How to Make Stress Your Friend | Kelly McGonigal | TED · TED
Kelly McGonigal在TED演讲中分享了关于压力的新研究，指出压力是否有害取决于人们的认知。适合练习英语听力和理解心理学术语。
I have a confession to make.
我有一个秘密需要坦白。
But first, I want you to make a little confession to me.
但首先，我希望你能向我做一个小小的坦白。
In the past year, I want you to just raise your hand if you've experienced relatively little stress.
在过去的一年里，如果你们经历的压力相对较小，请举手示意。
Anyone?
有人吗？
How about a moderate amount of stress?
适度的压力怎么样？
Who has experienced a lot of stress?
谁经历过很大的压力呢？
Yeah.
是的。
Me too.
我也是。
But that is not my confession.
但这并不是我的忏悔。
My confession is this: I am a health psychologist, and my mission is to help people be happier and healthier.
我的坦白是这样的：我是一名健康心理学家，我的使命是帮助人们变得更快乐、更健康。
But I fear that something I've been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harm than good,
但我担心，过去10年来我一直教授的内容可能弊大于利。
and it has to do with stress.
这与压力有关。
For years I've been telling people, stress makes you sick.
多年来，我一直告诉人们：压力会让人生病。
It increases the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease.
它会增加从普通感冒到心血管疾病等各种疾病的风险。
Basically, I've turned stress into the enemy.
基本上，我把压力当成了自己的敌人。
But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I want to change yours.
不过，我对“压力”这个问题的看法已经改变了；今天，我想改变你们的看法。
Let me start with the study that made me rethink my whole approach to stress.
让我先从那项让我重新审视自己应对压力方式的研究说起吧。
This study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years, and they started by asking people,
这项研究对美国3万名成年人进行了为期八年的跟踪调查。研究开始时，研究人员首先向这些人提出了问题……
"How much stress have you experienced in the last year?"
在过去的一年里，你经历了多少压力？
They also asked, "Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?"
他们还问道：“您是否认为压力会对您的健康造成伤害？
And then they used public death records to find out who died.
然后，他们利用公开的死亡记录来查明具体是哪些人去世了。
Okay.
好的。
Some bad news first.
先来说一些坏消息。
People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43 percent increased risk of dying.
在过去一年中经历过大量压力的人，其死亡风险增加了43%。
But that was only true for the people who also believed that stress is harmful for your health.
但这只适用于那些也认为压力会对健康造成危害的人。
People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no more likely to die.
那些经历过很大压力但并不认为压力有害的人，并没有更高的死亡风险。
In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study, including people who had relatively little stress.
事实上，在这项研究中，他们的死亡风险是所有人中最低的——甚至低于那些压力相对较小的人。
Now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were tracking deaths, 182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress,
研究人员估计，在他们跟踪死亡数据的这八年时间里，共有18.2万美国人过早死亡，而这些死亡并非由压力引起的。
but from the belief that stress is bad for you.
不过，这种观念源于人们认为压力对身体有害这一看法。
That is over 20,000 deaths a year.
这意味着每年有超过 20,000 人死亡。
Now, if that estimate is correct, that would make believing stress is bad for you
现在，如果这个估计是正确的，那么就意味着我们应该相信压力确实会对人体造成不良影响。
the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last year, killing more people than skin cancer,
去年，这是美国第15大死亡原因；导致死亡的人数超过了皮肤癌患者的人数。
HIV/AIDS and homicide.
HIV/AIDS与凶杀案之间的关系
You can see why this study freaked me out.
你可以理解为什么这项研究让我感到如此恐慌了。
Here I've been spending so much energy telling people stress is bad for your health.
我花了这么多精力告诉人们：压力对健康有害。
So this study got me wondering: Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier?
这项研究让我开始思考：改变对压力的认知方式，是否真的能够帮助人们变得更健康呢？
And here the science says yes.
而科学对此给出了肯定的答案。
When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body's response to stress.
当你改变对压力的看法时，你就能改变身体对压力的反应方式。
Now to explain how this works, I want you all to pretend that you are participants in a study designed to stress you out.
现在，为了解释这是如何运作的，我希望你们所有人都想象自己是一名参与了一项旨在让你们感到压力的研究的受试者。
It's called the social stress test.
这被称为“社会压力测试”。