The Science of Gratitude & How to Build a Gratitude Practice

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

欢迎来到休伯曼实验室播客，我们在这里讨论科学和基于科学的日常生活工具。

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

我是安德鲁·胡伯曼，斯坦福大学医学院神经生物学和眼科教授。

Today we are talking all about the science of gratitude.

今天我们谈论的是感恩的科学。

In part, we're doing this because of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, which of course is all about giving thanks, gratitude, but also because there's now a wealth of data showing that having an effective gratitude practice can impact a huge number of health variables, both mental health and physical health, in positive ways.

我们这样做的部分原因是即将到来的感恩节假期，这当然是关于表达感谢和感激之情，但也因为现在有大量数据表明，有效的感恩实践可以以积极的方式影响大量的健康变量，包括心理健康和身体健康。

Things like cardiovascular health, things like relationships, things like mental health, things like physical and cognitive performance, and these are not small effects, these are very large positive effects.

心血管健康、人际关系、心理健康、身体和认知表现等都不是小影响，而是非常大的积极影响。

However, in researching this episode, I was completely surprised as to what constitutes an effective gratitude practice.

然而，在研究这一事件时，我对什么是有效的感恩实践感到非常惊讶。

I, I think, like many of you, would've thought that an effective gratitude practice simply involves writing down a few things or many things that we're grateful for, or thinking about those, or really making an effort to somaticize, or feel, some of the elements of gratitude, while writing out that list or thinking about that list.

我想，像你们中的许多人一样，我认为有效的感恩练习只需写下一些或许多我们感激的事情，或思考这些事情，或真正努力将感恩的一些要素具体化或感受，同时写下该列表或思考该列表。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

It turns out that an effective gratitude practice doesn't resemble that at all.

事实证明，有效的感恩实践根本不是这样的。

The neuroimaging data, the physiological data, looking at things like inflammatory markers, other studies purely looking at the psychology and the long- and short-term effects of an effective gratitude practice, point to a completely different approach to using gratitude to positively impact health metrics.

神经影像数据、生理数据、炎症标记物等研究，以及其他纯粹着眼于心理学以及有效感恩实践的长期和短期影响的研究，都指出了一种完全不同的方法，可以利用感恩来积极影响健康指标。

Fortunately, these are things that we can all do very easily.

幸运的是，这些都是我们都可以轻松完成的事情。

Some of them are actually fun.

其中一些实际上很有趣。

You can do them in a variety of contexts.

您可以在各种情况下进行这些操作。

So today we're going to talk about the science of effective gratitude practices, and we are going to describe what those are and how you can incorporate them into your life.

因此，今天我们将讨论有效的感恩实践的科学，我们将描述它们是什么以及如何将它们融入你的生活。

Before we dive into today's topic, I just want to highlight a particularly interesting set of findings from the literature.

在我们深入讨论今天的主题之前，我只想强调一组特别有趣的文献发现。

This is a study that came out in the journal Cell Report, Cell Press journal, excellent journal.

这是发表在《Cell Report》杂志上的一项研究，《Cell Press》杂志，优秀杂志。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

It's very relevant to today's topic.

这与今天的主题非常相关。

In fact, we're going to spend more time with this paper a little bit later in the episode.

事实上，我们将在本集中稍后的时间里花更多时间来讨论这篇论文。

The study involved having subjects listen to a story.

该研究涉及让受试者听故事。

The subjects are all listening to the same story, but those subjects are not listening to it together.

受试者都在听同一个故事，但这些受试者并没有一起听。

They're not rounded up in a circle or all in a room, they're in separate rooms or entirely separate locations on the planet, or they are actually brought into the laboratory on separate days.

它们并不是围成一圈或全部在一个房间里，而是在地球上不同的房间或完全不同的位置，或者实际上是在不同的日子被带入实验室的。

What this study found is that different subjects listening to the same story undergo the same variation in heart rate.

这项研究发现，不同的受试者听同一个故事时，心率会出现相同的变化。

In other words, the gaps between their heart beats start to resemble one another in response to the same story.

换句话说，对于同一个故事，他们的心跳之间的间隙开始变得相似。

Now, this is very interesting, this is a coordination of the physiology of the body in response to a narrative, a story, in different people.

现在，这非常有趣，这是身体生理机能对不同人的叙述、故事的反应的协调。

And yet when they line up the heart rates of these different people who listened to this story at completely different times, they find that those heart rates map onto one another almost identically.

然而，当他们将在完全不同时间听这个故事的不同人的心率排列起来时，他们发现这些心率彼此映射几乎相同。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

It's really remarkable.

这真的很了不起。

We're going to talk about what this means in terms of coordination of neural circuits in the brain and neural circuits in the body and the organs, such as the heart but also the lungs and other organs of the body, and what this means for changing one's overall state.

我们将讨论这对于大脑神经回路以及身体和器官（例如心脏、肺和身体其他器官）神经回路的协调意味着什么，以及这对于改变一个人的整体状态意味着什么。

A key theme that's going to come up today, again and again, is the distinction between traits, which are pervasive aspects of who we are and how we tend to react to different types of circumstances, and states, which are more transient; you can invoke a state in somebody, a state of fear or a state of relaxation.

今天将一再出现的一个关键主题是特征与状态之间的区别，特征是我们是谁以及我们如何对不同类型的环境和状态做出反应的普遍方面，而状态则更为短暂。你可以唤起某人的一种状态，一种恐惧的状态或一种放松的状态。

But what this study really starts to point to is that there are specific approaches that any of us can take in order to really rewire our nervous system, such that we are calmer if we want to be calmer in certain circumstances, that we are more responsive in certain circumstances, if that's our goal.

但这项研究真正开始指出的是，我们任何人都可以采取特定的方法来真正重新连接我们的神经系统，这样，如果我们想在某些情况下更冷静，我们就会更冷静，如果这是我们的目标，我们在某些情况下反应更灵敏。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So we'll return to how one would go about doing that.

因此，我们将回到如何去做这件事的问题。

But I think these results are just beautiful in the sense that they really show that our brain and our body are highly coordinated, because people are listening to the story and the heart rate is changing in response to the story, but that there is what we call a stereotypy, a sort of stereotyped response to a given story.

但我认为这些结果很美妙，因为它们确实表明我们的大脑和身体是高度协调的，因为人们在听故事，心率随着故事而变化，但存在我们所说的刻板印象，一种对给定故事的刻板反应。

In my mind, there was no reason why the results had to be this way.

在我看来，结果没有理由一定是这样的。

Two people listen to the same story, why should their heart rates be almost identical to the same story?

两个人听同一个故事，为什么他们的心率几乎相同？

Very, very interesting and points to the power of narrative and story in coordinating our physiology, and this is something powerful that we can leverage.

非常非常有趣，它指出了叙事和故事在协调我们的生理机能方面的力量，这是我们可以利用的强大力量。

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

在开始之前，我想强调一下，这个播客与我在斯坦福大学的教学和研究角色是分开的。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public.

然而，我的愿望和努力的一部分是将有关科学和科学相关工具的零成本消费者信息带给公众。

In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

为了与这个主题保持一致，我要感谢今天播客的赞助商。

Let's talk about gratitude.

我们来谈谈感恩吧。

And to begin, I'd like to emphasize the various aspects of mental and physical health that have been shown to benefit from a regular gratitude practice.

首先，我想强调精神和身体健康的各个方面，这些方面已被证明可以从定期的感恩练习中受益。

There are studies showing that performing a gratitude practice twice or three times, or even just once a week, can lead to a pervasive, a long-lasting impact on subjective well-being.

有研究表明，进行两次或三次感恩练习，甚至每周一次，可以对主观幸福感产生普遍而持久的影响。

People report feeling happier, more meaning, joy, even awe for their life experience, simply in response to adding a gratitude practice.

人们表示，仅仅通过增加感恩练习，他们就会感到更快乐、更有意义、更快乐，甚至对自己的生活经历感到敬畏。

The key thing is it has to be the right gratitude practice, and we're going to talk about what the right gratitude practice looks like in just a little bit.

关键是它必须是正确的感恩实践，我们稍后将讨论正确的感恩实践是什么样的。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

But there are additional benefits of a gratitude practice.

但感恩练习还有其他好处。

There are studies showing that a regular gratitude practice can provide resilience to trauma in two ways.

有研究表明，定期的感恩练习可以通过两种方式增强对创伤的恢复能力。

It can provide a reframing and resilience to prior traumatic experiences, so buffering people against the negative physiological effects and psychological effects of earlier trauma, but also inoculating them, in many ways, to any traumas that might arrive later in life.

它可以为人们提供对先前创伤经历的重构和恢复能力，从而缓冲人们免受早期创伤的负面生理影响和心理影响，但也以多种方式让他们免受以后生活中可能出现的任何创伤的影响。

So that's a powerful thing, and today we will talk about how that's actually accomplished.

这是一件很强大的事情，今天我们将讨论它是如何实现的。

It's actually accomplished by shifting the way that the fear and defense networks in the brain actually function.

它实际上是通过改变大脑中恐惧和防御网络的实际运作方式来实现的。

We'll get right down into the details of that.

我们将详细讨论这一点。

The other thing that a gratitude practice does is it's been shown to benefit social relationships, but not just for the relationship in which you express gratitude.

感恩练习的另一件事是，它已被证明有益于社会关系，但不仅仅是为了表达感激之情的关系。

So on the face of it, you might think, okay, if I express gratitude for somebody over and over, over and over, over and over, then I'm going to feel better about that person.

所以从表面上看，你可能会想，好吧，如果我一遍又一遍地向某人表达感激之情，那么我会对那个人感觉更好。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And indeed, that is one effect of a gratitude practice — that's called a prosocial, or intersocial, gratitude practice.

事实上，这就是感恩实践的效果之一——这被称为亲社会或社会间感恩实践。

But there are now several studies, recent studies in good journals, pointing to the fact that a regular gratitude practice can also enhance one's social relationships across the board: in the workplace, at school, with family and romantic relationships, and even one's relationship to themselves, which is really what the subjective feelings of well-being are.

但现在有几项研究，最近发表在优秀期刊上的研究指出，定期感恩练习还可以全面增强一个人的社会关系：在工作场所、在学校、与家庭和浪漫关系，甚至是一个人与自己的关系，这才是幸福的主观感受。

So it's clear to me that an effective gratitude practice has an outsized effect on many, many aspects of mental and physical health.

因此，我很清楚，有效的感恩练习对身心健康的许多方面都有巨大的影响。

And for those of you that are coming to this conversation thinking, "Gratitude practice, oh, that's kind of wishy-washy or woo, it's going to involve putting your hand on your heart and feeling into all the amazing things that you happen to have, even when things are really terrible." That's not where we're going at all.

对于那些参加这次谈话的人来说，“感恩练习，哦，这有点软弱或求爱，它将包括把手放在你的心上，感受你碰巧拥有的所有令人惊奇的事情，即使事情真的很糟糕。”那根本不是我们要去的地方。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And equally important is to understand that the neurochemical, the anti-inflammatory and the neurocircuit mechanisms that gratitude can invoke, are equally on par with some of the effects of pharmacology, of things like high-intensity interval training and exercise and other things that we think of as kind of more potent forms of self-intervention.

同样重要的是要了解，感恩可以激发的神经化学物质、抗炎和神经回路机制，与药理学、高强度间歇训练和锻炼等我们认为是更有效的自我干预形式的一些效果同样重要。

So if you are of the mindset that a gratitude practice is kind of weak sauce, buckle up, because the data actually points to the fact that a gratitude practice is a very, very potent way in which you can steer your mental and physical health in positive directions, and that those effects are very long lasting.

因此，如果你认为感恩练习有点弱，那么请系好安全带，因为数据实际上表明，感恩练习是一种非常非常有效的方式，可以让你的身心健康朝着积极的方向发展，而且这些效果非常持久。

Before we dive into the tools and mechanisms and scientific studies around gratitude, I'd like to just set the framework for the discussion.

在我们深入探讨有关感恩的工具、机制和科学研究之前，我想先设定一个讨论框架。

Gratitude is what we call a prosocial behavior or a prosocial mindset.

感恩就是我们所说的亲社会行为或亲社会心态。

Now, you can be grateful for something without it involving anybody else.

现在，你可以对某件事心怀感激，而无需涉及任何其他人。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So the social part isn't meant to convey anything about interpersonal relations, although it can.

因此，社交部分并不意味着传达任何有关人际关系的信息，尽管它可以。

And today we're going to talk a lot about how interpersonal relations can be incorporated into a gratitude practice in really powerful ways.

今天我们将详细讨论如何以真正有效的方式将人际关系融入感恩实践中。

But prosocial behaviors are basically any behavior or mode of thinking that allow us to be more effective in interactions with other people, including ourselves.

但亲社会行为基本上是任何能让我们更有效地与他人（包括我们自己）互动的行为或思维模式。

Now, prosocial is not just a name that we give these different tools and practices and mindsets.

现在，亲社会不仅仅是我们给这些不同的工具、实践和心态所起的一个名字。

There are actually neural circuits in the brain that are specifically wired for prosocial thoughts and behaviors.

实际上，大脑中存在专门用于亲社会思想和行为的神经回路。

And these are distinctly different from the circuits in the brain that are involved in defensive behaviors.

这些与大脑中参与防御行为的回路明显不同。

So without getting into too much detail just yet, we will later, we have circuits in the brain that are what we call "appetitive." They are designed to bring us closer to things and to bring us into closer relation to the details of that sensory experience.

因此，目前还没有深入了解太多细节，稍后我们会讨论，我们大脑中的回路就是我们所说的“食欲”。它们旨在让我们更接近事物，并让我们与感官体验的细节建立更紧密的联系。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Now, that could be a delicious food that you're eating.

现在，这可能是您正在吃的美味食物。

It could be interacting with a loved one.

它可能是与所爱的人互动。

It could be interacting with a friend or anyone that you happen to like.

它可能是与朋友或任何你碰巧喜欢的人互动。

It could even be in your relation to yourself.

它甚至可能与你和你自己的关系有关。

These circuits that we're calling prosocial circuits light up in the brain in neural imaging, meaning the neurons are firing more actively, more electrically, robustly, sort of like turning up the volume on these neural circuits in the brain.

这些我们称之为亲社会回路的回路在神经成像中在大脑中被点亮，这意味着神经元的放电更加活跃、更加电性、更加强烈，有点像调高大脑中这些神经回路的音量。

And the neural circuits in the brain that are associated with aversive or defensive behaviors, things like backing up, things like covering up the vital organs of the body, things like a quaking of the voice.

大脑中与厌恶或防御行为相关的神经回路，比如倒车、遮盖身体的重要器官、声音颤抖等。

All of the things that are associated with defensive behaviors are actually antagonized, meaning they are reduced when the prosocial circuits are more active.

所有与防御行为相关的事物实际上都是拮抗的，这意味着当亲社会回路更加活跃时，它们就会减少。

So the framework here that I'd like to set is that we have this kind of seesaw of neural circuits in the brain, one set that are prosocial and are designed to bring us closer to others, including ourselves, closer to certain sensory experiences.

因此，我想设定的框架是，我们的大脑中有这种跷跷板的神经回路，一组是亲社会的，旨在让我们更接近他人，包括我们自己，更接近某些感官体验。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Because a lot of prosocial behaviors can also be geared towards things like pets or food or anything that we find we want to be closer to and want more of.

因为许多亲社会行为也可以针对宠物、食物或任何我们想要更亲近、想要更多的东西。

Whereas the defensive circuits involve areas of the brain, yes, such as areas that are involved in fear, but also areas of the brain and body that are literally associated with freezing or with backing up.

虽然防御回路涉及大脑的区域，是的，例如涉及恐惧的区域，但也涉及大脑和身体中与冻结或备份相关的区域。

So the way to think about gratitude is that it falls under this category of prosocial behaviors, which are designed to bring us closer to different types of things and to enhance the level of detail that we extract from those experiences.

因此，思考感恩的方法是，它属于亲社会行为的范畴，这些行为旨在让我们更接近不同类型的事物，并提高我们从这些经历中提取的细节水平。

Now, the existence of these two neural circuits that I've placed on this sort of metaphorical seesaw, if you will, runs counter to a lot of the messaging or the ideas that were put forth in the last century about the psychology of happiness and gratitude versus the psychology of depression and struggle and concern about the future.

现在，如果你愿意的话，我把这两个神经回路放在这种隐喻的跷跷板上，这与上个世纪提出的关于幸福和感恩的心理学与抑郁、挣扎和对未来的担忧的心理学的许多信息或想法背道而驰。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

In fact, I'd like to read a quote from the great, and we really should call him the great Sigmund Freud, because despite having certain traits that people criticize him of, Freud was indeed genius about many aspects of psychology.

事实上，我想读一位伟人的名言，我们真的应该称他为伟大的西格蒙德·弗洛伊德，因为尽管弗洛伊德有某些被人们批评的特征，但他在心理学的许多方面确实是天才。

But I just want to read you Freud's stance on happiness, and this invokes elements of gratitude as well, and then you can gauge for yourself.

但我只是想读一下弗洛伊德对幸福的立场，这也唤起了感恩的元素，然后你可以自己衡量。

Quote, "Our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution." So he's saying that we're basically wired to not have happiness easily.

引用：“我们幸福的可能性已经受到我们的宪法的限制。”所以他说我们基本上无法轻易获得幸福。

"Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience.

“体验不快乐要容易得多。

We are threatened with suffering from three directions, one from our own body, which is doomed to decay and disillusion, and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals.

我们受到来自三个方向的痛苦的威胁，其中之一来自我们自己的身体，它注定会腐烂和幻灭，甚至离不开疼痛和焦虑作为警告信号。

Two, from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction.

第二，来自外部世界，它可能以压倒性的、无情的破坏力量向我们发起攻击。

And three, and finally, from our relations with others, the suffering of which from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other."

第三，最后，来自我们与他人的关系，最后一个来源所带来的痛苦对我们来说可能比其他任何来源都更痛苦。”

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

That's Sigmund Freud, and not all of his writings were that pessimistic, if you will.

这就是西格蒙德·弗洛伊德，如果你愿意的话，并不是他所有的著作都那么悲观。

What Freud is referring to there are those defensive circuits, and of course he talked about psychological defensives.

弗洛伊德指的是那些防御回路，当然他也谈到了心理防御。

And in full disclosure, I am a huge fan of much of the psychological literature and psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and his descendants, like Jung and others.

坦白说，我是西格蒙德·弗洛伊德及其后代（如荣格等人）的许多心理学文献和精神分析的忠实粉丝。

I think there are strong elements of truth there, but it gives you a sense of the kind of mindset of psychology early in the last century.

我认为其中有很强的真理元素，但它让你感受到上世纪初的心理学思维方式。

And then, of course, was the emergence of the positive psychology movement, which was really about invoking the understanding and eventually the elucidation of the neural circuits for things like happiness and awe and affiliation and things that we are calling prosocial circuits.

当然，随后出现了积极心理学运动，它实际上是为了唤起对神经回路的理解并最终阐明幸福、敬畏、归属感以及我们称之为亲社会回路的东西。

So the field of psychology has a dark and light, if you will, and the field of neuroscience has a dark and light.

所以心理学领域有黑暗和光明，如果你愿意的话，神经科学领域也有黑暗和光明。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

You have these, what we call parallel pathways in the brain, and we have parallel pathways in the mind that set us up for feeling good about things or for feeling less good about things.

大脑中有这些平行通路，我们的大脑中也有平行通路，它们使我们对事物感觉良好或对事物感觉不太好。

I think what's really salient from the quote from Freud is that what he's saying is our default is to be concerned about the future, to be wrapped in our defenses.

我认为弗洛伊德的引言中最重要的一点是，他所说的是我们的默认行为是担心未来，陷入我们的防御之中。

And to some extent that's true.

在某种程度上这是真的。

And the reason we can say that's true is because most of us need a gratitude practice.

我们之所以可以说这是真的，是因为我们大多数人都需要感恩练习。

We need to do certain things in order to feel good and to feel happy.

我们需要做某些事情才能感觉良好并感到快乐。

We actually have to put work into it.

我们实际上必须投入工作。

It is quite possible that there's an asymmetry in the way that these prosocial versus defensive circuits are set up, such that because defensive circuits are designed to keep us safe, psychologically and physically safe, that they have more robustness, or they can actually drive our behavior more easily.

这些亲社会回路与防御回路的建立方式很可能存在不对称性，因为防御回路旨在保证我们的安全，心理和身体上的安全，因此它们具有更强的鲁棒性，或者它们实际上可以更容易地驱动我们的行为。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

I'll give you an analogy in the system that I'm most familiar with as a neuroscientist, which is the visual system.

我将用我作为神经科学家最熟悉的系统来类比，即视觉系统。

In the visual system, we have parallel pathways, we have neurons in our eye that respond when things in our environment get brighter.

在视觉系统中，我们有平行的通路，我们眼睛里的神经元会在环境中的物体变亮时做出反应。

Literally, when the lights go up, these neurons start firing like crazy.

从字面上看，当灯亮起时，这些神经元开始疯狂放电。

And we have neurons in our eye that respond when things get darker, when things start dimming or go from white to black.

当物体变暗、物体开始变暗或从白色变为黑色时，我们眼睛中的神经元会做出反应。

The circuits for detecting darkening are much more robust and much more numerous than are the circuits for brightness.

用于检测变暗的电路比用于检测亮度的电路更加稳健并且数量更多。

And that is probably related, probably, to the fact that dark objects, or experiencing looming, meaning incoming objects and being able to perceive them, is something that's vital to our survival.

这可能与以下事实有关：黑暗物体，或者经历若隐若现的物体，意味着传入物体并能够感知它们，对我们的生存至关重要。

Whereas being able to perceive the brightening of things might be important to survival in certain contexts: car lights coming at you at night or something of that sort, but not as often in a kind of evolutionary or ecological context as the darkening of things.

然而，在某些情况下，能够感知事物的明亮可能对生存很重要：晚上汽车灯向你照射或类似的东西，但在进化或生态背景下，不像事物变暗那么常见。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So I think Freud's quote and the field of psychology now point to the fact that indeed, we have the capacity for happiness, and we have the capacity for great worry and concern and depression and unhappiness, and the neural circuit literature also supports that.

所以我认为弗洛伊德的引言和心理学领域现在指出了这样一个事实：我们确实有能力获得幸福，我们有能力承受极大的担忧、担忧、抑郁和不快乐，神经回路文献也支持这一点。

The key thing for today's discussion is that gratitude turns out to be one of the most potent wedges by which we can insert our thinking, and as you also see, the physiology of our body between these two circuits and give a little more levity, if you will, to the side of the seesaw that's associated with positive prosocial feelings.

今天讨论的关键是，感恩被证明是最有力的楔子之一，我们可以通过它插入我们的思维，正如你也看到的，我们身体的生理学在这两个回路之间，如果你愿意的话，可以给与积极的亲社会情感相关的跷跷板的一侧带来更多的轻松。

And if you keep imagining this seesaw imagery, what's really beautiful about gratitude practices is that if they're performed repeatedly and not even that often, but repeatedly, then one can actually shift their neural circuits such that the seesaw that I'm calling prosocial versus defensive behaviors can actually start to tilt.

如果你不断想象这种跷跷板的意象，感恩练习的真正美妙之处在于，如果它们被重复执行，甚至不是那么频繁，而是重复执行，那么一个人实际上可以改变他们的神经回路，这样我称之为亲社会行为与防御行为的跷跷板实际上可以开始倾斜。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And the little hinge, if you will, on the seesaw — in the middle — can be adjusted in a little tighter when the side for gratitude and for well-being and for feelings of happiness is a little bit higher.

如果你愿意的话，跷跷板上的小铰链——在中间——可以调整得更紧一些，当感恩、幸福和幸福感的一侧更高一点时。

What this means is that whether or not Freud was right or wrong, whether or not the neuroscientists in one camp or another are right or wrong, we now know with certainty that a regular gratitude practice can shift the prosocial circuit so that they dominate our physiology and our mindset in ways that can enhance many, many aspects of our physical and mental health by default.

这意味着，无论弗洛伊德是对是错，无论某个阵营的神经科学家是对还是错，我们现在可以肯定地知道，定期的感恩练习可以改变亲社会回路，使其主宰我们的生理和思维方式，从而在默认情况下增强我们身心健康的许多方面。

So we don't always have to constantly be in practice trying to be happy.

因此，我们不必总是不断地练习去努力让自己快乐。

So the succinct way of saying all this is, yes, indeed we might be wired in such that we have a greater propensity for unhappiness than happiness, but gratitude practices, provided they are the effective ones and they are performed regularly, can shift those circuits such that we are happier on average even when we are not performing those practices.

因此，简单地说，是的，我们确实可能比幸福更容易感到不快乐，但感恩的做法，只要它们是有效的，并且定期进行，就可以改变这些回路，使我们平均更快乐，即使我们不进行这些练习。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Now I'd like to talk about some of the neurochemistry and neural circuits associated with gratitude and prosocial behaviors.

现在我想谈谈一些与感恩和亲社会行为相关的神经化学和神经回路。

Numerous times on this podcast I've talked about so-called neuromodulators.

我在这个播客中多次谈到所谓的神经调节剂。

For those of you that might have forgotten or have never heard of neuromodulators before, neuromodulators are chemicals that are released in the brain and body that change the activity of other neural circuits.

对于那些可能已经忘记或从未听说过神经调节剂的人来说，神经调节剂是大脑和身体中释放的化学物质，可以改变其他神经回路的活动。

They make certain brain areas more likely to be active and other brain areas less likely to be active.

它们使某些大脑区域更容易活跃，而其他大脑区域不太可能活跃。

These neuromodulators have names like dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, epinephrine, and so on.

这些神经调节剂的名称包括多巴胺、血清素、乙酰胆碱、肾上腺素等。

The main neuromodulators associated with gratitude and prosocial behaviors tends to be serotonin.

与感恩和亲社会行为相关的主要神经调节剂往往是血清素。

Serotonin is released from a very small collection of neurons in the brain stem, called the raphe, R-A-P-H-E, the raphe nucleus, and a few other places in the brain.

血清素是从脑干中的一小部分神经元释放的，这些神经元称为中缝、R-A-P-H-E、中缝核和大脑中的其他一些地方。

And the raphe neurons send these little wires that we call axons out to numerous places in the brain, and they tend to increase the activity of particular neural circuits that lend themselves to more approach to particular types of experiences.

中缝神经元将这些我们称之为轴突的小电线发送到大脑中的许多地方，它们往往会增加特定神经回路的活动，从而使它们能够更接近特定类型的体验。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

That makes total sense if you think about it: have a chemical that under certain circumstances, released in the brain, that triggers the activity of neural circuits, that makes the organism, you, more likely to stay in an interaction with something or even lean in and seek a more detailed interaction with that person, place or thing.

如果你仔细想想，这是完全有道理的：在某些情况下，大脑中释放出一种化学物质，它会触发神经回路的活动，从而使有机体（即你）更有可能与某物保持互动，甚至倾向于寻求与该人、地点或事物进行更详细的互动。

Beautiful work from a cognitive neuropsychologist, his name is Antonio Damasio, he's a world class neuroscientist, he's been in the game a very long time, has explored the so-called neural correlates of gratitude.

认知神经心理学家的出色工作，他的名字叫安东尼奥·达马西奥，他是一位世界级的神经科学家，他已经从事这个游戏很长时间了，探索了所谓的感恩的神经关联。

And two main brain areas are activated by these serotonergic systems, and when people experience something that makes them feel gratitude, even if it's shallow gratitude, and if it's all the way to deep gratitude, they see activation of these particular brain circuits I'll mention in a moment, and the amount of activation scales with how intensely the person experienced the feeling of gratitude.

两个主要的大脑区域被这些血清素能系统激活，当人们经历一些让他们感到感激的事情时，即使是浅薄的感激，如果是一直到深深的感激，他们会看到这些特定的大脑回路的激活，我稍后会提到，激活的数量与人们体验感激之情的强烈程度成正比。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And those two areas have particular names, you don't need to know the names, but for those of you that want to know, they are the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex.

这两个区域有特定的名称，你不需要知道名称，但对于那些想知道的人来说，它们是前扣带皮层和内侧前额叶皮层。

And of course these brain areas are connected to a number of other networks in the brain.

当然，这些大脑区域与大脑中的许多其他网络相连。

In fact, that's how they get you or others to lean into certain experiences, because when these areas are active, certain thought processes get invoked, those thought processes probably resemble something like, "I'd like to experience more of this," or "this feels really good." And then they literally feed onto your muscles via the neurons, making you happy to stay stationary if you're experiencing something you like, or to move closer to something that you find attractive to you literally.

事实上，这就是它们如何让你或其他人倾向于某些体验，因为当这些区域活跃时，某些思维过程就会被调用，这些思维过程可能类似于“我想体验更多”或“这感觉真的很好”。然后它们通过神经元真正地输送到你的肌肉，让你在经历你喜欢的东西时高兴地保持静止，或者靠近你认为对你有吸引力的东西。

So these are powerful circuits.

所以这些都是强大的电路。

Of these two brain areas, the one I'd like to focus on the most is the medial prefrontal cortex.

在这两个大脑区域中，我最想关注的一个是内侧前额叶皮层。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Many of you have probably heard of the medial prefrontal cortex because this is the area of the brain that is involved in planning and in deep thinking and evaluation of different types of experiences, past, present, or future.

你们中的许多人可能听说过内侧前额叶皮层，因为这是大脑中参与规划、深入思考和评估不同类型的经历（过去、现在或未来）的区域。

It seems actually that pretty much every study of a human anything seems to involve the medial prefrontal cortex, or at least one could get that impression just by looking at scientific abstracts and papers these days.

事实上，几乎所有对人类的研究似乎都涉及内侧前额叶皮层，或者至少人们现在通过查看科学摘要和论文就可以获得这种印象。

So I think it's worth us taking a step back and asking, What does the medial prefrontal cortex really do?

所以我认为值得我们退后一步问一下，内侧前额叶皮层到底有什么作用？

How could this one piece of neural real estate that we all have behind our forehead, how could that be involved in so many different things?

我们额头后面都有的这一块神经区域怎么可能涉及到这么多不同的事情呢？

And the reason it can be involved in so many different things, and the reason it's especially important for gratitude is that medial prefrontal cortex sets context.

它之所以能参与如此多不同的事情，以及它对感恩特别重要的原因是内侧前额叶皮层设定了背景。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

It sets context and it literally defines the meaning of your experience.

它设定了背景，并从字面上定义了您的经历的意义。

Now, this is not at all an abstract phenomenon.

现在，这根本不是一个抽象的现象。

I'm going to give a very physiological example of this, and then we're going to translate it to gratitude, but I really want everyone to understand, How is it that medial prefrontal cortex sets the context of everything in your life?

我将给出一个非常生理学的例子，然后我们将把它转化为感激之情，但我真的希望每个人都能理解，内侧前额叶皮层是如何设定你生活中一切事物的背景的？

Well, it does it the following way.

嗯，它按照以下方式进行。

You have a number of circuits deeper in your brain that simply create sensations, or they allow you, I should say, to perceive certain sensations.

你的大脑深处有许多电路，它们只是产生感觉，或者我应该说，它们让你感知某些感觉。

Let's use the example of cold exposure, something that we sometimes talk about in this podcast for other reasons.

让我们以寒冷暴露为例，我们有时会出于其他原因在本播客中讨论这一点。

If you were to deliberately place yourself into an ice bath, it would be uncomfortable, even if you're adapted to cold and so forth.

如果你故意把自己放进冰浴里，即使你已经适应了寒冷等，也会感到不舒服。

The discomfort is nonnegotiable.

这种不适是无可协商的。

However, if you are doing it because you want to or because you have knowledge that there are particular health benefits, the medial prefrontal cortex can then control areas of your deeper brain, like the hypothalamus, to positively impact the neurochemicals that are released into your system.

然而，如果你这样做是因为你想要或者因为你知道这样做对健康有特殊的好处，那么内侧前额叶皮层就可以控制你大脑更深的区域，比如下丘脑，对释放到你的系统中的神经化学物质产生积极的影响。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

You'll still get a lot of adrenaline by getting into the ice bath, but the fact that you are doing this deliberately, and your knowledge that you are making the choice, that it's you that's deciding to put yourself through this discomfort, has been shown to create a very different and positive effect on things like dopamine, on things like anti-inflammatory markers in your immune system, et cetera, compared to if someone pushes you into an ice bath, or if you are doing it because someone insists that you do it and you really, really don't want to.

通过进入冰浴，你仍然会获得大量肾上腺素，但事实上，你是故意这样做的，并且你知道你正在做出选择，是你决定让自己经历这种不适，已被证明会对多巴胺、免疫系统中的抗炎标记物等产生非常不同的积极影响，与有人将你推入冰浴，或者如果你因为有人坚持要你这样做而你这样做相比，你这样做会产生非常不同的积极影响。真的真的不想。

So there's a very subtle distinction here, it's just the distinction of motivation and desire, or lack of motivation and being forced into something.

所以这里有一个非常微妙的区别，这只是动机和欲望的区别，或者缺乏动机和被迫做某事的区别。

And there are a number of other effects of this that have been described in the episode with Robert Sapolsky that I did earlier this last year; he talked about it, a study in animals, which has also been shown in humans.

去年早些时候我与罗伯特·萨波尔斯基（Robert Sapolsky）合作的一集中描述了这种影响的许多其他影响；他谈到了一项在动物身上进行的研究，这项研究也在人类身上得到了证实。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

If you take a mouse, for instance, and it runs on a running wheel, which mice really like to do, there are many positive effects on reducing blood pressure, improvements in neurochemistry, et cetera, in that mouse.

例如，如果你拿一只老鼠，让它在跑轮上奔跑，这是老鼠真正喜欢做的事情，那么对这只老鼠来说，它对降低血压、改善神经化学等有许多积极的影响。

However, if there's a mouse in the cage right next to it that's trapped in the running wheel and it has to run every time the other mouse runs because the wheels are linked, well then the second mouse that's forced to do the exact same running experiences negative shifts in their overall health metrics, blood pressure goes up, stress hormones go up, et cetera, because it's not actually making the choice.

然而，如果旁边的笼子里有一只老鼠被困在跑轮中，并且每次另一只老鼠跑步时它都必须跑步，因为轮子是相连的，那么第二只被迫做完全相同跑步的老鼠的整体健康指标会出现负面变化，血压上升，压力荷尔蒙上升等等，因为它实际上并没有做出选择。

Medial prefrontal cortex is the knob or the switch, rather, that can take one experience and allow us to frame it such that it creates positive health effects.

内侧前额叶皮层是旋钮或开关，它可以接受一种体验，并允许我们构建它，从而产生积极的健康影响。

And the exact same experience framed as something we don't want to do, or that we are forced to do, can create negative health effects.

同样的经历被定义为我们不想做的事情，或者我们被迫做的事情，可能会对健康产生负面影响。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Now, how exactly the neurons in medial prefrontal cortex do that is rather complicated and, frankly, not completely understood, but it's somehow able to adjust the activity of other neural circuits that are purely reflexive, as we say in neuroscience, really dumb neural circuits that are just switches, and place a context onto it.

现在，内侧前额叶皮层中的神经元到底是如何做到这一点的相当复杂，坦率地说，还没有完全理解，但它能够以某种方式调整其他纯粹反射性神经回路的活动，正如我们在神经科学中所说的那样，真正愚蠢的神经回路只是开关，并在其上放置了上下文。

So gratitude is a mindset that activates prefrontal cortex, and in doing so, sets the context of your experience such that you can derive tremendous health benefits.

因此，感恩是一种激活前额叶皮层的心态，这样做可以设定你的经历背景，使你可以获得巨大的健康益处。

Which leads us to the question, what kind of gratitude practice is going to accomplish this?

这就引出了一个问题，什么样的感恩实践才能实现这一目标？

Because it is not simply the case that I could take a knife — please don't do this experiment — and cut my hand and say, "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this.

因为这不仅仅是我可以拿一把刀——请不要做这个实验——割伤我的手然后说：“哦，我会喜欢这个。

I'm doing this because this is good for me, and it won't hurt." Of course it'll hurt, just like the ice bath is cold no matter what.

我这样做是因为这对我有好处，而且不会造成伤害。”当然会痛，就像冰浴无论如何都是冷的一样。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

But I can't lie to myself, if I have some knowledge that cutting myself is bad for me, that's very hard to override.

但我不能对自己撒谎，如果我知道割伤自己对我不好，那就很难克服。

And so the medial prefrontal cortex has a tremendous capacity to set context, and it does that beautifully with respect to gratitude.

因此，内侧前额叶皮层具有巨大的设定背景的能力，并且在感恩方面它做得非常出色。

But you can't simply lie to yourself, you can't simply say, "Oh well every experience is a learning experience," or a terrible thing that happens, "Oh good, I'm just going to say good." And that your body will react as if it's good for you.

但你不能简单地对自己撒谎，你不能简单地说，“哦，好吧，每一次经历都是一次学习经历”，或者发生了一件可怕的事情，“哦，很好，我只想说好。”你的身体会做出反应，好像这对你有好处。

That's a myth.

那是一个神话。

And frankly, it's a myth that's fairly pervasive in the self-help and self-actualization literature.

坦率地说，这是一个在自助和自我实现文献中相当普遍的神话。

We have the opportunity to reframe and set context on our experiences, but that requires a very specific set of practices.

我们有机会根据我们的经验重新构建和设定背景，但这需要一套非常具体的实践。

We can't simply lie to ourselves or quote, unquote, "fake it until we make it." Neural circuitry is very powerful and very plastic, it can be modified and it's very context-dependent, but it's not stupid.

我们不能简单地对自己撒谎，或者引用、取消引用“假装它直到我们成功”。神经回路非常强大，可塑性很强，可以修改，并且非常依赖上下文，但它并不愚蠢。

And when you lie to yourself about whether or not an experience is actually good for you or not, your brain knows.

当你对自己说谎，告诉自己某种经历是否真的对你有益时，你的大脑就会知道。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So what does an effective gratitude practice look like?

那么有效的感恩实践是什么样的呢？

Well, let's examine what an ineffective, what a poor gratitude practice looks like, because therein lies some really important information, including the fact that I, and I think millions of other people out there, are doing it wrong.

好吧，让我们来看看什么是无效的、糟糕的感恩实践，因为其中蕴含着一些非常重要的信息，包括我以及我认为还有数以百万计的其他人都做错了这一事实。

Most gratitude practices that you see online and that people talk about in various talks, and so forth, involve something like writing down or reciting or thinking about five or 10 or three or 20 things that you're especially grateful for.

您在网上看到的以及人们在各种演讲中谈论的大多数感恩实践，等等，都涉及写下或背诵或思考五件或十件或三件或二十件您特别感激的事情。

And then really trying to feel into some of those, really trying to think deeply about the emotions, the sensations, the perceptions that are associated with those particular people, places, and things on your list.

然后真正尝试去感受其中的一些，真正尝试深入思考与你清单上的那些特定的人、地方和事物相关的情绪、感觉和看法。

Most studies actually point to the fact that that style of gratitude practice is not particularly effective in shifting your neural circuitry, your neurochemistry or your somatic circuitry, the circuits in your body — because you literally have organs and neural circuits that are connected — the circuits of your brain and body toward enhanced activation of prefrontal cortex, enhanced activation of these prosocial neural networks that we were talking about earlier.

大多数研究实际上指出这样一个事实，即这种感恩练习方式对于改变你的神经回路、你的神经化学或你的身体回路、你体内的回路并不是特别有效——因为你的器官和神经回路确实是相连的——你的大脑和身体的回路，以增强前额皮质的激活，增强我们之前讨论过的这些亲社会神经网络的激活。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Now that may come as a surprise to many of you and certainly came as a surprise to me.

这可能会让你们很多人感到惊讶，当然也让我感到惊讶。

There is some evidence that if there's a shift in so-called autonomic arousal during these gratitude practices, these ones that I'm calling ineffective, that they can be made slightly more effective.

有一些证据表明，如果在这些感恩练习中所谓的自主唤醒发生了转变，这些我称之为无效的练习，那么它们可以稍微更有效一些。

So what do I mean by a shift in autonomic arousal?

那么自主神经觉醒的转变是什么意思呢？

Well, very briefly, we have a aspect to our nervous system, both within our brain and body, that we call the autonomic nervous system.

嗯，非常简单地说，我们的神经系统有一个方面，无论是在我们的大脑还是身体内，我们称之为自主神经系统。

It's a little bit of a misnomer because autonomic means automatic, and in fact, we can take control of the autonomic nervous system.

这有点用词不当，因为自主意味着自动，事实上，我们可以控制自主神经系统。

It has one branch, meaning one set of connections and circuits that are associated with making us more alert, the so-called sympathetic nervous system, or I should say sympathetic arm of the autonomic nervous system, but that's really a mouthful — it's really associated with enhanced alertness of any kind, for excitement or fear.

它有一个分支，意味着一组与让我们更加警觉相关的连接和回路，即所谓的交感神经系统，或者我应该说自主神经系统的交感神经臂，但这确实是拗口的——它确实与任何形式的警觉性增强有关，无论是兴奋还是恐惧。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And it has nothing to do with sympathy, it's just about enhanced alertness.

而且这与同情心无关，只是提高警觉性而已。

And then the other arm of the autonomic nervous system is the so-called parasympathetic arm of the autonomic nervous system, but that's also a mouthful, so let's just say it's the calming aspect of the autonomic nervous system.

然后自主神经系统的另一臂就是所谓的自主神经系统的副交感臂，但这也是拗口的，所以我们就说它是自主神经系统的镇静方面。

So it's associated with decreased heart rate, decreased breathing rate, et cetera.

因此，它与心率降低、呼吸频率降低等有关。

So we have these two aspects to our autonomic nervous system, and it has been shown that if people are brought into a state of heightened sympathetic tone, meaning more alertness, then the intensity of the emotions that they experience in their gratitude practice is enhanced, and the effectiveness of that gratitude practice can be enhanced.

因此，我们的自主神经系统有这两个方面，并且已经表明，如果人们进入一种高度交感调的状态，意味着更加警觉，那么他们在感恩练习中所经历的情绪强度就会增强，并且感恩练习的有效性也可以提高。

This is seen nowadays somewhat commonly, as having people, for instance, cyclic hyperventilated breathing, as we call it in my laboratory, breathing that's very intense: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale very deeply for 25 or 30 breaths.

如今，这种情况在某种程度上很常见，例如，人们会出现周期性过度换气呼吸，正如我们在我的实验室中所说的那样，呼吸非常剧烈：吸气、呼气、吸气、呼气，持续 25 或 30 次呼吸。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Then people will sit in a meditative stance, or they'll focus on their notepad and paper, and they'll write out the things that they're grateful for, and then they'll really try and feel into those things, or they'll think about those things.

然后人们会以冥想的姿势坐着，或者他们会专注于记事本和纸，他们会写下他们感激的事情，然后他们会真正尝试并感受这些事情，或者他们会思考这些事情。

And it makes perfect sense as to why enhancing autonomic arousal toward more alertness would create more robust feelings, or more robust impact, of these gratitude practices.

为什么增强自主唤醒以提高警觉性会为这些感恩实践带来更强烈的感觉或更强烈的影响，这是完全有道理的。

Because in that state, you are more alert, and therefore you are able to bring more detail, more richness to the perception and the understanding of what those things on your list happen to be.

因为在这种状态下，你会更加警觉，因此你能够对你清单上的那些事情的感知和理解带来更多细节、更丰富的内容。

And I should say that there are numerous other approaches to this — sort of self-help-type stuff and self-actualization seminars.

我应该说，还有许多其他方法可以实现这一点——自助类型的东西和自我实现研讨会。

People will do things like cold baths, or they'll do chanting, or they'll have any number of different experiences, all of which are mainly geared towards increased autonomic arousal.

人们会做一些事情，比如洗冷水澡，或者他们会唱诵，或者他们会有许多不同的体验，所有这些都主要是为了增强自主神经的唤醒。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

There are even practices out there using pharmacology to create increased autonomic arousal and then drop into gratitude.

甚至有一些实践利用药理学来增强自主神经的兴奋度，然后陷入感激之情。

Across the board, those increase the potency of the gratitude practice of listing things out on paper or in one's mind or saying them out loud.

总的来说，这些都增强了将事情写在纸上、记在心里或大声说出来的感恩练习的效力。

But somewhat surprisingly, at least to me, that form of just expressing thanks, expressing gratitude is not the most effective way to shift these prosocial circuits in positive ways for one's physiology and anatomy and psychology.

但令人惊讶的是，至少对我来说，仅仅表达感谢、表达感激之情并不是以积极的方式改变这些亲社会回路对一个人的生理学、解剖学和心理学来说最有效的方式。

Turns out that the most potent form of gratitude practice is not a gratitude practice where you give gratitude or express gratitude, but rather where you receive gratitude, where you receive thanks.

事实证明，最有效的感恩练习形式不是你给予感激或表达感激的感恩练习，而是你接受感激、接受感谢的地方。

And this, to me, was very surprising.

这对我来说非常令人惊讶。

There are a number of studies about this now, one in particular that I think is interesting is called prefrontal activation while listening to a letter of gratitude read aloud by a coworker face-to-face, a NIRS study, NIRS.

现在有很多关于这个的研究，其中一个我认为特别有趣的是，当聆听同事面对面大声朗读一封感谢信时，前额叶激活，一项NIRS研究，NIRS。

I'll explain what all this means.

我将解释这一切意味着什么。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

You now know what the prefrontal activation part is, this is activation of the prefrontal cortex; the NIRS study, that's just a technical term, it's a form of imaging brain activity, it's noninvasive.

现在你知道什么是前额叶激活部分了，这就是前额叶皮层的激活； NIRS 研究，这只是一个技术术语，它是大脑活动成像的一种形式，它是非侵入性的。

So it's kind of a skull cap, it looks like a hoodie with a bunch of wires coming out of it, basically, that can measure neural activity without having to remove any parts of the skull or put a person into one of these tubelike fMRI machines, which is very invasive.

所以它是一种头盖骨，看起来像一件连帽衫，里面有一堆电线，基本上可以测量神经活动，而无需去除头骨的任何部分或将人放入这些管状功能磁共振成像机器中，这是非常有侵入性的。

It's also a wonderful tool because it allows human subjects in the laboratory to move around and to engage with one another.

它也是一个很棒的工具，因为它允许实验室中的人类受试者四处走动并相互交流。

So in this particular experiment, what they did is they had coworkers write a letter of gratitude, of thanks, to another coworker, unbeknownst to the other coworker, and then they sat down together, and then they imaged the brain activity as this letter was being read and as the letter was being heard, received.

所以在这个特殊的实验中，他们所做的就是让同事在另一位同事不知情的情况下给另一位同事写一封感谢信，然后他们坐在一起，然后他们想象了当这封信被阅读以及当这封信被听到和接收时的大脑活动。

And it showed very robust effects on these prefrontal networks that pointed to the fact that receiving gratitude is actually much more potent, in terms of the positive shifts that it can create, than giving gratitude.

它对这些前额叶网络显示出非常强大的影响，这表明接受感激实际上比给予感激更有效，就其可以创造的积极转变而言。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So this raises a couple of important points.

因此，这提出了几个要点。

First of all, if you are somebody who is prone to write letters of gratitude, ideally I think it's requisite that these be genuine letters of gratitude, or saying things that are genuine expressions of gratitude; this could be by text or in person or by phone; you have within you a very potent form of shifting somebody else's neurology.

首先，如果你是一个容易写感谢信的人，我认为理想的情况是，这些感谢信必须是真诚的，或者说的是真正表达感谢的话；这可以通过短信、亲自或通过电话进行；你体内有一种非常有效的方式可以改变别人的神经系统。

Now that's wonderful, and I think there are many people like that out there, but for many people who want to experience the positive effects of gratitude, it's probably not the most advantageous approach to just sit around waiting, hoping that someone's going to deliver all these letters or words of gratitude.

这太棒了，我认为外面有很多这样的人，但对于许多想要体验感恩的积极影响的人来说，只是坐着等待，希望有人能送来所有这些感谢的信件或话语，这可能不是最有利的方法。

How is it that you can create that sense of receiving gratitude for yourself and thereby derive the effects of gratitude as outlined in this particular study?

你如何才能创造出一种接受感激之情的感觉，从而获得这项特定研究中概述的感激之情？

And there we go back to the important work of the great Antonio Damasio, who explored these neural correlates of gratitude, to define the areas of the brain that are associated with prosocial behaviors, like the prefrontal cortex.

在这里，我们回到伟大的安东尼奥·达马西奥的重要工作，他探索了感恩的这些神经关联，定义了与亲社会行为相关的大脑区域，比如前额叶皮层。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And what's really interesting about the work that Damasio and colleagues did, is first of all, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging.

达马西奥和同事所做的工作真正有趣的是，首先，他们使用了功能性磁共振成像。

So this is a very high-resolution approach to exploring what areas of the brain are active.

所以这是一种非常高分辨率的方法来探索大脑的哪些区域是活跃的。

And it has very high, what we call, temporal resolution, meaning you can see things in time at very fine scales.

它具有非常高的时间分辨率，这意味着您可以在非常精细的尺度上及时看到事物。

So a lot of mechanistic detail can emerge from these sorts of studies.

因此，从这类研究中可以得出很多机制细节。

What they did was interesting: rather than have people express gratitude, they had the subjects go into the scanner, so their brains are being imaged, and they watched narratives, stories about other people experiencing positive things in their life.

他们所做的很有趣：他们没有让人们表达感激之情，而是让受试者进入扫描仪，这样他们的大脑就会被成像，他们会观看其他人在生活中经历积极事物的叙述和故事。

And in this case, these were powerful stories, these were stories about survivors of genocide, so that's what they're watching.

在这种情况下，这些都是强有力的故事，这些是关于种族灭绝幸存者的故事，所以这就是他们正在观看的内容。

The subjects were subjects that were not survivors of genocide.

这些受试者不是种族灭绝的幸存者。

So they were watching these videotapes of people that had survived genocide and had people help them along the way, as part of their story of survival, either psychological, obviously they survive long enough to make the videos, so physical survival.

因此，他们观看了这些在种族灭绝中幸存下来的人们的录像带，并一路上得到了人们的帮助，作为他们生存故事的一部分，无论是心理上的，显然他们都存活了足够长的时间来制作视频，所以身体上的生存。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So within these stories, there was conveyance of a lot of struggle, these people talked about the horrible situations they were in, but also small but highly significant features of their history that had led to their own feelings of gratitude.

因此，在这些故事中，传达了很多斗争，这些人谈论了他们所处的可怕处境，但也讲述了他们历史中微小但非常重要的特征，这些特征导致了他们自己的感激之情。

So for instance, it says a woman — this is literally from the scientific paper — somebody had been sick for weeks, so the woman's describing how she'd been sick for weeks, and then another prisoner who was a doctor finds a particular medicine somehow, it doesn't describe how, and literally saves her life.

举个例子，它说一个女人——这实际上是来自科学论文——有人病了几个星期，所以这个女人描述了她是如何病了几个星期的，然后另一位医生囚犯以某种方式找到了一种特殊的药物，它没有描述如何，并且确实挽救了她的生命。

Or an ally who was also in a stricken circumstance, gave this person a pair of glasses when their eyesight started to falter.

或者，一位同样处于困境的盟友在他视力开始衰退时给了他一副眼镜。

So these sorts of stories.

所以这些故事。

Now, just hearing this in the context of nothing but a scientific paper and discussion, these probably aren't that impactful.

现在，仅仅在科学论文和讨论的背景下听到这个，这些可能没有那么有影响力。

What's really important about this study and is really important for all of us to know, is that these stories of other people receiving things, that were powerful for them in their life trajectory, is embedded in story.

这项研究真正重要的是，对我们所有人来说真正重要的是，其他人收到物品的这些故事，对他们的人生轨迹来说是强大的，嵌入在故事中。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And the human brain, especially, is so oriented towards story; we have neural circuits that like to link together past, present, future, have different characters, protagonists and antagonists, from the time we're very young until the time we're very old.

人类的大脑尤其以故事为导向。从我们很小的时候到我们很老的时候，我们都有喜欢将过去、现在、未来联系在一起的神经回路，有不同的角色、主角和对手。

Story is one of the major ways that we organize information in the brain.

故事是我们在大脑中组织信息的主要方式之一。

There does seem to be storytelling and story-listening circuits in the brain.

大脑中似乎确实存在讲故事和听故事的回路。

So what's important is not simply that these people survived genocide, that's obviously important and wonderful, but it's not just that they were helped along the way, it's that the description of their help is embedded in a larger story.

因此，重要的不仅仅是这些人在种族灭绝中幸存下来，这显然是重要和美妙的，但不仅仅是他们一路上得到了帮助，而是对他们的帮助的描述嵌入了一个更大的故事中。

So the human subject in this scientific study is watching these powerful stories, and the neural circuits associated with prosocial behaviors and with gratitude become robustly active when they start to feel some affiliation with the person telling the story, they start to feel some resonance.

因此，这项科学研究中的人类受试者正在观看这些强有力的故事，当他们开始感受到与讲述故事的人有某种联系时，与亲社会行为和感恩相关的神经回路就会变得非常活跃，他们开始感受到一些共鸣。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

We might call that empathy, but it doesn't necessarily have to be empathy.

我们可以称之为同理心，但它不一定是同理心。

Empathy is a somewhat complicated thing to define because it involves literally a setting aside of one's own emotions and really focusing almost entirely or experiencing almost entirely the emotions of another.

同理心的定义有些复杂，因为它实际上涉及抛开自己的情感，真正几乎完全集中精力或几乎完全体验他人的情感。

It could be sympathy, it could be empathy.

可以是同情，也可以是同理心。

What we do know is that the stories themselves were able to shift the physiology of the subjects in this study and activate these, what we're calling gratitude circuitry that involves the prefrontal cortex.

我们所知道的是，故事本身能够改变本研究中受试者的生理机能，并激活这些，我们称之为涉及前额叶皮层的感恩回路。

So if you think about the earlier study that receiving gratitude is the most powerful way to activate these circuits for gratitude, the subjects in this study in many ways are receiving a sense of gratitude, but through the narrative of one of these other subjects.

因此，如果你想想早期的研究，即接受感恩是激活这些感恩回路的最有力方式，那么这项研究中的受试者在很多方面都在接受一种感激之情，但通过其他受试者之一的叙述。

Which I find fascinating, I would've thought a great gratitude practice would be you sit down and list out all the things you're grateful for.

我觉得这很有趣，我认为一个很好的感恩练习就是坐下来列出所有你感激的事情。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

That just seems so logical to me, but it turns out that these neural circuits don't work that way, that to really activate these circuits for gratitude and the serotonin, and probably the oxytocin system as well, and its prefrontal networks, one has to powerfully associate with the idea of receiving help.

这对我来说似乎很合乎逻辑，但事实证明，这些神经回路并不是这样工作的，要真正激活这些感恩和血清素回路，可能还有催产素系统及其前额叶网络，一个人必须与接受帮助的想法强烈联系起来。

The subjects are associating or experiencing empathy or sympathy for somebody else who received help.

受试者对接受帮助的其他人产生联想或体验同理心或同情。

In the other study we described a few minutes ago, the person hearing the letter was receiving gratitude, and that would amplify the activity of these circuits.

在我们几分钟前描述的另一项研究中，听到这封信的人正在接受感激之情，这会增强这些回路的活动。

And that takes us to a larger theme of, what are these prosocial circuits?

这将我们带到了一个更大的主题：这些亲社会回路是什么？

And an important concept to emerge from this is one that's most often associated with the autism literature, frankly, which is this idea of theory of mind.

坦率地说，由此产​​生的一个重要概念最常与自闭症文献联系在一起，这就是心理理论的概念。

So just very briefly, theory of mind is the ability to attribute or to understand the experience of another, without actually experiencing the thing that they're experiencing.

简而言之，心理理论是一种在不实际体验他人正在经历的事情的情况下归因或理解他人经历的能力。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Again, it kind of sounds like empathy, but this was actually a term that's now been demonstrated in the psychology and neuroscience, that's been linked to some very robust findings associated with brain areas and so forth, that was looking at autistic kids and nonautistic kids.

同样，这听起来有点像同理心，但这实际上是一个现已在心理学和神经科学中得到证明的术语，它与一些与大脑区域等相关的非常有力的发现有关，这些发现正在研究自闭症儿童和非自闭症儿童。

The person largely responsible for developing theory of mind is Simon Baron-Cohen.

心智理论发展的主要负责人是西蒙·拜伦-科恩。

I believe he's either the brother or the cousin, I can't recall which, to the comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen.

我相信他要么是喜剧演员萨莎·拜伦-科恩的兄弟，要么是表弟，我不记得是哪一个了。

Simon Baron-Cohen is a professor at Oxford University, or at least he was the last time I checked.

西蒙·拜伦·科恩 (Simon Baron-Cohen) 是牛津大学的一名教授，或者至少我上次检查时是他。

And the theory-of-mind test can be done on adults or on children, and we can sort of do that experiment right now if you like, and you can think about how you would behave if you were a subject in a theory-of-mind test.

心理理论测试可以对成人或儿童进行，如果你愿意的话，我们现在就可以做这个实验，你可以想象一下，如果你是心理理论测试的受试者，你会如何表现。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Theory-of-mind test involves you or a child or some other adult, sitting down and watching a video of a child going into a room, or a person going into a room, opening up a desk, a dresser, a drawer, for instance, or a desk drawer and placing something in it, like a pen or a toy and then leaving.

心理理论测试涉及您、孩子或其他成年人，坐下来观看一个孩子进入房间的视频，或者一个人进入房间，打开桌子、梳妆台、抽屉，或者桌子抽屉，在里面放一些东西，比如钢笔或玩具，然后离开。

And then another person walking into the room and clearly looking for something in the room.

然后另一个人走进房间，显然在房间里寻找什么东西。

And one presumes it's the toy or the pen, depending on the context.

人们会根据上下文推测它是玩具或钢笔。

People who have strong theory of mind make the obvious conclusion that the person looking around for the pen or the toy is confused, or they're perplexed.

具有较强心智理论的人会做出明显的结论：四处寻找钢笔或玩具的人很困惑，或者他们很困惑。

They don't know where the toy is, they're looking for the toy.

他们不知道玩具在哪里，他们正在寻找玩具。

Someone who is fairly far to one side of the autism, or Asperger's, spectrum, will simply focus on the location of the object, on the location of the pen or the toy.

那些远离自闭症谱系或阿斯伯格综合症一侧的人，只会把注意力集中在物体的位置、笔或玩具的位置上。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And this is especially true in children.

对于儿童来说尤其如此。

They'll say, "Well, it's in the second drawer.

他们会说：“嗯，它在第二个抽屉里。

It's in the second drawer." And they'll say, "Well, how does the person who comes into the room feel?" They'll say, "Well, it's in the drawer." So they tend to focus on the specific factual elements of the scenario, rather than place their mind into the mind of the other person — so-called theory of mind.

它在第二个抽屉里。”他们会说：“那么，走进房间的人感觉如何？”他们会说：“嗯，它在抽屉里。”因此，他们倾向于关注场景中的具体事实元素，而不是将自己的思想置于他人的思想中——即所谓的心理理论。

Now, that doesn't mean that people with autism and Asperger's don't have empathy, in some cases they can, it sort of depends on where they are in the spectrum, and so forth.

现在，这并不意味着患有自闭症和阿斯伯格症的人没有同理心，在某些情况下他们可以，这在某种程度上取决于他们在谱系中的位置，等等。

But theory of mind has very strong basis in these prefrontal cortex neural circuits that we were talking about, because, as you now know, the prefrontal cortex sets context on what we see and experience.

但是，心理理论在我们所讨论的前额叶皮层神经回路中有非常坚实的基础，因为，正如你现在所知，前额叶皮层为我们所看到和经历的事物设定了背景。

And the theory-of-mind task that I just described very briefly is a pure example of context setting, it's not about just the factual elements about the location of the objects, it's about the context.

我刚才非常简单地描述的心理理论任务是上下文设置的纯粹示例，它不仅仅是关于对象位置的事实元素，而是关于上下文。

Someone is looking for something that someone else put someplace, that makes it such that object is hidden.

有人正在寻找其他人放置在某个地方的东西，这使得该对象被隐藏。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So basically theory of mind is your ability to put yourself into the mindset of another.

所以基本上，心理理论就是你将自己置于他人思维中的能力。

And in order to get activation of these gratitude circuits, one needs to put themselves into the mindset of another or to directly receive gratitude.

为了激活这些感恩回路，一个人需要将自己置于另一个人的心态中，或者直接接受感激之情。

So let's just take a moment and start to think about how we are going to build out the ultimate gratitude practice, meaning the most effective gratitude practice for us to do, because of all the many positive effects that an effective gratitude practice can have, if it's the proper one.

因此，让我们花点时间开始思考如何构建最终的感恩实践，这意味着我们要做的最有效的感恩实践，因为有效的感恩实践如果合适的话可以产生许多积极的影响。

It's very clear that receiving gratitude is powerful, but it's also very clear that waiting around to receive that gratitude is an impractical approach.

很明显，接受感激的力量是强大的，但也很明显，等待接受感激是一种不切实际的方法。

Now, there are methods that have been developed by my colleague at Stanford, Kelly McGonigal, and others that actually have developed things for the workplace, for school, for coworkers and students to write out particular worksheets related to what they're thankful for from others and exchange them.

现在，我在斯坦福大学的同事凯利·麦格尼格尔（Kelly McGonigal）和其他人开发了一些方法，这些方法实际上为工作场所、学校、同事和学生开发了一些东西，让他们可以写出与他们感谢他人的事情相关的特定工作表并进行交换。

And so those are very useful practices, I don't want to take anything away from the important work that Kelly and others have done.

因此，这些都是非常有用的实践，我不想从凯利和其他人所做的重要工作中夺走任何东西。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

But in the absence of having other people to do these practices with, what we know for sure is that there has to be a real experience of somebody else's experience, and that the best way to do that is story.

但在没有其他人一起进行这些练习的情况下，我们可以肯定的是，必须有别人的真实经历，而做到这一点的最好方法就是故事。

So in thinking about how to build out an effective gratitude practice, it's very worthwhile, I believe, to find someone's narrative that's powerful for you.

因此，在考虑如何建立有效的感恩实践时，我相信，找到对你来说很有用的人的叙述是非常值得的。

In many ways to think about this is it's got to be a story that inspires you because of the, for lack of a better phrase, the beauty of the human spirit or the ability of humans to help other humans.

从很多方面来说，这一定是一个能够激励你的故事，因为（没有更好的措辞）人类精神之美或人类帮助他人的能力。

And I find this remarkable because what this really means is that the circuits for gratitude are such that we can exchange gratitude.

我发现这很了不起，因为这真正意味着感恩的回路是这样的，我们可以交换感恩。

We can actually observe someone else getting help, someone else giving help, and that observation of our species doing that for one another allows us to experience the feeling of a genuine chemical and neural circuit activation lift, if you will.

我们实际上可以观察到其他人获得帮助，其他人提供帮助，并且观察我们的物种互相帮助可以让我们体验到真正的化学和神经回路激活的感觉，如果你愿意的话。

Very, very different than simply writing out the things that you're thankful for.

这与简单地写下你感激的事情非常非常不同。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And so how would you do this?

那么你会怎么做呢？

Well, people digest story in a number of different ways.

嗯，人们以多种不同的方式消化故事。

People watch movies, people listen to podcasts, people read books.

人们看电影、听播客、读书。

There are a tremendous number of stories out there.

那里有大量的故事。

It's clear that an effective gratitude practice has to be repeated from time to time.

显然，有效的感恩练习必须时常重复。

So what I would not suggest is that we build a protocol in which you are constantly foraging for inspirational stories over and over again.

所以我不建议我们建立一个协议，让你不断地一遍又一遍地寻找励志故事。

Social media and the Internet are replete with those.

社交媒体和互联网上充斥着这样的内容。

That's not going to be a very potent protocol or tool because the most potent protocol or tool for gratitude is going to be one that you repeat over and over again.

这不会是一个非常有效的协议或工具，因为最有效的感恩协议或工具将是你一遍又一遍地重复的协议或工具。

Rather, the most effective protocol or tool is going to be either to think into, and you could write this out if you like, but think into when somebody was thankful for something that you did, and really start to think about how you felt in receiving that gratitude, or, and/or I should say, imagining or thinking about deeply the emotional experience of somebody else receiving help.

相反，最有效的协议或工具要么是思考，如果你愿意，你可以写下来，但要思考当有人对你所做的事情表示感谢时，并真正开始思考你在接受这种感激之情时的感受，或者，和/或我应该说，深入想象或思考其他人接受帮助的情感体验。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Now, what narrative you select is going to be very dependent on you and your taste, it's going to be very dependent on what resonates with you.

现在，你选择什么样的叙述将很大程度上取决于你和你的品味，这将很大程度上取决于与你产生共鸣的内容。

But again, I want to emphasize that the story that you select does not have to have any semblance to your own life experience, it's just about what happens to move you.

但我想再次强调，你选择的故事不必与你自己的生活经历有任何相似之处，它只是关于发生的让你感动的事情。

And so the way that one could do this, and actually I've started this practice for myself on the basis of the learnings I've had in the last few weeks around preparing for this episode, is to find a story that's particularly meaningful for you and then to just take some short notes, bullet-point notes, about maybe list out, for instance, on just a small sheet of paper or in your phone, if that's your preference, just list out for instance what the struggle was, what the help was, and something about how that impacts you emotionally.

因此，人们可以做到这一点的方法，实际上我自己根据过去几周为准备这一集所学到的知识，自己开始了这种练习，就是找到一个对你特别有意义的故事，然后做一些简短的笔记，要点笔记，例如，可以在一张小纸上或在你的手机中列出，如果这是你的偏好，只需列出例如挣扎是什么，帮助是什么，以及这对你有何影响情感上。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

This is something just for you, you don't have to share it with anybody.

这是只属于您的东西，您不必与任何人分享。

That kind of shorthand list of bullet-point notes serves as your shorthand for getting into this mode that we're calling gratitude, and actually closely mimics a lot of what was done in these various studies.

这种要点注释的速记列表可以作为进入我们称之为感恩的模式的速记，并且实际上密切模仿了这些不同研究中所做的很多事情。

Because even though the studies I've talked about up until now were really focused on what we call acute imaging studies, where someone watched a story or received gratitude while the experiment was done, and then that's it, one and done.

因为尽管我到目前为止所讨论的研究实际上都集中在我们所谓的急性成像研究上，即在实验完成时有人观看故事或接受感激之情，然后就是这样，一劳永逸。

There are other studies looking at gratitude in this context over many weeks, up to six weeks.

还有其他研究在数周（最多六周）的时间内观察这种情况下的感恩。

And what one observes is that there's so-called neuroplasticity of these circuits.

人们观察到这些回路存在所谓的神经可塑性。

Neuroplasticity is the brain and nervous system's ability to change in response to experience, and that these neural circuits start developing a familiarity with the narrative so that, for instance, let's say you sit down the first time, you've found a story that you find particularly compelling.

神经可塑性是指大脑和神经系统根据经历而变化的能力，这些神经回路开始对叙事产生熟悉感，例如，假设你第一次坐下来，你就发现了一个你觉得特别引人注目的故事。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

You've written down a few notes about what that story is, just to remind you, and then you read those out and you think into the richness of that experience, that receiving of gratitude.

你写下了一些关于这个故事的笔记，只是为了提醒你，然后你把它们读出来，你会思考那种经历的丰富性，那种接受感激之情。

Or if you prefer, you're doing the protocol where you're thinking about when someone was deeply grateful or was genuinely grateful to you, that you're thinking about that, the neural circuits become activated more easily with each subsequent repeat of the practice.

或者，如果你愿意的话，你正在做的协议中，你正在思考何时有人对你深表感激或真诚地感激你，你正在思考这一点，随着随后的每次重复练习，神经回路会变得更容易激活。

Now, this could be done literally for one minute or two minutes or three minutes; this is not an extensively long practice.

现在，这实际上可以在一分钟、两分钟或三分钟内完成；这并不是一个长期的实践。

And that's another beauty of gratitude practices is that they have these outsized positive effects on so many aspects of our physiology, but these are very short practices.

感恩练习的另一个美妙之处在于，它们对我们生理的许多方面都有巨大的积极影响，但这些都是非常短暂的练习。

They're the kind of thing that you can do walking to your car, the kind of thing you can just sit down for a minute and set a timer and do, because they are really about changing your state of mind and body.

它们是你可以步行到车旁做的事情，是你可以坐下一分钟，设定一个计时器然后做的事情，因为它们实际上是为了改变你的身心状态。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And if you have an experience of receiving gratitude or a story that's very potent for you, it becomes a sort of shortcut into the gratitude network, these prosocial networks, meaning the activation of these circuits becomes almost instantaneous, and that's very different than a lot of other practices out there.

如果你有过接受感激的经历，或者有一个对你来说非常有效的故事，它就会成为进入感恩网络、这些亲社会网络的一种捷径，这意味着这些回路的激活几乎是瞬时的，这与许多其他实践有很大不同。

I'm not aware of any meditation practices, for instance, that you can do only a few times and then within a week or so you just have to do them for one minute, you immediately drop into the kind of optimal state that that meditation practice is designed to create.

例如，我不知道有任何冥想练习，你只能做几次，然后在一周左右的时间内，你只需要做一分钟，你就会立即进入冥想练习旨在创造的最佳状态。

There are some shorter meditation practices that are very potent and very effective like that, but gratitude and the circuits associated with it appear to be especially plastic, meaning especially prone to being able to be triggered, in the good sense of the word triggered, just by simply reminding yourself of this particular narrative.

有一些较短的冥想练习非常有效，但感恩和与之相关的回路似乎特别可塑，这意味着特别容易被触发，从触发这个词的良好意义上来说，只需简单地提醒自己这个特定的叙述。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Now, there's another very clear and positive effect of using this narrative or story-based approach to a gratitude practice, and that's what story does for our physiology.

现在，使用这种叙事或基于故事的方法进行感恩练习还有另一个非常明显和积极的影响，这就是故事对我们生理的作用。

Now, earlier in the episode I mentioned this really incredible study in which listening to a story coordinated the heart rate of different individuals and literally changed the way that their heart was beating.

现在，在本集的前面，我提到了这项非常令人难以置信的研究，其中听故事可以协调不同个体的心率，并从字面上改变他们的心脏跳动的方式。

The title of this study is "Conscious processing of narrative stimuli synchronizes heart rate between individuals." The first author is Perez — again, published in Cell Reports, Cell Press journal, excellent journal, and it's a really elegant study.

这项研究的标题是“叙事刺激的有意识处理使个体之间的心率同步”。第一作者是 Perez，同样发表在 Cell Reports、Cell Press 杂志上，优秀的杂志，这是一项非常优雅的研究。

They looked at instantaneous heart rate, they use electrocardiogram to do that, which is simply a way to look at heart beats with very fine precision.

他们观察瞬时心率，他们使用心电图来做到这一点，这只是一种非常精确地观察心跳的方法。

They also looked at the breathing of subjects as they listened to these stories.

他们还观察了受试者听这些故事时的呼吸。

Some of you may know that breathing and heart rate are actually linked to one another in a really interesting way.

你们中的一些人可能知道呼吸和心率实际上以一种非常有趣的方式相互关联。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

The simple way to put it is that when you inhale, your heart rate speeds up a little bit, and when you exhale, your heart rate slows down, and this is because of the movement of the diaphragm in your thoracic cavity.

简单来说就是，当你吸气的时候，你的心率会稍微加快，而当你呼气的时候，你的心率会减慢，这是因为你胸腔里的横膈膜的运动。

And the physicians and medical types call this respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

医生和医学界人士将这种现象称为呼吸性窦性心律失常。

There's a mechanism there we could get into, but I don't want to distract us from the main theme here.

我们可以进入其中的一个机制，但我不想分散我们对这里主题的注意力。

So just remember, when you inhale, your heart rate speeds up, and when you exhale, your heart rate slows down.

所以请记住，当你吸气时，你的心率会加快，而当你呼气时，你的心率会减慢。

They looked at breathing, they looked at heart rate in different individuals, and listening to a story produced very consistent gaps between the heart rates of the people who were listening, different individuals in the study who were not located in the same place when they listened to the story, listening to the story on different times, different days entirely, had very similar heartbeat patterns listening to this story.

他们观察了呼吸，观察了不同个体的心率，听故事的人的心率之间产生了非常一致的差距，研究中不同的个体在听故事时不在同一个地方，在不同的时间、完全不同的日子听故事，听这个故事时的心跳模式非常相似。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

What this means for your gratitude practice is that having a story that you return to over and over again, even if it's not the entire story, you're just using the shorthand bullet-point version of your story, will create a perceptible and real shift in your heartbeat and in your breathing.

这对你的感恩练习意味着，有一个你一遍又一遍地回顾的故事，即使它不是整个故事，你只是使用故事的速记要点版本，也会在你的心跳和呼吸中产生可感知的、真实的变化。

And actually that's been demonstrated over and over now, that an effective gratitude practice is one that can rapidly shift not just the activation of these circuits in your brain for prosocial behaviors, but also activation of particular circuits in your heart and in your lungs and the other organs of your body, such that you can get into a reproducible state of gratitude each time.

事实上，现在已经一再证明，有效的感恩练习不仅可以快速改变大脑中亲社会行为回路的激活，还可以激活心脏、肺和身体其他器官中的特定回路，这样你每次都可以进入可重复的感恩状态。

So an important component here is that there be some element of story, again, you don't have to listen to or read or think about the entire story start to finish in order to extract these benefits, and that it be the same story over and over.

因此，这里的一个重要组成部分是故事的某些元素，同样，您不必从头到尾听或读或思考整个故事才能获得这些好处，而且它是一遍又一遍的同一个故事。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And as a consequence, that's going to shift your physiology into presumably a more relaxed state, because typically that's the one that's associated with gratitude.

结果，这将使你的生理机能转变为一种更放松的状态，因为这通常是与感恩相关的状态。

Although activation of these gratitude circuits has also been shown to create sense of awe or sense of joy.

尽管这些感恩回路的激活也被证明可以产生敬畏感或喜悦感。

There are a few studies looking at and kind of parsing the difference between gratitude and joy; I was able to find a few studies about that.

有一些研究着眼于并分析了感恩和快乐之间的区别；我找到了一些相关的研究。

But in general, the neural circuits that are activated tend to overlap quite a lot with those that create a sense of gratitude, so we don't want to split hairs unnecessarily there.

但总的来说，被激活的神经回路往往与那些产生感恩感的神经回路有很多重叠，所以我们不想在那里不必要地吹毛求疵。

The key thing is that you want to use the same story, even if it's your own experience or somebody else's, and keep coming back to it over and over again.

关键是你想要使用同一个故事，即使它是你自己的经历或别人的经历，并且不断地一遍又一遍地回顾它。

That makes it a very potent tool that you can get a tremendous amount of benefit from with even as short as 60 seconds of practice.

这使它成为一个非常有效的工具，即使是短短 60 秒的练习，您也可以从中获得巨大的好处。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Earlier I talked about how you can't lie to yourself and say, "I'm so grateful for this thing that I actually hate." And in a moment, I'm going to tell you about some scientific data that proves the statement I made is true and that you can't just lie to yourself and derive the benefits of a gratitude practice.

早些时候我谈到过你不能对自己撒谎并说：“我对这件我实际上讨厌的事情感到非常感激。”稍后，我将告诉您一些科学数据，这些数据证明我所做的陈述是正确的，并且您不能只是对自己撒谎并从感恩练习中获益。

The data are also going to point to the fact that if you are giving gratitude, not just receiving it, but giving gratitude, that too has to be genuine.

这些数据还表明，如果你表达感激之情，不仅仅是接受，而是表达感激之情，那也必须是真诚的。

There's a really interesting study published in Scientific Reports, which is a Nature Research journal, the title of it is "Neural responses to intention and benefit appraisal are critical in distinguishing gratitude and joy." It's a somewhat complicated study, so I'm just going to hit on some of the high points.

《自然研究》杂志《科学报告》上发表了一项非常有趣的研究，标题是“对意图和利益评估的神经反应对于区分感恩和快乐至关重要”。这是一项有点复杂的研究，所以我只想谈谈一些要点。

But basically what they did is they used functional magnetic resonance imaging, so they could look at brain circuitry activation with very high precision, and they had people receiving money in the context of this experiment, and they had some knowledge as to whether or not the money that they were receiving was given to them wholeheartedly or reluctantly.

但基本上他们所做的是使用功能性磁共振成像，这样他们就可以以非常高的精度观察大脑电路的激活，并且他们让人们在这个实验的背景下接受金钱，并且他们知道他们收到的钱是全心全意还是不情愿地给他们的。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And there were a number of different variables in the study, including how much money was given, so in some cases it was very little, in other cases it was modest, in other cases, it was a lot more.

研究中存在许多不同的变量，包括给了多少钱，所以在某些情况下，金额很少，在其他情况下，金额不大，在其他情况下，金额要多得多。

And they also varied the extent to which the giver of the money, that they called the benefactor, was doing it wholeheartedly or seemed to be doing it somewhat reluctantly.

他们还改变了金钱提供者（他们称之为捐助者）全心全意或似乎有些不情愿地这样做的程度。

And they looked at whether or not the sense of gratitude scaled with the amount of money received and/or the intention of the benefactor, whether or not the person giving the money was doing it wholeheartedly or reluctantly.

他们还研究了感激之情是否与收到的金钱数量和/或捐助者的意图成正比，无论捐钱的人是全心全意还是不情愿地这样做。

And what's remarkable is that while the amount of money given was a strong component in whether or not somebody felt that they had received gratitude, which makes sense, the amount of money is some metric of whether or not somebody feels thanked.

值得注意的是，虽然捐赠的金额是衡量某人是否感到受到感激的一个重要因素，这是有道理的，但金钱的数额是衡量某人是否感到感谢的一个衡量标准。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

The stronger variable, the bigger impact, came from whether or not the person giving the money was giving it with a wholehearted intention and not a reluctant intention.

更强的变量、更大的影响来自于捐钱的人是否是全心全意而不是勉强的。

And of course, there was an interaction where the best circumstance, of course, is where the person received a lot of money from somebody who wholeheartedly wanted to give them a lot of money, and they did every derivation of this.

当然，有一种互动，最好的情况当然是这个人从一个全心全意想给他们很多钱的人那里得到了很多钱，并且他们做了每一个推导。

But this is important; this tells us many things that extend way beyond gratitude practices, which is that genuine thanks are what count.

但这很重要；这告诉我们许多超越感恩实践的事情，那就是真诚的感谢才是最重要的。

We could probably presume that, but receiving genuine thanks is also a strong variable in determining whether or not we experience real gratitude or whether or not it's empty, regardless of the size of a gift.

我们可能会这样认为，但收到真诚的感谢也是决定我们是否感受到真正的感激之情或感激之情是否空洞的一个重要变量，无论礼物的大小如何。

So this constrains our gratitude practices somewhat, but I think in an interesting and important way.

因此，这在一定程度上限制了我们的感恩实践，但我认为这是一种有趣且重要的方式。

You can't make this stuff up.

你无法编造这些东西。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

You can't tell yourself that an experience was great, or that I got a lot of money and therefore it justified it, even though I think that they gave it to me reluctantly, or my boss hates me, but they gave me a raise.

你不能告诉自己，一次经历很棒，或者我得到了很多钱，因此这是合理的，尽管我认为他们是不情愿地给我的，或者我的老板讨厌我，但他们给了我加薪。

That stuff stings for all the right reasons because there are circuits in our brain and body that are oriented towards these prosocial interactions.

这些东西之所以会刺痛，是有充分理由的，因为我们的大脑和身体中有一些回路是面向这些亲社会互动的。

And in some sense, what we are looking for as a species, what these circuits want, if you will, is to receive things from people that are giving them wholeheartedly.

从某种意义上说，作为一个物种，我们所寻求的，这些回路想要的，如果你愿意的话，就是从那些全心全意地给予它们的人们那里获得东西。

And that tells us that if we are the giver, that we better be giving wholeheartedly, or we are undermining the sense of gratitude that someone is going to receive from us.

这告诉我们，如果我们是给予者，我们最好全心全意地给予，否则我们就会破坏别人从我们这里得到的感激之情。

So we are gradually building up the ultimate gratitude practice based on the variety of scientific literature that's out there.

因此，我们正在根据现有的各种科学文献逐步建立最终的感恩实践。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And I know that many people are probably interested in developing a gratitude practice that has long-lasting, maybe even permanent positive effects on their neural circuitry.

我知道很多人可能有兴趣发展一种感恩的做法，这种做法对他们的神经回路有持久的、甚至可能是永久的积极影响。

So with that in mind, I want to turn our attention to a really interesting study, it's entitled "Effects of gratitude meditation on neural network functional connectivity and brain-heart coupling." And to make a long story short and a lot simpler than that title, repeated gratitude practice changes the way that your brain circuits work, and it also changes the way in which your heart and your brain interact.

因此，考虑到这一点，我想将我们的注意力转向一项非常有趣的研究，它的标题是“感恩冥想对神经网络功能连接和脑心耦合的影响”。长话短说，比这个标题简单得多，反复的感恩练习会改变你的大脑回路的工作方式，它也会改变你的心脏和大脑相互作用的方式。

You're familiar with the fact that your brain controls your heart, because you could be stressed about something that's perceived with your brain and then your heart rate will speed up.

您熟悉大脑控制心脏的事实，因为您可能会对大脑感知到的某些事情感到压力，然后您的心率就会加快。

You're probably also familiar with the fact that if your heart rate speeds up for some reason or no reason, you're probably thinking, well, what's making my heart rate speed up?

您可能还熟悉这样一个事实：如果您的心率由于某种原因或无原因而加快，您可能会想，是什么让我的心率加快？

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

That's because the brain and the heart are reciprocally innervated, as we say — they're talking to one another in both directions, it's a two-way highway.

这是因为大脑和心脏是相互神经支配的，正如我们所说的——它们在两个方向上相互交谈，这是一条双向高速公路。

This study looked at changes in so-called functional connectivity within the brain and between the brain and the heart in response to gratitude practices.

这项研究观察了大脑内部以及大脑与心脏之间所谓的功能连接因感恩实践而发生的变化。

And as a control, they used what I think is very interesting, a resentment intervention.

作为对照，他们使用了我认为非常有趣的方法，即怨恨干预。

I think resentment is an apt control and quite different than gratitude.

我认为怨恨是一种适当的控制，与感激截然不同。

To make a long story short, what they found is that a repeated gratitude practice could change the resting state functional connectivity in emotion- and motivation-related brain regions.

长话短说，他们发现反复的感恩练习可以改变与情绪和动机相关的大脑区域的静息状态功能连接。

If I haven't mentioned a strong enough incentive for doing a regular gratitude practice until now, this is definitely the one to pay attention to because what they found was a regular gratitude practice could shift the functional connectivity of emotion pathways in ways that made anxiety and fear circuits less likely to active and circuits for feelings of well-being, but also motivation, to be much more active.

如果到目前为止我还没有提到进行定期感恩练习的足够强烈的激励，那么这绝对是值得关注的一个，因为他们发现定期感恩练习可以改变情绪通路的功能连接，从而使焦虑和恐惧回路不太可能活跃，而幸福感和动机回路则更加活跃。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

I find that remarkable and important because a number of people struggle with issues of motivation.

我发现这一点非常显着且重要，因为许多人都在动力问题上挣扎。

A lot of people who are highly motivated also have issues with anxiety and fear.

许多积极性很高的人也有焦虑和恐惧的问题。

And so this study really points to the fact that it's a twofer, if you have a good gratitude practice and you repeat it regularly, you reduce the fear, anxiety circuits, you increase the efficacy of the positive emotion feel-good circuits, and the circuits associated with motivation and pursuits are actually enhanced as well.

因此，这项研究确实指出了这样一个事实：这是一个双重的事实，如果你有良好的感恩练习并定期重复，你就会减少恐惧、焦虑回路，增加积极情绪感觉良好回路的功效，并且与动机和追求相关的回路实际上也会得到增强。

So that's very strong incentive to have a gratitude practice and one that you use regularly.

因此，这是进行感恩练习并经常使用的强烈动机。

We'll talk about how regularly in just a moment.

稍后我们将讨论如何定期进行。

I don't want to go into too many details of this study, although we will put a reference to it if you like, it includes a lot of FMRI data, imaging data of different brain areas, many, many tables and examples of matrices before and after gratitude, after resentment, et cetera.

我不想讲太多这个研究的细节，尽管如果你愿意的话我们会提供参考，它包括大量的FMRI数据，不同大脑区域的成像数据，很多很多表格和矩阵的例子，感恩前后，怨恨之后等等。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

You do indeed have circuits in your brain for resentment, whether you like it or not; we all do.

无论你喜欢与否，你的大脑中确实有怨恨的回路；我们都这样做。

And some people, just those circuits are more robust than others.

而有些人，只是这些电路比其他电路更强大。

But the remarkable thing is one can shift these circuits in the direction that I think most people would like, which is more sense of well-being and motivation and less resentment and fear literally.

但值得注意的是，我们可以将这些回路转向我认为大多数人希望的方向，即更多的幸福感和动力，以及更少的怨恨和恐惧。

And what's really cool about this study also is that the interventions are only five minutes long.

这项研究真正酷的地方还在于干预时间只有五分钟。

It's incredible, five minutes long.

太不可思议了，长达五分钟。

And so as we start to build out our ideal gratitude practice, we know that it has to have certain features.

因此，当我们开始构建理想的感恩实践时，我们知道它必须具有某些特征。

First of all, it has to be grounded in a story, probably a story that you've heard in its entirety at least once.

首先，它必须以一个故事为基础，可能是一个你至少听过一次的完整故事。

But then you can have a shorthand version, the so-called bullet points that I talked about before, that allow you to drop into that story or the emotional associations with that story, so you don't have to listen to the whole story each time.

但是你可以有一个速记版本，即我之前谈到的所谓的要点，它可以让你深入到那个故事或与那个故事的情感联系中，这样你就不必每次都听整个故事。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And that story should be one in which you are genuinely being thanked for something, and it made you feel good, or it could be a story about someone else genuinely expressing thanks, based on the description of the gratitude practices that we talked about earlier.

这个故事应该是一个你真诚地因为某件事而受到感谢的故事，它让你感觉良好，或者它可以是一个关于其他人真诚表达感谢的故事，基于我们之前讨论的感恩实践的描述。

Your gratitude practice can be very brief, I mean it can be as brief as one minute, 60 seconds, or five minutes, which still seems very brief to me.

你的感恩练习可以非常简短，我的意思是它可以短至一分钟、60秒或五分钟，这对我来说仍然显得很短。

Although in these studies, they were getting these really major effects just from five minutes of gratitude practice.

尽管在这些研究中，他们仅通过五分钟的感恩练习就获得了这些真正重大的效果。

Some of these papers involve people doing some focusing on their breathing and calming themselves as they go into the gratitude practice, but that's within the five-minute block.

其中一些论文要求人们在进行感恩练习时专注于呼吸并让自己平静下来，但这都在五分钟的时间内。

So if you decide that you're going to do a gratitude practice that involves first doing some calming breathing, exhale-emphasized breathing, for instance, or physiological sighs, things I've talked about before on this podcast that can help calm you down because they have a lot of exhales, which you now know slows your heart rate down, and then doing your gratitude practice, that's fine.

因此，如果你决定要进行感恩练习，首先要做一些平静的呼吸，例如强调呼气的呼吸，或生理叹息，我之前在这个播客上谈到过这些可以帮助你平静下来的事情，因为它们有大量的呼气，你现在知道这会减慢你的心率，然后进行感恩练习，那就没问题了。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

It's actually not necessary, but a lot of these studies use that.

实际上没有必要，但很多研究都使用它。

I think once a narrative has been set, you've heard the story and it has meaning for you, or you have a recollection of a story where you are genuinely thanked, then I think just 60 seconds or maybe 120 seconds should be sufficient.

我认为一旦叙述完毕，你听过这个故事并且它对你有意义，或者你回忆起一个让你真诚感谢的故事，那么我认为只需 60 秒或 120 秒就足够了。

Then the question becomes how often to repeat this gratitude practice.

那么问题就变成了多久重复一次这种感恩练习。

That's not exactly clear from the existing literature, I can't point to any one study that says five times a week or four times a week.

从现有文献来看，这一点并不完全清楚，我无法指出任何一项研究说每周五次或每周四次。

So I'm going to throw out a number which is three times a week, and then people will ask, "Well, when should I do that gratitude practice?" And I'll tell you what I tell most everybody about most every practice, with a few exceptions, which is the best time of day to do this practice is when you first wake up in the morning or before you go to sleep at night or any time of day.

所以我要抛出一个每周三次的数字，然后人们会问，“那么，我应该什么时候进行感恩练习呢？”我会告诉你我告诉大多数人关于大多数练习的内容，除了少数例外，一天中进行此练习的最佳时间是当你早上第一次醒来或晚上睡觉前或一天中的任何时间。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So we've talked about some of the neural circuitry changes associated with a regular gratitude practice, and I should mention that there's an additional neural circuitry shift that occurs.

我们已经讨论了与定期感恩练习相关的一些神经回路变化，我应该提到的是，还发生了额外的神经回路变化。

It relates to a structure that I mentioned just briefly earlier, which is the so-called ACC or anterior cingulate cortex.

它与我之前简单提到的一个结构有关，即所谓的 ACC 或前扣带皮层。

This is an area of the brain that has several functions, but more and more data are pointing to the fact that the ACC is actually involved in empathy and is involved in understanding the emotional states of others in general, even if it doesn't invoke a sense of empathy.

这是大脑中具有多种功能的区域，但越来越多的数据表明，ACC 实际上与同理心有关，并且参与理解他人的总体情绪状态，即使它不会引发同理心。

And there are several studies that point to the fact that in humans who have a regular gratitude practice, the ACC becomes more robustly engaged, even with these very brief gratitude practices.

有几项研究指出，对于经常进行感恩练习的人来说，即使是这些非常简短的感恩练习，ACC 也会变得更加积极地参与。

We actually have a project in our lab, this is actually done in animal models, where animals observe other animals experiencing certain emotional states.

我们的实验室实际上有一个项目，这实际上是在动物模型中完成的，动物观察其他动物经历某些情绪状态。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And one of the brain areas that we've identified as important for this, it's kind of a primordial form of empathy because we really don't know what these mice are thinking — we work on humans.

我们认为对此很重要的大脑区域之一是同理心的一种原始形式，因为我们真的不知道这些老鼠在想什么——我们的研究对象是人类。

In the case where we work on humans, of course we ask them, and they tell us what they think they're thinking; with the mice, we ask them, but they don't tell us much of anything interesting, instead we measure a number of physiological signals.

当我们对人类进行研究时，我们当然会询问他们，他们会告诉我们他们认为自己在想什么；对于老鼠，我们询问它们，但它们并没有告诉我们太多有趣的事情，相反，我们测量了一些生理信号。

But the important point is that the ACC, the anterior cingulate cortex, seems to be an important hub for the generation and execution of empathy as it relates to feelings and empathic behaviors, altruistic behaviors of animals helping animals and humans helping other humans.

但重要的一点是，ACC（前扣带皮层）似乎是同理心产生和执行的重要枢纽，因为它与情感和同理心行为、动物帮助动物和人类帮助他人的利他行为有关。

We see this in animal models, we see this in humans.

我们在动物模型中看到了这一点，在人类中也看到了这一点。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So if you want to be a more empathic person, a gratitude practice is also going to be very effective for that, it appears, especially using this narrative-type approach where you are using someone else's narrative of receiving gratitude as a way to tap into your own sense of gratitude.

因此，如果你想成为一个更有同理心的人，感恩练习似乎也会非常有效，尤其是使用这种叙事型方法，你可以使用别人接受感激的叙述来挖掘你自己的感激之情。

Thus far we've mainly talked about the effects of gratitude on neural circuit activation and changes, a little bit about some of the changes that are happening in terms of the body, heart rate and breathing and so forth.

到目前为止，我们主要讨论了感恩对神经回路激活和变化的影响，以及一些在身体、心率和呼吸等方面正在发生的变化。

But we haven't talked a lot yet about the changes in health metrics, in things like inflammation or reductions in inflammation and immunity and things of that sort.

但我们还没有过多讨论健康指标的变化，比如炎症或炎症和免疫力的减少等。

So with that in mind, I'd like to describe the results of a really interesting recent study that was published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

因此，考虑到这一点，我想描述一下最近发表在《大脑、行为和免疫》杂志上的一项非常有趣的研究的结果。

This was published 2021.

该文章于 2021 年发布。

The title of the study is "Exploring neural mechanisms of the health benefits of gratitude in women: A randomized control trial." The first author is Hazlett.

该研究的标题是“探索感恩对女性健康益处的神经机制：一项随机对照试验”。第一作者是哈兹莱特。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And basically what this paper showed was that women who had a regular gratitude practice of the sort that we've been talking about up until now showed reductions in amygdala activity, a brain area associated with threat detection, a intimate part of the fear network in the brain.

这篇论文基本上表明，定期进行感恩练习的女性，杏仁核的活动会减少，杏仁核是与威胁检测相关的大脑区域，是大脑中恐惧网络的重要组成部分。

So reductions in amygdala activation, and large reductions in the production of something called TNF alpha, tumor necrosis factor alpha, and IL-6, interleukin 6.

因此，杏仁核激活减少，TNF α、肿瘤坏死因子 α、IL-6、白细胞介素 6 的产生大幅减少。

Now if you happen to have listened to the episode that I did on activating your immune system and immune function, you heard about TNF alpha and IL-6.

现在，如果您碰巧听过我关于激活免疫系统和免疫功能的节目，您就会听说过 TNF α 和 IL-6。

TNF alpha and IL-6 are inflammatory cytokines.

TNF α 和 IL-6 是炎症细胞因子。

These are chemicals that exist in your body and that are released from cells when there is damage or kind of a systemic stress, when your system is in duress.

这些是存在于您体内的化学物质，当您的系统受到损害或出现某种系统压力时，这些化学物质会从细胞中释放出来。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And in the short term they can be beneficial, they can call in signals for wound healing and repair of cells, et cetera.

从短期来看，它们可能是有益的，它们可以发出伤口愈合和细胞修复等信号。

But you don't want TNF alpha and IL-6 levels to be too high, and you don't want those levels to be up for too long.

但您不希望 TNF α 和 IL-6 水平太高，也不希望这些水平持续太长时间。

And so this study is really nice because they showed significant effects in reducing TNF alpha and IL-6 in response to a gratitude practice.

所以这项研究非常好，因为它们显示出感恩练习对减少 TNF α 和 IL-6 的显着效果。

And because they also observed reductions in amygdala activation, this area associated with threat detection and fear, it's likely — and I should emphasize likely because I don't know — that the direction of the effect is that there are neural circuit changes, which in turn shift the degree to which these inflammatory cytokines are released in the body.

因为他们还观察到杏仁核激活的减少，这个区域与威胁检测和恐惧相关，所以很可能——我应该强调可能，因为我不知道——影响的方向是神经回路的变化，这反过来又改变了这些炎症细胞因子在体内释放的程度。

Although for all I know, it could be the other way too.

尽管据我所知，也可能是另一种方式。

It could be that having a gratitude practice shifts something about heart rate and breathing, which in turn shifts or lowers the amount of TNF alpha and IL-6.

感恩练习可能会改变心率和呼吸，进而改变或降低 TNF α 和 IL-6 的含量。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And that in turn reduces activation of the amygdala; we don't really know the direction of the effect, but if I had to speculate, I would speculate that it was a shift in neural circuitry that led to a change in the circuits of the body.

这反过来又减少了杏仁核的激活；我们并不真正知道效果的方向，但如果我必须推测的话，我会推测这是神经回路的变化导致了身体回路的变化。

And another interesting aspect of this study is that the reductions in amygdala activation and the reductions in TNF alpha and IL-6 were very rapid, they occurred almost immediately after the gratitude practice was completed.

这项研究的另一个有趣的方面是，杏仁核激活的减少以及 TNF α 和 IL-6 的减少非常迅速，它们几乎在感恩练习完成后立即发生。

And even though that study was performed exclusively on female subjects, based on the biology and circuitry of the amygdala and the biology of TNF alpha and IL-6 performing this inflammatory role in both men and women, I don't see any reason why the results of that study wouldn't pertain to both men and women.

尽管该研究仅针对女性受试者进行，但基于杏仁核的生物学和回路以及 TNF α 和 IL-6 在男性和女性中发挥这种炎症作用的生物学，我不认为该研究的结果不适用于男性和女性。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So what about the chemistry associated with gratitude?

那么与感恩相关的化学反应又如何呢？

Are there certain chemicals in our brain or that we could enhance in our brain that would enhance our gratitude practice?

我们的大脑中是否存在某些化学物质，或者我们可以增强大脑中的某些化学物质来增强我们的感恩实践？

Indeed, there are.

确实有。

And earlier I mentioned the chemical, the neuromodulator, serotonin as having a powerful influence on the activation of neural circuits associated with prosocial behaviors and gratitude and other sort of feel-good behaviors.

之前我提到过，神经调节剂血清素对与亲社会行为、感恩和其他感觉良好行为相关的神经回路的激活具有强大的影响。

To make a long story short, neuromodulators like dopamine and epinephrine and norepinephrine tend to place us into a state of exteroception, meaning a state of observing things and focusing on things outside the immediate reach of our body and confines of our skin.

长话短说，多巴胺、肾上腺素和去甲肾上腺素等神经调节剂往往会将我们置于外感受状态，这意味着观察事物并专注于我们身体和皮肤范围之外的事物的状态。

They tend to put us in pursuit or in thinking about things out in the future or out away from our physical body.

它们往往会让我们去追求或思考未来的事情，或者远离我们的身体。

Whereas the neuromodulator serotonin and some of the associated pathways like oxytocin and other neurochemicals tend to, I want to emphasize tend to be associated with states that are about contentment with what we have within the confines of our body and our immediate experience.

虽然神经调节剂血清素和一些相关途径（如催产素和其他神经化学物质）往往与我们对身体范围内所拥有的东西和我们的直接体验感到满意的状态有关，但我想强调的是。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So they're not so much about pursuit, but about gratitude and about appreciation for what we already have.

所以它们与其说是关于追求，不如说是关于感激和对我们已经拥有的东西的欣赏。

I'd be remiss if I didn't therefore point out that if one were to shift their chemistry toward having higher levels of serotonin, you would by all logic experience heightened levels of gratitude.

如果我没有指出，如果一个人将他们的化学反应转向具有更高水平的血清素，那么从逻辑上讲，你会体验到更高水平的感激之情，那我就失职了。

And indeed, some people do this, they will take compounds that increase serotonin; there are a number of compounds out there — as you know, I'm certainly not suggesting people do that.

事实上，有些人这样做，他们会服用增加血清素的化合物；那里有很多化合物——如你所知，我当然不建议人们这样做。

A couple of the supplement-based, legal over-the-counter approaches to this are things like 5-HTP, which is a precursor to serotonin.

一些基于补充剂的合法非处方药就是 5-HTP，它是血清素的前体。

Some people will take 5-HTP to try and enhance their sleep; I'm not a fan of doing that personally.

有些人会服用 5-HTP 来尝试改善睡眠；我个人不喜欢这样做。

I've talked about this in the sleep episodes, but the state that we call sleep has a very complex and important architecture as it relates to neurochemicals.

我在睡眠片段中谈到了这一点，但是我们称之为睡眠的状态具有非常复杂且重要的架构，因为它与神经化学物质有关。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

And by taking serotonin by supplement, or by stimulating serotonin release by supplement with 5-HTP, or with tryptophan, which is amino acid precursor to serotonin, one can run into the problem of disrupting the normal architecture of sleep cycles throughout the night.

通过补充血清素，或者通过补充 5-HTP 或色氨酸（血清素的氨基酸前体）来刺激血清素释放，人们可能会遇到破坏整夜睡眠周期正常结构的问题。

I experience that if I've taken 5-HTP or tryptophan; I fall asleep very deeply, but then I wake up three hours later and I can't fall asleep at all, and actually it sometimes even messes up my sleep the subsequent night.

我的经验是，如果我服用了 5-HTP 或色氨酸；我睡得很沉，但三个小时后我就醒了，根本无法入睡，甚至有时甚至会扰乱我第二天晚上的睡眠。

Some people are not so sensitive to 5-HTP and tryptophan, and they actually really like it.

有些人对5-HTP和色氨酸不太敏感，但他们实际上很喜欢它们。

So again, you have to talk to your doctor, decide what's right for you, you're responsible for your health, not me, and you have to determine what works for you; everyone's slightly individual.

再说一次，你必须和你的医生谈谈，决定什么适合你，你对你的健康负责，而不是我，你必须确定什么对你有效；每个人都有点个性。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

But one could imagine enhancing their amount of serotonin in their brain and body by taking 5-HTP or tryptophan before a gratitude practice.

但是，人们可以想象在感恩练习之前服用 5-HTP 或色氨酸来增加大脑和身体中的血清素含量。

That seems a little bit extreme given that the gratitude practice is only about a minute to five minutes long on a regular basis, but there may be instances in which you're really trying to amplify these circuitry in the brain and body that are associated with gratitude, and therefore that might be something that you want to explore.

这似乎有点极端，因为定期的感恩练习只有一分钟到五分钟左右，但在某些情况下，你可能真的想放大大脑和身体中与感恩相关的回路，因此这可能是你想要探索的东西。

There's a new compound that's out there, a legal over-the-counter compound — at least it's legal in the United States, I don't know about overseas — and that's a compound called kanna, K-A-N-N-A; it's an interesting compound.

有一种新的化合物出现了，一种合法的非处方化合物——至少在美国是合法的，我不知道海外的情况如何——这就是一种叫做kanna的化合物，K-A-N-N-A；这是一个有趣的化合物。

It goes by another name as well, which is, and I'm going to mispronounce this and I apologize, this is Sceletium tortuosum, please see our timestamps if you want to see the spelling of that, but I'll just call it kanna, by its other name for short.

它还有另一个名字，我会读错这个名字，我很抱歉，这是 Sceletium tortuosum，如果你想看看它的拼写，请查看我们的时间戳，但我简称它为 kanna，简称为它的另一个名字。

It's an herb that is traditionally chewed prior to stressing endeavors, is how it's described on examine.com.

这是一种传统上在进行压力训练之前咀嚼的草药，检查网站上是这样描述的。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

But I looked at some of the studies on this, it's kind of interesting, it very likely increases the amount of serotonin in the body and pretty potently.

但我看了一些这方面的研究，这很有趣，它很可能会增加体内血清素的含量，而且非常有效。

It is generally taken in dosages of anywhere from 25 to 50 milligrams, and it creates a kind of a prosocial, gratitude-enhancing, or I should say gratitude circuitry, prosocial neural circuitry-enhancing effect because of the ways that it interacts with the serotonergic pathways of the brain.

它的服用剂量通常为 25 至 50 毫克，它会产生一种亲社会的、增强感恩的效果，或者我应该说感恩回路，亲社会的神经回路增强效果，因为它与大脑的血清素通路相互作用。

So it also has another name, it's sometimes called zembrin, Z-E-M-B-R-I-N, again, I'm not suggesting that people run out and take this stuff, but there is an emerging practice of people using zembrin, Sceletium tortuosum, also called kanna, K-A-N-N-A, in order to enhance the states that are about comfort and pleasure with what one has in their immediate sphere of experience.

所以它还有另一个名字，有时被称为 zembrin，Z-E-M-B-R-I-N，再说一遍，我并不是建议人们跑出去拿这些东西，但人们正在使用 zembrin，Sceletium tortuosum，也称为 kanna，K-A-N-N-A，以增强人们在其直接经验范围内所拥有的舒适和愉悦的状态。

And so one could imagine if it's safe for you and right for you and legal where you live, enhancing serotonin by taking kanna and then doing your gratitude practice.

因此，人们可以想象，如果通过服用神那来增强血清素，然后进行感恩练习，这对您来说是否安全、适合您以及您居住的地方是否合法。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

What's the logic behind that?

这背后的逻辑是什么？

Well, oftentimes we hear about supplements in pharmacology for, quote, unquote, 'increasing plasticity" or "opening plasticity." If I had a dollar for every time someone said, "I hear that such and such opens plasticity," well indeed there are molecules associated with the thing that we call neuroplasticity, but neuroplasticity is not an event, it's a process, meaning it has many, many steps.

好吧，我们经常听到药理学补充剂，引用，不引用，“增加可塑性”或“打开可塑性。”如果每次有人说“我听说这样那样打开可塑性”我就得到一美元，那么确实有一些分子与我们所说的神经可塑性相关，但神经可塑性不是一个事件，它是一个过程，这意味着它有很多很多步骤。

It occurs during wakefulness, it's consolidated during sleep, and so forth.

它发生在清醒时，在睡眠时巩固，等等。

Taking a substance that increases a neurochemical in your brain will likely, provided it's the right substance and it's the right practice, will likely enhance the amplitude or the intensity of that practice and make it a more potent form of inducing neuroplasticity, meaning it will create longer-lasting, or more robust brain changes than if one hadn't increased their chemistry in this way, this way of taking something.

服用一种能增加大脑中神经化学物质的物质，只要是正确的物质和正确的练习，很可能会增强这种练习的幅度或强度，并使其成为一种更有效的诱导神经可塑性的形式，这意味着，与没有以这种方式增加化学物质的情况相比，它会产生更持久、或更强烈的大脑变化，这种服用某种东西的方式。

But that doesn't necessarily mean that you couldn't get to the very same place without it, by simply doing a slightly longer gratitude practice or putting a little bit more mental effort into it.

但这并不一定意味着如果没有它，你就无法达到同样的目标，只需进行稍长一点的感恩练习或投入更多的精神努力即可。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

That said, I think the future of neuroplasticity really resides in not just one approach, not just neurochemistry and taking substances to increase neuroplasticity, not just behavioral practices to try and increase neuroplasticity, not just brain machine interfaces or devices to increase neuroplasticity, but rather the convergence of multiple tools.

也就是说，我认为神经可塑性的未来实际上不仅仅在于一种方法，不仅仅是神经化学和服用物质来增加神经可塑性，不仅仅是尝试增加神经可塑性的行为实践，不仅仅是脑机接口或设备来增加神经可塑性，而是多种工具的融合。

So you could imagine enhancing serotonergic transmission, as we say, in the brain, using something like kanna combined with a gratitude practice.

因此，您可以想象使用类似 kanna 的东西结合感恩练习来增强大脑中的血清素传递。

In the not-too-distant future, this will probably also be combined with some sort of noninvasive device to stimulate the prefrontal cortex at the same time.

在不久的将来，这可能还会与某种非侵入性设备结合起来，同时刺激前额皮质。

Please don't do that recreationally; those devices are for clinical use only currently.

请不要为了娱乐而这样做；这些设备目前仅用于临床用途。

But I think you start to get the idea.

但我想你已经开始明白了。

So for those of you that are a little bit more exploratory, and you want to go in and do some reading on this, I thought you might find kanna interesting.

因此，对于那些更具探索性、想要深入阅读相关内容的人，我想您可能会发现 kanna 很有趣。

I certainly did.

我当然做到了。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

There are a number of studies that will pop up on PubMed.

PubMed 上将会出现许多研究。

I recommend using examine.com as you're jumping-off point.

我建议使用 Exam.com 作为您的起点。

There are some decent studies that they describe in their so-called Human Effect Matrix, so those are studies done on humans.

他们在所谓的人类影响矩阵中描述了一些不错的研究，所以这些都是针对人类进行的研究。

And the main effects that have been documented in the scientific literature are minor but significant increases in cognition, executive function — executive function is something that's also associated with prefrontal cortex and reductions in anxiety.

科学文献中记录的主要影响虽小，但却显着提高了认知、执行功能——执行功能也与前额皮质和焦虑减少有关。

And that seems to be a common theme that we're seeing again and again, you saw this in the study, the trial, where we saw reductions in TNF alpha and reductions in amygdala activation, which would ostensibly lead to reductions in anxiety.

这似乎是我们一次又一次看到的一个共同主题，你在研究、试验中看到了这一点，我们看到 TNF α 的减少和杏仁核激活的减少，这表面上会导致焦虑的减少。

You're seeing increases in activity and brain networks that are associated with feelings of well-being.

您会看到与幸福感相关的活动和大脑网络有所增加。

So again, back to that kind of push-pull of defensive anxiety and fear-like circuitry in the brain being antagonistic, as we say, to the circuits that are associated with prosocial, feeling good, receiving good feelings-type circuitry and events in life.

再次，回到大脑中防御性焦虑和恐惧类电路的推拉，正如我们所说，与与亲社会、感觉良好、接受良好感觉类型的电路和生活中的事件相关的电路是对立的。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

So as you now know, there is a lot of science about how gratitude can positively impact neural circuits in the brain, anti-inflammatory markers in the body, brain, heart, breathing, coordination, and on and on and on.

正如你现在所知，有很多科学表明感恩如何对大脑中的神经回路、身体、大脑、心脏、呼吸、协调性等中的抗炎标记物产生积极影响。

I'd like to just highlight the key elements of the most effective, at least to my knowledge, gratitude practice.

我只想强调至少就我所知最有效的感恩实践的关键要素。

And when I say the most effective, what I'm doing is I'm gleaning from the scientific studies I was able to find and combining the various findings of those studies into what I think is a very practical and what should certainly be a very effective gratitude practice for all the positive effects that we described.

当我说最有效时，我正在做的就是从我能够找到的科学研究中收集信息，并将这些研究的各种发现结合起来，形成我认为非常实用且肯定应该是对我们描述的所有积极效果的非常有效的感恩实践。

First of all, that gratitude practice has to be grounded in a narrative, meaning a story.

首先，感恩实践必须以叙事为基础，即故事。

You don't have to recite or hear that story every single time you do the gratitude practice, but you have to know what that story was and what the gratitude practice references back to.

你不必每次进行感恩练习时都背诵或听到那个故事，但你必须知道那个故事是什么以及感恩练习所指的是什么。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Second of all, that story can be one of you receiving genuine thanks.

其次，这个故事可能是你们中受到真诚感谢的人之一。

And the key elements there are that you are the one receiving the thanks, the gratitude, and that it's being given to you genuinely, wholeheartedly.

其中的关键要素是你是接受感谢和感激的人，并且它是真诚地、全心全意地给予你的。

Or it can be a story of you observing someone else receiving thanks or expressing thanks, and that has to be a genuine interaction as well, both between the giver and the receiver.

或者它可以是一个你观察别人接受感谢或表达感谢的故事，这也必须是给予者和接受者之间的真诚互动。

So those are the first three elements.

这些是前三个要素。

What I recommend would be after you've established the story that you want to use for your gratitude practice, that you write down three or four simple bullet points that can serve as salient reminders of that story for you, it will serve as kind of a cue for that story, without having to listen to or talk out the entire story.

我的建议是，在你建立了要用于感恩练习的故事之后，写下三到四个简单的要点，这些要点可以作为该故事的显着提醒，它将作为该故事的提示，而不必听或讲出整个故事。

I would recommend writing down something about the state that you or the other person were in before they received the gratitude, the state that you were in or that the person was in after they received the gratitude, and any other elements that lend some sort of emotional weight or tone to the story.

我建议写下一些关于你或其他人在收到感谢之前所处的状态、你或这个人在收到感谢之后所处的状态，以及任何其他给故事带来某种情感分量或基调的元素。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

This could be three pages of text if you like, or it could just be a couple bullet points, I don't think it really matters.

如果您愿意，这可以是三页文本，也可以只是几个要点，我认为这并不重要。

The important thing is that it's embedded in your memory and that it's really associated with this genuine exchange of thanks and the receival of thanks, I think those are the key elements.

重要的是，它被嵌入到你的记忆中，并且它确实与这种真诚的感谢交流和接受感谢联系在一起，我认为这些是关键要素。

And then it's very simple: the entire practice involves reading off these bullet points, as a cue to your nervous system of this sense of gratitude, and then for about one minute, which is a trivial amount of time if you really think about it, or maybe two minutes or if you're really ambitious, up to five minutes of just really feeling into that genuine experience of having received gratitude or observed someone else receiving gratitude.

然后就非常简单了：整个练习包括读出这些要点，作为对你的神经系统这种感激之情的提示，然后大约一分钟，如果你认真思考的话，这段时间是微不足道的，或者可能是两分钟，或者如果你真的雄心勃勃，最多五分钟，真正感受到接受感激或观察别人接受感激的真实体验。

And then in terms of frequency, I think a good rule of thumb would be to do that about three times a week and the time of day doesn't really matter.

然后就频率而言，我认为一个好的经验法则是每周大约进行三次，一天中的时间并不重要。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

I can't see why there would be any so-called circadian effects of this.

我不明白为什么会有所谓的昼夜节律效应。

I know some people like to do a gratitude practice before they go to sleep at night, I don't see any problem with doing this before you go to sleep at night.

我知道有些人喜欢在晚上睡觉前进行感恩练习，我认为在晚上睡觉前这样做没有任何问题。

I also don't see any problem with you doing this on your lunch break or midmorning or first thing in the morning.

我也不认为你在午休时间、上午或早上第一件事时这样做有什么问题。

I can't see any logic for placing it any one time of day and not another.

我看不出有任何逻辑可以将其放置在一天中的任何一个时间而不是其他时间。

So I think the most important thing is that you do it at least three times a week.

所以我认为最重要的是你每周至少做三次。

And as mentioned before, it's very, very brief, so there are very few barriers to entry for doing this.

正如之前提到的，它非常非常简短，因此这样做的进入障碍非常少。

So if we just take a step back from this protocol and compare it to what's typically out there in the literature, which is make a list of all the things you're thankful for, recite in your mind all the things you're thankful for, count your blessings.

因此，如果我们从这个协议退一步，将其与文献中通常存在的内容进行比较，那就是列出所有你感激的事情，在你的脑海中背诵所有你感激的事情，数数你的祝福。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

I think everybody should be counting their blessings all the time, there's always something to be thankful for.

我认为每个人都应该时刻数算自己的祝福，总有一些值得感恩的事情。

But in terms of a scientifically grounded gratitude practice that is also scientifically demonstrated to shift your physiology at the level of your immune system and your neural circuitry, reducing anxiety, increasing motivation, all these wonderful things that so many of us are chasing all the time as goals.

但就以科学为基础的感恩实践而言，它也被科学证明可以在免疫系统和神经回路层面改变你的生理机能，减少焦虑，增加动力，所有这些美好的事情都是我们很多人一直在追求的目标。

I think a gratitude practice reveals itself to be an immensely powerful tool for any and all of us to use.

我认为感恩练习是我们所有人都可以使用的极其强大的工具。

And that should come as no surprise because these prosocial circuits, these circuits for gratitude are not a recent phenomenon.

这应该不足为奇，因为这些亲社会回路、这些感恩回路并不是最近才出现的现象。

Discussions about gratitude date back hundreds, if not thousands of years.

关于感恩的讨论可以追溯到数百年甚至数千年前。

What we've done today is to take the modern science, right up until 2021, and to really distill from that the neuroimaging data, the neurochemistry, the various aspects of brain-body connectivity.

我们今天所做的就是利用现代科学，直到 2021 年，真正从中提炼出神经影像数据、神经化学、脑体连接的各个方面。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

Look at the protocols, take various subject groups, some were done in women, some were done between two individuals, some were done with brain imaging.

查看协议，选择不同的受试者组，有些是在女性中完成的，有些是在两个人之间完成的，有些是通过脑成像完成的。

All the various changes on a theme that allow us to point to a simple, but very effective, protocol that certainly we could all use around Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving is just but one day throughout the entire year, of course.

主题上的所有各种变化使我们能够指出一个简单但非常有效的协议，当然我们都可以在感恩节前后使用该协议，但当然，感恩节只是全年中的一天。

I personally have been using a gratitude protocol for the last several years, but that protocol was based on my ignorance, really, about the scientific literature and was mainly based on what I'd heard out there on the Internet, which is that I should list out or think about or verbally recite the things that I'm grateful for.

过去几年里，我个人一直在使用感恩协议，但该协议是基于我对科学文献的无知，实际上是基于我对科学文献的无知，并且主要基于我在互联网上听到的内容，即我应该列出或思考或口头背诵我感激的事情。

The sort of protocol that we arrived at today, based on the scientific literature, is distinctly different from that.

我们今天根据科学文献达成的协议与此截然不同。

And as a consequence, I've started to script out a protocol identical to the one I just described, and I intend to use that going forward.

因此，我开始编写一个与我刚才描述的协议相同的协议，并且我打算继续使用它。

Andrew Huberman:

安德鲁·休伯曼：

If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

如果您正在学习和/或喜欢此播客，请订阅我们的 YouTube 频道。

That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us.

这是支持我们的绝佳零成本方式。

In addition, please subscribe to us on Apple and Spotify, and on Apple, you have the opportunity to leave us a comment and up to a five-star review.

此外，请在 Apple 和 Spotify 上订阅我们，在 Apple 上，您有机会给我们留下评论，最高可达五星级评价。

Also, please check out our sponsors mentioned at the beginning of this episode; that's the best way to support this podcast.

另外，请查看本集开头提到的我们的赞助商；这是支持这个播客的最好方式。

Thank you for your time and attention today, learning about the science of gratitude.

感谢您今天抽出时间和注意力来学习感恩的科学。

And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

最后但并非最不重要的一点是，感谢您对科学的兴趣。