评论
打印
People are worried about their memory.
人们都担心自己的记忆。
If you're forgetting to show up for your four o'clock meeting, or you forgot the actor who played Tony Soprano in the HBO series 'The Sopranos.'
如果你忘了参加4点的会议，或者忘记了HBO电视剧《黑道家族》(the Sopranos)中托尼·索普拉诺(Tony Soprano)的扮演者。
"Can't remember that guy's name, what is it?"
“记不起那个人的名字了，他叫啥？”
A lot of us tend to blame ourselves.
遇到这种情况，很多人都会怪自己。
This absent-mindedness is a sign of mental weakness, or a failing memory, or a lack of character, but 99% of forgetting that happens to all of us, is normal.
这种健忘是精神衰弱、记忆力衰退或缺乏个性的表现，但我们每个人身上99%的健忘都是正常的。
So there are things that we can do to be less afraid, less panicked, to have a better relationship with our memory today- because forgetting is a normal part of being human.
我们可以做一些事情来减少恐惧，减少恐慌，与我们的记忆建立更好的联系——因为遗忘是人类很正常的现象。
My name is Lisa Genova. I am an author and neuroscientist.
我叫丽莎·热诺瓦，是一名作家和神经科学家。
The name of my book is "Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting."
我的书名叫《记忆:记忆的科学和遗忘的艺术》。
So how do we reinforce our memories?
那我们该如何加强记忆呢?
How do we make our memories stronger, resilient to time, so that we can recall them decades later?
我们该如何让自己的记忆更深刻，经得起时间的考验，数十年后还能想得起来？
The first essential ingredient in creating a memory that's going to last longer than this present moment is attention.
想要创造一种持久存在的记忆，第一个要素就是注意力。
If I put my glasses down and don't give it a moment's attention to notice where I've put this, I can't remember where they are because I never formed that memory to begin with.
如果我随手把眼镜放下，并没有留意把它放在什么地方，那我就不会记得它们在哪里，因为我从一开始就没有形成相关记忆。
Your brain will never remember what you don't pay attention to.
你的大脑从来不会记住你没有留意的东西。
Chronic stress is really bad for our memory.
慢性压力对我们的记忆很不友好。
Stress hormones mobilize your brain and body to respond, to fight, to flee, to react quickly- not to think.
压力荷尔蒙促使你的大脑和身体做出反应，去战斗，去逃跑，去快速反应——而不是去思考。
Stress is meant to be an acute, quick, on and off phenomenon.
压力是一种剧烈的、快速的、断断续续的现象。
So what happens in your brain and body if you're exposed to chronic, unrelenting stress, and how does that affect your memory?
那么，如果你长期处于无情的压力之下，你的大脑和身体会发生什么？这会对你的记忆产生什么影响？
Under chronic stress, your body will just keep dumping adrenaline and cortisol, and it can't shut off.
在慢性压力下，你的身体会不停地释放肾上腺素和皮质醇，而且无法停止。
This is bad for memory.
这对记忆不好。
You are actually shrinking your hippocampus- the part of your brain that's essential for forming consciously-held memories is going to be smaller.
这样你的海马体就会缩小——这个对形成有意识记忆至关重要的大脑器官会变得更小。
You'll be inhibiting 'neurogenesis,' the birth of new neurons.
你会抑制“神经发生”，即新神经元的诞生。
The very good news about all of this, because I've probably just scared everyone, is that there are things that we can do to combat stress.
好消息是，我们可以做一些事情来对抗压力，我刚才说的话可能吓到了大家。
This is where things like yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and exercise come into play.
那就是瑜伽、冥想、正念和锻炼，它们有对抗压力的作用。
All of these have been shown to restore the size of people's hippocampus who have been chronically stressed.
这些活动都已经证明可以恢复长期处于压力之下的人的海马体的大小。
A quick word on meditation: A lot of people are intimidated by meditation.
关于冥想，简单说一句：很多人提到冥想会有点发怵。
They sort of know that this is probably good for them in lots of ways, but maybe don't know how to do it.
他们知道冥想可能有诸多好处，但却不知道该怎么做。
Here's a nine-second meditation to help restore your cortisol levels, and to help save your hippocampus and your ability to remember.
这里有一个9秒的冥想，可以帮助恢复你的皮质醇水平，挽救你的海马体和记忆能力。
Close your eyes if you can. Breathe in through your nose to the count of four.
如果可以，请闭上眼睛。用鼻子吸气，数到四。
Hold it for a second, and then breathe out through your nose to the count of four.
保持一秒钟，然后用鼻子呼气，数到四。
And notice how you feel. Here's what's going on: Stress response causes you to breathe like this-
关注自己的感觉。原理是这样的：压力反应会让你这样呼吸--
By breathing slowly in and out through your nose, you are telling your brain and body that you are safe.
通过用鼻子缓慢地吸气和呼气，你在告诉大脑和身体你是安全的。
We also wanna get enough sleep.
我们还要有足够的睡眠。
Sleep is not a state of doing nothing where you're unconscious and it's a waste of time.
睡眠并不是无所事事的状态，你并非没有意识，也不是浪费时间。
You're very biologically busy while you sleep, and there are a number of super-important things that are going on in your brain with respect to memory.
睡觉的时候，你在生理上非常忙碌，你的大脑中在发生着很多与记忆有关的重要事情。
For example, if I got a horrible night's sleep last night, I'm gonna wake up today and my frontal lobe is gonna have a hard time dragging itself to its day job- and one of its most important jobs is paying attention.
举个例子，如果我昨晚睡得很差，那么今天醒来时，我的额叶就很难好好工作，而它最重要的工作之一就是集中注意力。
And if I can't pay attention to what's going on today, what am I not gonna be able to do well today?
如果我不能把注意力集中在今天发生的事情上，那么我还有什么事情会做不好呢?
Form new memories.
形成新的记忆。
Also, your hippocampus consolidates the information you're learning into a lasting memory that you can consciously retrieve while you sleep.
此外，海马体会将你正在学习的信息巩固为持久的记忆，让你可以在睡觉时有意识地检索。
So what happens if you don't get enough sleep?
那么如果你睡眠不足会发生什么呢?
Your hippocampus might not have had enough time to do the job, and so your memories from what happened yesterday and the stuff you learned yesterday, might not be fully formed today, or they might not be formed at all.
你的海马体可能没有足够的时间来完成这项工作，所以你对昨天发生的事情和昨天学到的东西的记忆可能还没有完全形成，或者根本就没有形成。
Caffeine is actually good for memory, because caffeine increases your attention.
其实咖啡因对记忆有好处，因为咖啡因能提高你的注意力。
So anything that's an attention booster is gonna be a memory booster.
所以任何能提高注意力的东西都能提高记忆力。
We know that sleep is super important for forming memories, so caffeine's good for memory.
我们知道睡眠对形成记忆非常重要，而咖啡因对记忆也有好处。
You just wanna be careful that it's not compromising your sleep.
但要把握好量，不能让它影响到你的睡眠。
