Daydreaming¹ Diminishes Happiness

做白日梦会降低幸福感

Ah, daydreaming. Is there anything more pleasant than sitting back and letting your thoughts drift? Well, yes: not letting your thoughts drift, for one. Because according to a study published in the journal Science, people are least happy when their minds wander.

啊，做白日梦：闲坐着放松小憩、让思绪肆意徜徉——世上还有什么会比这更令人愉悦？哦，还真有一个：别让你的思绪跑得太远。因为人们在走神儿时会最不开心，这可是《科学》杂志上发表的一项研究说的哦。

Humans, to a degree unmatched by other animals, are capable of thinking about things outside the here and now—something that happened yesterday, or something they hope will happen tomorrow. It’s that sort of itinerant² intellect that allows us to plan and to learn. But at what cost?

从某种程度上说，动物无法与人类相匹敌。人类能够思考非此时此刻正在发生的事情，比如昨天发生的某件事，或者希望会在明天发生的事。这是一种流动的思维，使我们能够制定计划、学习知识。只是，实现这些的代价是什么？

Psychologists at Harvard used an iPhone app to find out. At random³ times throughout the day, the program asked some 2,200 participants what they were doing, what they were thinking about and how they felt. Turns out that people spend nearly half their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing. And that whether and where their thoughts tend to stray is a better predictor of their feelings than what they’re actually up to. The scientists conclude that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

哈佛大学的心理学家们利用iPhone应用程序来找出答案。这个程序在一整天的任意时间里向2千2百名参与者询问他们正在做什么、正在想什么以及感觉如何。结果发现，人们会花掉他们近一半的醒着的时间想些无关紧要的事情，而不是他们正在做的事情。不管他们是否走神儿，或者思绪已经漂到爪哇国了，都比他们手头上的事能更好地预测出他们的情绪。科学家们由此得出结论：心不在焉会令人不开心。

So try to focus on, and live in, the present. You might discover that happiness is just being where it’s happening.

因此，把思绪和注意力放到现实生活中，“活在当下”吧！或许你会发现幸福就在身边。

—Karen Hopkin