Preparing for the worst may set you up for the best.

做最坏的打算可能让你处于最佳状态。

A study published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience found that beating yourself up could do you good in challenging situations.

发表在《行为神经科学前沿》杂志上的一项研究发现，在有挑战的情况下，击败自己会对你有好处。

When people in the study wrote with brutal¹ honesty about their past failures, their stress levels dropped, they made more careful choices immediately afterward² and they improved their overall performance in stressful tasks.

当参与研究的人们残酷而诚实地写下他们过去的失败经历时，他们的压力水平下降了，他们随即做出了更谨慎的选择，并且在压力任务中提高了他们的整体表现。

The researchers proved this with 102 test subjects, whose cortisol levels were tested throughout the study to measure stress.

研究人员用102个测试对象证明了这一点，整个研究过程中他们的皮质醇水平被测试以测量压力。

Some wrote about their failures, while others wrote about the plot of a movie they had recently seen.

一些人写了他们的失败经历，而另一些人则写了他们最近看的一部电影的情节。

Then they were asked to complete two different tasks, one to measure their performance, and one to measure their judgment³.

然后他们被要求完成两项不同的任务，一项是衡量他们的表现，另一项是衡量他们的判断力。

They found that the people who wrote about their failures had lower cortisol levels compared to the control group who wrote about movie plots when performing the challenges, and that the former made more careful choices on a new task.

他们发现，那些写下自己失败经历的人，他们的皮质醇水平要比那些写电影情节的人低，而前者在新任务中做出了更谨慎的选择。

In stressful situations, the people who wrote about their failures performed much better.

在有压力的情况下，写下自己失败经历的人表现得更好。

So when times are tough, just remember one thing: You're a failure.

所以形势艰难的时候，记住一件事：你是个失败者。