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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
When I was first learning to meditate1, 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, 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 into a daydream2, or have this urge to check our Twitter feed.
So what's going on here? It turns out that we're fighting one of the most evolutionarily-conserved3 learning processes currently known in science, one that's conserved back to the most basic nervous systems known to man.
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.
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.
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 literally4 killing5 ourselves with these habits. Obesity6 and smoking are among the leading preventable causes of morbidity7 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 this natural, reward-based learning process ... but added a twist? What if instead we just got really curious about what was happening in our momentary8 experience?
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 smokers9. She said, "Mindful smoking: smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals, YUCK!" Now, she knew, cognitively11 that smoking was bad for her, that's why she joined our program. What she discovered just by being curiously12 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.
Now, the prefrontal cortex, that youngest part of our brain from an evolutionary13 perspective, it understands on an intellectual level that we shouldn't smoke. And it tries it's 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 cognitive10 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.
Now, we can all relate to this in our own experience. We're much more likely to do things like yell at our spouse14 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 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 level and from this disenchanted stance, naturally letting go.
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 paradox15 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.
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 clobbered17 by this huge, scary craving16 that we choke on.
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 helping18 people quit smoking. So it actually works.
And when we studied the brains of experienced meditators, we found that parts of a neural19 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 activated20 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.
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 mechanisms21 and, ironically, use the same technology that's driving us to distraction22 to help us step out of our unhealthy habit patterns of smoking, of stress eating and other addictive23 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 perpetuate24 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.
Thank you.
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1
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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daydream
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| v.做白日梦，幻想 | |
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3
conserved
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| v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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obesity
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| n.肥胖，肥大 | |
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morbidity
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| n.病态；不健全；发病；发病率 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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smokers
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| 吸烟者( smoker的名词复数 ) | |
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cognitive
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| adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的 | |
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cognitively
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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clobbered
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| v.狠揍， （不停）猛打( clobber的过去式和过去分词 )；彻底击败 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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neural
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| adj.神经的，神经系统的 | |
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activated
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| adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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mechanisms
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| n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用 | |
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distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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addictive
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| adj.(吸毒等)使成瘾的，成为习惯的 | |
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perpetuate
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| v.使永存，使永记不忘 | |
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