 情不自禁去想 他受的這些罪， 盡管他從沒抱怨過， 一次都沒有。 他有著這種不可思議的積極態(tài)度。 他的心理健康程度太了不起了。 我身體上很健康， 但心理上我那時是一團糟。 但我知道該怎樣做。 研究表明， 哪怕只是分心短短兩分鐘 都足以打破那一刻 你窮思竭慮的需求。 所以每次當(dāng)我擔(dān)心， 煩惱，或帶有負面情緒時， 我就強迫自己專注于其他的事情， 直到那種感覺過去。 僅僅一周時間， 我的視角就全變了 變得更積極，更充滿希望。 做了化療九周之后， 我哥哥做了電腦斷層掃描， 出結(jié)果的時候， 我就在他身邊。 所有的腫瘤都消失了。 他還得再做三輪化療， 但是我們知道他能恢復(fù)。 這張照片是兩周前照的。

當(dāng)你在孤獨的時候采取行動， 當(dāng)你改變對待失敗的反應(yīng)， 當(dāng)你保護自己的自尊心， 當(dāng)你與負面的想法做斗爭， 你不僅可以治愈心理上的創(chuàng)傷， 你會建立起情緒恢復(fù)能力， 你會變得更強。 一百年以前， 人們開始注重個人衛(wèi)生， 人的壽命延長了50%還多 這僅用了十年就實現(xiàn)了。 我相信，我們的生活質(zhì)量 也會有同樣程度的提高 如果我們開始 關(guān)注情緒上的保健。

能想象一下么， 這個世界會是什么樣子 如果每個人都在心理上更健康 如果世上少一些孤獨和抑郁 如果人們了解 如何走出失敗的陰影 如果人們更自信，充滿力量。 如果人們更幸福，更滿足。 我能，因為那是一個 我想置身其中的世界， 也是我哥哥想置身其中的世界。 只要你了解這些知識， 并改變一些簡單的習(xí)慣， 那將是一個 我們都能置身其中的世界。

非常感謝。

I grew up with my identical twin, who was an incredibly loving brother. Now, one thing about being a twin is, it makes you an expert at spotting favoritism. If his cookie was even slightly bigger than my cookie, I had questions. And clearly, I wasn't starving.

When I became a psychologist, I began to notice favoritism of a different kind; and that is, how much more we value the body than we do the mind. I spent nine years at university earning my doctorate in psychology, and I can't tell you how many people look at my business card and say, "Oh -- a psychologist. So, not a real doctor," as if it should say that on my card.

[Dr. Guy Winch, Just a Psychologist (Not a Real Doctor)]

This favoritism we show the body over the mind -- I see it everywhere.

I recently was at a friend's house, and their five-year-old was getting ready for bed. He was standing on a stool by the sink, brushing his teeth, when he slipped and scratched his leg on the stool when he fell. He cried for a minute, but then he got back up, got back on the stool, and reached out for a box of Band-Aids to put one on his cut. Now, this kid could barely tie his shoelaces, but he knew you have to cover a cut so it doesn't become infected, and you have to care for your teeth by brushing twice a day. We all know how to maintain our physical health and how to practice dental hygiene, right? We've known it since we were five years old. But what do we know about maintaining our psychological health? Well, nothing. What do we teach our children about emotional hygiene? Nothing. How is it that we spend more time taking care of our teeth than we do our minds? Why is it that our physical health is so much more important to us than our psychological health?

We sustain psychological injuries even more often than we do physical ones, injuries like failure or rejection or loneliness. And they can also get worse if we ignore them, and they can impact our lives in dramatic ways. And yet, even though there are scientifically proven techniques we could use to treat these kinds of psychological injuries, we don't. It doesn't even occur to us that we should. "Oh, you're feeling depressed? Just shake it off; it's all in your head." Can you imagine saying that to somebody with a broken leg: "Oh, just walk it off; it's all in your leg."

It is time we closed the gap between our physical and our psychological health. It's time we made them more equal, more like twins.

Speaking of which, my brother is also a psychologist. So he's not a real doctor, either.

We didn't study together, though. In fact, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life is move across the Atlantic to New York City to get my doctorate in psychology. We were apart then for the first time in our lives, and the separation was brutal for both of us. But while he remained among family and friends, I was alone in a new country. We missed each other terribly, but international phone calls were really expensive then, and we could only afford to speak for five minutes a week. When our birthday rolled around, it was the first we wouldn't be spending together. We decided to splurge, and that week, we would talk for 10 minutes.

I spent the morning pacing around my room, waiting for him to call -- and waiting ... and waiting. But the phone didn't ring. Given the time difference, I assumed, "OK, he's out with friends, he'll call later." There were no cell phones then. But he didn't. And I began to realize that after being away for over 10 months, he no longer missed me the way I missed him. I knew he would call in the morning, but that night was one of the saddest and longest nights of my life. I woke up the next morning. I glanced down at the phone, and I realized I had kicked it off the hook when pacing the day before. I stumbled out of bed, I put the phone back on the receiver, and it rang a second later. And it was my brother, and boy, was he pissed.

It was the saddest and longest night of his life as well. Now, I tried to explain what happened, but he said, "I don't understand. If you saw I wasn't calling you, why didn't you just pick up the phone and call me?" He was right. Why didn't I call him? I didn't have an answer then. But I do today, and it's a simple one: loneliness.

Loneliness creates a deep psychological wound, one that distorts our perceptions and scrambles our thinking. It makes us believe that those around us care much less than they actually do. It make us really afraid to reach out, because why set yourself up for rejection and heartache when your heart is already aching more than you can stand? I was in the grips of real loneliness back then, but I was surrounded by people all day, so it never occurred to me. But loneliness is defined purely subjectively. It depends solely on whether you feel emotionally or socially disconnected from those around you. And I did. There is a lot of research on loneliness, and all of it is horrifying. Loneliness won't just make you miserable; it will kill you. I'm not kidding. Chronic loneliness increases your likelihood of an early death by 14 percent. Fourteen percent! Loneliness causes high blood pressure, high cholesterol. It even suppress the functioning of your immune system, making you vulnerable to all kinds of illnesses and diseases. In fact, scientists have concluded that taken together, chronic loneliness poses as significant a risk for your long-term health and longevity as cigarette smoking. Now, cigarette packs come with warnings saying, "This could kill you." But loneliness doesn't. And that's why it's so important that we prioritize our psychological health, that we practice emotional hygiene. Because you can't treat a psychological wound if you don't even know you're injured. Loneliness isn't the only psychological wound that distorts our perceptions and misleads us.

Failure does that as well. I once visited a day care center, where I saw three toddlers play with identical plastic toys. You had to slide the red button, and a cute doggie would pop out. One little girl tried pulling the purple button, then pushing it, and then she just sat back and looked at the box with her lower lip trembling. The little boy next to her watched this happen, then turned to his box and burst into tears without even touching it. Meanwhile, another little girl tried everything she could think of until she slid the red button, the cute doggie popped out, and she squealed with delight. So: three toddlers with identical plastic toys, but with very different reactions to failure. The first two toddlers were perfectly capable of sliding a red button. The only thing that prevented them from succeeding was that their mind tricked them into believing they could not. Now, adults get tricked this way as well, all the time. In fact, we all have a default set of feelings and beliefs that gets triggered whenever we encounter frustrations and setbacks.

Are you aware of how your mind reacts to failure? You need to be. Because if your mind tries to convince you you're incapable of something, and you believe it, then like those two toddlers, you'll begin to feel helpless and you'll stop trying too soon, or you won't even try at all. And then you'll be even more convinced you can't succeed. You see, that's why so many people function below their actual potential. Because somewhere along the way, sometimes a single failure convinced them that they couldn't succeed, and they believed it.

Once we become convinced of something, it's very difficult to change our mind. I learned that lesson the hard way when I was a teenager with my brother. We were driving with friends down a dark road at night, when a police car stopped us. There had been a robbery in the area and they were looking for suspects. The officer approached the car, and shined his flashlight on the driver, then on my brother in the front seat, and then on me. And his eyes opened wide and he said, "Where have I seen your face before?"

And I said, "In the front seat."

But that made no sense to him whatsoever, so now he thought I was on drugs.

So he drags me out of the car, he searches me, he marches me over to the police car, and only when he verified I didn't have a police record, could I show him I had a twin in the front seat. But even as we were driving away, you could see by the look on his face he was convinced that I was getting away with something.

Our mind is hard to change once we become convinced. So it might be very natural to feel demoralized and defeated after you fail. But you cannot allow yourself to become convinced you can't succeed. You have to fight feelings of helplessness. You have to gain control over the situation. And you have to break this kind of negative cycle before it begins.

[Stop Emotional Bleeding]

Our minds and our feelings -- they're not the trustworthy friends we thought they were. They're more like a really moody friend, who can be totally supportive one minute, and really unpleasant the next. I once worked with this woman who, after 20 years marriage and an extremely ugly divorce, was finally ready for her first date. She had met this guy online, and he seemed nice and he seemed successful, and most importantly, he seemed really into her. So she was very excited, she bought a new dress, and they met at an upscale New York City bar for a drink. Ten minutes into the date, the man stands up and says, "I'm not interested," and walks out. Rejection is extremely painful. The woman was so hurt she couldn't move. All she could do was call a friend. Here's what the friend said: "Well, what do you expect? You have big hips, you have nothing interesting to say. Why would a handsome, successful man like that ever go out with a loser like you?" Shocking, right, that a friend could be so cruel? But it would be much less shocking if I told you it wasn't the friend who said that. It's what the woman said to herself. And that's something we all do, especially after a rejection. We all start thinking of all our faults and all our shortcomings, what we wish we were, what we wish we weren't. We call ourselves names. Maybe not as harshly, but we all do it. And it's interesting that we do, because our self-esteem is already hurting. Why would we want to go and damage it even further? We wouldn't make a physical injury worse on purpose. You wouldn't get a cut on your arm and decide, "Oh! I know -- I'm going to take a knife and see how much deeper I can make it."

But we do that with psychological injuries all the time. Why? Because of poor emotional hygiene. Because we don't prioritize our psychological health. We know from dozens of studies that when your self-esteem is lower, you are more vulnerable to stress and to anxiety; that failures and rejections hurt more, and it takes longer to recover from them. So when you get rejected, the first thing you should be doing is to revive your self-esteem, not join Fight Club and beat it into a pulp. When you're in emotional pain, treat yourself with the same compassion you would expect from a truly good friend.

[Protect Your Self-Esteem]

We have to catch our unhealthy psychological habits and change them. And one of unhealthiest and most common is called rumination. To ruminate means to chew over. It's when your boss yells at you or your professor makes you feel stupid in class, or you have big fight with a friend and you just can't stop replaying the scene in your head for days, sometimes for weeks on end. Now, ruminating about upsetting events in this way can easily become a habit, and it's a very costly one, because by spending so much time focused on upsetting and negative thoughts, you are actually putting yourself at significant risk for developing clinical depression, alcoholism, eating disorders, and even cardiovascular disease.

The problem is, the urge to ruminate can feel really strong and really important, so it's a difficult habit to stop. I know this for a fact, because a little over a year ago, I developed the habit myself. You see, my twin brother was diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. His cancer was extremely aggressive. He had visible tumors all over his body. And he had to start a harsh course of chemotherapy. And I couldn't stop thinking about what he was going through. I couldn't stop thinking about how much he was suffering, even though he never complained, not once. He had this incredibly positive attitude. His psychological health was amazing. I was physically healthy, but psychologically, I was a mess. But I knew what to do. Studies tell us that even a two-minute distraction is sufficient to break the urge to ruminate in that moment. And so each time I had a worrying, upsetting, negative thought, I forced myself to concentrate on something else until the urge passed. And within one week, my whole outlook changed and became more positive and more hopeful.

[Battle Negative Thinking]

Nine weeks after he started chemotherapy, my brother had a CAT scan, and I was by his side when he got the results. All the tumors were gone. He still had three more rounds of chemotherapy to go, but we knew he would recover. This picture was taken two weeks ago.

By taking action when you're lonely, by changing your responses to failure, by protecting your self-esteem, by battling negative thinking, you won't just heal your psychological wounds, you will build emotional resilience, you will thrive. A hundred years ago, people began practicing personal hygiene, and life expectancy rates rose by over 50 percent in just a matter of decades. I believe our quality of life could rise just as dramatically if we all began practicing emotional hygiene.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone was psychologically healthier? If there were less loneliness and less depression? If people knew how to overcome failure? If they felt better about themselves and more empowered? If they were happier and more fulfilled? I can, because that's the world I want to live in. And that's the world my brother wants to live in as well. And if you just become informed and change a few simple habits, well -- that's the world we can all live in.

Thank you very much.