爱担心VS.乐天派：忧虑来袭时，教你11招

Worry is, sadly, an inevitability of life. Bad things are bound to happen, and the natural human reaction is to think about the negative consequences that could potentially arise.
可惜的是，忧虑是生活中无法避免的。不好的事情定然会发生，而人类的本能反应就是去考虑可能由之带来的负面后果。

However, worry is rarely productive -- "it's something we do over and over again, without much resolution, and it's typically of the worst-case scenario of the future," explains Jason Moser, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University, who has conducted studies on worry.
然而，忧虑很少带给我们动力—“我们会一遍遍地担心，而没有什么解决办法，而且担心的通常是未来最坏的情形，” 贾森·莫泽博士这样解释道，他现在密歇根州立大学心理学部门任助理教授，已经开展了诸多关于忧虑的调研。

"There’s always an element of uncertainty, always an element of catastrophe," he tells HuffPost. Unlike fear, which has a more pin-pointable source (like a spider on the wall), people worry over "an amorphous, future uncertain threat -- something bad that might happen."
“总有不确定元素，总有灾难性的可能，” 贾森·莫泽博士在《赫芬顿邮报》讲道。忧虑和恐惧不同，恐惧是有具体原因的（比如墙上的蜘蛛），而人们担心的却是“无形的，未来不确定的威胁—可能发生的不好的事情”。

While the research isn't clear on the extent to which people are predisposed to worry, it is clear that there are some personality types that are more linked to worrying than others. Neuroticism seems to be tied to worrying, for instance, as is general intolerance of uncertainty, Moser says. And while everyone worries from time to time, it is possible to worry so much that it starts to have a noticeable impact on your daily life.
研究并没有清晰地表明哪些人更容易忧虑，但明确地发现了一些特定的个性特点更容易导致忧虑。比如神经过敏，通常很难接受不确定的结果，就易导致忧虑，莫泽博士讲道。而且每个人都会时不时地忧虑，这些忧虑达到一定程度就会开始明显地影响日常生活。

But even if you are a worrier, you're not doomed -- there are a number of effective strategies that worriers can use to stop the cycle. Moser and Christine Purdon, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist, professor and executive director of the Centre for Mental Health Research at the University of Waterloo, shared some of the most effective habits and strategies for squelching worry, as well as some common traits shared by people who aren't bogged down by it:
但是，即使你是个容易忧虑的人，这也并非无可救药——有很多有效策略可以让忧虑者停止这个恶性循环。莫泽博士和克里斯蒂·博登博士（专业认证心理学家，现为滑铁卢大学的心理健康研究中心教授和执行主任）在本文分享了一些能够有效消除忧虑的习惯和策略，以及摆脱忧虑的人群的共有特征。

They focus on the present.
活在当下

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between worriers and non-worriers is the ability to stay in the present, and not get bogged down by things that have yet to happen. Purdon calls it a "worry chain" -- the idea that one worry will spur a "what if," which spurs another worry and another "what if," and so on. Non-worriers are able to look at a problem and recognize what solution needs to be implemented, "but a worrier isn't able to get that kind of distance," she explains. "The mind goes a lot faster."
活在当下，不被尚未发生的事情困扰，这种能力也许就是衡量一个人是否容易忧虑的最主要区别。博登博士称之为“忧虑连锁”—就是一种担心会激发另一个“假如“，再激发下一个“假如”，如此产生连锁效应。不易忧虑的人能够去看待难题并且找出需要的解决方法，“但是易忧虑的人却无法达到那种程度，”她解释道，“他们的思绪转得很快。”

For instance, say your son comes home with a bad grade. If you're a worrier, you might then worry that this will cause your son to fail the class, which will then impair him from getting into college. However, if you're a non-worrier, you'll realize that the immediate issue at hand is just that your son needs to study harder in this particular class -- and that's that. "I'm able to say, 'He usually does really well, he's smart, he’s dedicated, he’ll be fine; this is a blip, not a pattern,'" Purdon says. Whereas when worriers become anxious, their "intentional focus narrows to threat cues. They can get themselves very anxious very quickly."
比如，你的儿子考试考砸回到家。如果你是个容易忧虑的人，你可能会担心这会导致孩子最后挂科，可能会影响他上大学。然而，如果你是乐天派，你会意识到当下之急就是小孩需要在这门课上多用点儿功——仅此而已。“我可以说，‘他一直做得很不错，聪明又用功，他没问题的；这只是个小挫折，不是常态，” 博登讲道，然而，当忧虑者焦虑起来时，他们会“有意识地将注意力缩小到那些威胁性因素上，然后很快让自己不安起来。”

They practice mindfulness
学会专注

Because staying in the present is so fundamental to squashing worry, practicing mindfulness can help you to steer focus away from a hypothetical issue that could develop down the road. "It keeps you in the here and now and it helps you be more aware of your thoughts," Purdon says.
因为活在当下对于消除忧虑是如此重要，学会专注能帮助你将注意力从假设性的问题上转移开来，从而不再继续往下想。“专注的力量能够让你留在此时此刻，也让你更能注意到自己的想法，” 博登博士讲道。

And therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy, can also help worriers stop the negative cycle, since they focus "on the idea of not wrestling and disconfirming the worries, but getting people to focus on their life and values and focus on the present moment so they can make decisions," Moser adds.
一些专业疗法，比如认知行为治疗和接受与投入疗法，也能帮助忧虑者阻止这种恶性循环，因为这些疗法的核心是“不去对抗和否定忧虑，而是引导人们专注于他们自己的生活和价值，以及当下的情境，以便做决定。” 莫泽博士讲道。

Their brains actually function differently in a worry-inducing event
忧虑来袭时，让大脑慢下来减压

Moser recently had a study come out in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, showing that the brains of worriers and non-worriers actually work differently in a stressful event. For the study, Moser and his colleagues had 71 female study participants answer surveys that indicated whether they were generally positive thinkers or negative thinkers/worriers. Then, the participants looked at negative images -- such as a woman having a knife held to her throat by a masked man -- as their brain activity was monitored and recorded.
莫泽近来在《变态心理学杂志》发表的一项研究表示，忧虑者和乐天派在面对紧急事件时，大脑的工作方式是不同的。为了这项研究，莫泽博士和他的同事找来了71位女士去回答调研问题，这些问题能够反映她们是普遍意义上的积极思考者还是消极忧虑者。之后，参与者会被安排去看负面图片——比如一个女子被蒙面人用刀指着喉咙——与此同时参与者的大脑活动会被监测和记录下来。

Moser found that the brains of the positive thinkers were less active than those of the negative thinkers/worriers. In fact, "the worriers actually showed a paradoxical backfiring effect in their brains when asked to decrease their negative emotions,” he explained in a statement. “This suggests they have a really hard time putting a positive spin on difficult situations and actually make their negative emotions worse even when they are asked to think positively.”
莫泽发现积极思考者的大脑比消极忧虑者的活动量少。事实上，“忧虑者在被要求减少负面情绪的时候竟然产生了矛盾的逆反效应，”他在一项陈述中解释道。“这表明对忧虑者而言，在困难的情境下积极思考非常困难，在被要求去积极思考时，他们的负面情绪甚至更糟。”