研究发现,怀旧有益身心健康

Not long after moving to the University of Southampton, Constantine Sedikides had lunch with a colleague in the psychology department and described some unusual symptoms he'd been feeling. A few times a week, he was suddenly hit with nostalgia for his previous home at the University of North Carolina: memories of old friends, Tar Heel basketball games, fried okra, the sweet smells of autumn in Chapel Hill.

搬到英国南安普顿大学之后(University of Southampton)不久的一天，康斯坦丁·斯蒂基特(Constantine Sedikides)和一个心理学系的同事共进午餐，讨论他最近一些不同寻常的感觉：每周里总有那么些时间，他会突然被怀旧之情所击中，想念他之前在美国北卡罗来纳州立大学(University of North Carolina)的家、老朋友、大学著名的Tar Heel篮球队的比赛、炸秋葵，还有教堂山城中秋天甜美的气息。

His colleague, a clinical psychologist, made an immediate diagnosis. He must be depressed. Why else live in the past? Nostalgia had been considered a disorder ever since the term was coined by a 17th-century Swiss physician who attributed soldiers' mental and physical maladies to their longing to return home — nostos in Greek, and the accompanying pain, algos.

斯蒂基特的同事是一位临床心理学家。他迅速给斯蒂基特做了个诊断：一定是抑郁症。还有什么其他原因会让你沉浸在过去呢？自从17世纪的瑞士医生发明“怀旧”这个单词以来，怀旧一直被认为是一种心理紊乱。这位瑞士医生将士兵们的精神与身体疾病都归咎于他们急切回家的心理，这在希腊语中被称为nostos——“怀旧”的英文单词nostagia的前半部分词根。而后半部分词根的algos，则意为“随之而来的痛苦”。

But Dr. Sedikides didn't want to return to any home — not to Chapel Hill, not to his native Greece — and he insisted to his lunch companion that he wasn't in pain.

但斯蒂基特博士并不想回家——至少不是美国教堂山的家，也不是他的老家希腊。他坚持己见，告诉他的同事：他并没有痛苦的感觉。

"I told him I did live my life forward, but sometimes I couldn't help thinking about the past, and it was rewarding," he says. "Nostalgia made me feel that my life had roots and continuity. It made me feel good about myself and my relationships. It provided a texture to my life and gave me strength to move forward."

“我告诉他我是一个向前看的人。有时我确实忍不住会怀念过往，但这是有好处的。”他说，“怀旧让我觉得生活有根源与连续性。它让我喜欢自己和身边的人，将我的生活历程编织理顺，给我前进的勇气。”

The colleague remained skeptical, but ultimately Dr. Sedikides prevailed. That lunch in 1999 inspired him to pioneer a field that today includes dozens of researchers around the world using tools developed at his social-psychology laboratory, including a questionnaire called the Southampton Nostalgia Scale. After a decade of study, nostalgia isn't what it used to be — it's looking a lot better.

他的同事还是表示怀疑，但最终斯蒂基特博士赢得了辩论。1999年的这顿午餐给予他启发，使他开创了一个新领域。他在其社会心理学实验室里研制了一套工具，包括一个叫“南安普顿怀旧量表”的调查问卷，如今世界上许多研究者依然在使用这些工具进行研究。经过十余年的研究后，怀旧已经不像人们当年所想的那样糟糕，它的形象变得好多了。

Nostalgia has been shown to counteract loneliness, boredom and anxiety. It makes people more generous to strangers and more tolerant of outsiders. Couples feel closer and look happier when they're sharing nostalgic memories. On cold days, or in cold rooms, people use nostalgia to literally feel warmer.

从研究结果看来，怀旧可以减少孤独、无聊与焦虑。它让人们对陌生人更加慷慨，对外人更加容忍。当夫妻们拥有共同的怀旧记忆，他们会感觉更亲密快乐。在寒冷的房间里，怀旧会使人们感觉温暖。

Nostalgia does have its painful side — it's a bittersweet emotion — but the net effect is to make life seem more meaningful and death less frightening. When people speak wistfully of the past, they typically become more optimistic and inspired about the future.

怀旧确实也有痛苦的一面。这是一个苦中带甜的体验，但将利弊权衡来看，怀旧依然能让生活显得更加有意义，让死亡感觉不那么可怕。当人们无限依恋地谈论着过往时，他们通常会对未来更加乐观与富有信心。

"Nostalgia makes us a bit more human," Dr. Sedikides says. He considers the first great nostalgist to be Odysseus, an itinerant who used memories of his family and home to get through hard times, but Dr. Sedikides emphasizes that nostalgia is not the same as homesickness. It's not just for those away from home, and it's not a sickness, despite its historical reputation.

“怀旧使我们更人性。”斯蒂基特博士说。他认为第一个伟大的怀旧者是奥德修斯（Odysseus，《荷马史诗》中的希腊伊卡岛王，流浪十年终回故土与亲人团聚——译注），曾用亲人与家庭的回忆以支撑他度过痛苦的岁月。但斯蒂基特博士强调，怀旧并不等同于思乡病，它并不只作用于离家的游子。即使其历史声誉不良，怀旧也不是一种病。

Nostalgia was originally described as a "neurological disease of essentially demonic cause" by Johannes Hoffer, the Swiss doctor who coined the term in 1688. Military physicians speculated that its prevalence among Swiss mercenaries abroad was due to earlier damage to the soldiers' ear drums and brain cells by the unremitting clanging of cowbells in the Alps.

约翰森·贺佛尔(Johannes Hoffer)，那个最初在1688年发明“怀旧”单词的瑞士医生，将它定义为“可导致器质恶性疾病的神经系统疾病”。军队医生们猜测，派驻外国的瑞士雇佣兵中无比流行的怀旧病，是因为他们的耳膜与脑细胞有过早期损伤。受伤的来源则是阿尔卑斯山上永不停息的声声牛铃叮当。

A Universal Feeling

同样的感受

In the 19th and 20th centuries nostalgia was variously classified as an "immigrant psychosis," a form of "melancholia" and a "mentally repressive compulsive disorder" among other pathologies. But when Dr. Sedikides, Tim Wildschut and other psychologists at Southampton began studying nostalgia, they found it to be common around the world, including in children as young as 7 (who look back fondly on birthdays and vacations).

19到20世纪时，怀旧曾被归于“移民精神疾病”、“抑郁症中的一种”、”脑部压抑强迫症”等各种疾病里。但当南安普顿大学的斯蒂基特博士、提姆·维尔德舒特(Tim Wildschut)与其他心理学家开始研究怀旧后，他们发现这在世界范围内是一个很正常的现象，甚至年幼如7岁的孩子们，就已经有怀旧现象（他们会愉快地怀念生日与假期）。

"The defining features of nostalgia in England are also the defining features in Africa and South America," Dr. Wildschut says. The topics are universal — reminiscences about friends and family members, holidays, weddings, songs, sunsets, lakes. The stories tend to feature the self as the protagonist surrounded by close friends.

“英国对怀旧特征的定义，和在非洲与南美是相同的。”维尔德舒特说。它们拥有共同的主题，如对朋友家人、假期、婚礼、歌曲、落日、湖泊等的怀念。每个故事里都倾向将自己定义为主角，有亲密朋友环绕四周。

Most people report experiencing nostalgia at least once a week, and nearly half experience it three or four times a week. These reported bouts are often touched off by negative events and feelings of loneliness, but people say the "nostalgizing" — researchers distinguish it from reminiscing — helps them feel better.

大部分人称每周内至少会经历一次怀旧感受，而几乎一半人每周会有3至4次怀旧体验。研究者们将“怀旧”与“思乡”加以区别，怀旧情绪通常由消极事件与孤独感受唤起。但人们说，怀旧能帮助他们情绪变好。

To test these effects in the laboratory, researchers at Southampton induced negative moods by having people read about a deadly disaster and take a personality test that supposedly revealed them to be exceptionally lonely. Sure enough, the people depressed about the disaster victims or worried about being lonely became more likely to wax nostalgic. And the strategy worked: They subsequently felt less depressed and less lonely.

南安普顿的研究者们也在实验室里测试了这些影响。他们让人们阅读一篇描述致命事故的文章，另外用性格测试找出那些有极度孤独情绪的受试者。果不其然，那些为事故受害者伤心的人与害怕孤独的人们，相比而言更容易沾染上怀旧情绪。而怀旧确实有所作用：他们会感觉并不那么抑郁与孤单了。

Nostalgic stories aren't simple exercises in cheeriness, though. The memories aren't all happy, and even the joys are mixed with a wistful sense of loss. But on the whole, the positive elements greatly outnumber the negative elements, as the Southampton researchers found by methodically analyzing stories collected in the laboratory as well as in a magazine named Nostalgia.

但这些怀旧的体验并不只有积极的一面。我们的回忆里并不全是笑声。而回忆带给我们的欢乐中，也总掺杂着若有所失的怅惘。但总体而言，怀旧的益处还是大大超越其害处。南安普顿的研究者们进行了系统分析，他们在实验室中采集数据，还分析了一本叫《怀旧》(Nostalgia)的杂志中刊登的故事，得到这一结论。

"Nostalgic stories often start badly, with some kind of problem, but then they tend to end well, thanks to help from someone close to you," Dr. Sedikides says. "So you end up with a stronger feeling of belonging and affiliation, and you become more generous toward others."

“怀旧的故事通常有很不好的开头，一般都带着一些问题，但它们总能有个好的结局，因为有亲近的人给予你帮助，”斯蒂基特博士说，“所以你能以一种强烈的归属感结束怀旧体验，而会对他人更宽容慷慨。”

A quick way to induce nostalgia is through music, which has become a favorite tool of researchers. In an experiment in the Netherlands, Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets of Tilburg University and colleagues found that listening to songs made people feel not only nostalgic but also warmer physically.

音乐可以很快引发怀旧，于是它成为研究者们最喜欢的工具。在荷兰蒂尔堡大学(Tilburg University)的一个实验里，研究者文格霍特(Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets)与其同事发现，听音乐不仅可以让人怀旧，还能感觉到身体更温暖。

That warm glow was investigated in southern China by Xinyue Zhou of Sun Yat-Sen University. By tracking students over the course of a month, she and colleagues found that feelings of nostalgia were more common on cold days. The researchers also found that people in a cool room (68 degrees Fahrenheit) were more likely to nostalgize than people in warmer rooms.

在中国南方的中山大学里，周欣悦仔细探索了这种温暖效应。她和她的同事花了一个月时间追踪记录学生们，结果发现在寒冷天气里，这种怀旧情绪更为常见。研究者们也发现，当人们呆在20度的凉爽房间里时，他们比呆在暖和房间里更容易怀旧。

Not everyone in the cool room turned nostalgic during the experiment, but the ones who did reported feeling warmer. That mind-body link, Dr. Wildschut says, means that nostalgia might have had evolutionary value to our ancestors long before Odysseus.

在实验中，并不是所有呆在凉爽房间里的人都会怀旧，但那些怀旧的人确实表示感觉更温暖了。斯蒂基特博士说，这个心理与身体的联系表示，也许早在奥德修斯之前，怀旧已经对我们的祖先产生进化上的意义。

"If you can recruit a memory to maintain physiological comfort, at least subjectively, that could be an amazing and complex adaptation," he says. "It could contribute to survival by making you look for food and shelter that much longer."

“如果回忆可以至少让你自我感觉身体舒适，这都会是一种神奇并复杂的环境适应，”他说，“它让你可以坚持更长时间以寻觅食物与庇护，这有助于生存。”

Finding a Sweet Spot

寻找甜蜜的时刻

Of course, memories can also be depressing. Some researchers in the 1970s and '80s suggested that nostalgia could worsen a problem that psychologists call self-discontinuity, which is nicely defined in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," by Stephen Stills: "Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now." This sense of loss and dislocation has repeatedly been linked to both physical and mental ills.

当然，回忆也可能让人绝望。20世纪七八十年代的研究者们认为，怀旧可以恶化“自我中断”(self-discontinuity)这种疾病。史蒂芬·史提斯（Stephen Stills，美国歌手——译注）在《组曲：朱迪蓝色的眼睛》(Suite: Judy Blue Eyes)中准确地描述了这个问题：“不要让过去来提醒我们现在已不再如此。”这种怅然所失与情绪错位经常与身体或脑部疾病相联系。

But the feeling of discontinuity doesn't seem to be a typical result of nostalgia, according to recent studies. In fact, people tend to have a healthier sense of self-continuity if they nostalgize more frequently, as measured on the scale developed at Southampton. To understand why these memories seem reassuring, Clay Routledge of North Dakota State University and other psychologists conducted a series of experiments with English, Dutch and American adults.

但根据新近研究结果，这种自我中断的感觉并不一定是怀旧体验的结果。事实上，根据南安普顿怀旧量表问卷，如果人们增加怀旧频率，他们会倾向于拥有一种更健康的自我中断情绪。为了了解记忆令人欣慰的原因，北达科他州州立大学(North Dakota State University)的克雷·罗德里奇(Clay Routledge)与其他心理学家在英国、荷兰与美国成人中进行了一系列实验。

First, the experimenters induced nostalgia by playing hit songs from the past for some people and letting them read lyrics to their favorite songs. Afterward, these people were more likely than a control group to say that they felt "loved" and that "life is worth living."

在实验中，部分受试者先听了一些过去的流行歌曲，并读了一些他们所喜爱歌曲的歌词，使他们产生怀旧情绪。相比起对照组，这些受试者更可能感觉“被爱”与“生活有意义”。

Then the researchers tested the effect in the other direction by trying to induce existential angst. They subjected some people to an essay by a supposed Oxford philosopher who wrote that life is meaningless because any single person's contribution to the world is "paltry, pathetic and pointless." Readers of the essay became more likely to nostalgize, presumably to ward off Sartrean despair.

接着，这些研究者尝试唤起受试者的焦虑，以测试怀旧在另一个极端的作用。他们让部分受试者阅读一篇由所谓牛津哲学家写作的文章，文章里讲述因为个人对世界的作用“微不足道、悲惨与无意义”，生活只是虚无。结果表明，文章的读者们更容易产生怀旧情绪，这也许是为了驱赶这种萨特(Sartre)式的绝望。

Moreover, when some people were induced to nostalgia before reading the bleak essay, they were less likely to be convinced by it. The brief stroll down memory lane apparently made life seem worthwhile, at least to the English students in that experiment. (Whether it would work with gloomy French intellectuals remains to be determined.)

另外，如果这些被试者的怀旧情绪被唤起后，再来阅读这篇讨论人生荒凉的文章时，他们比较不容易被作者说服。至少对接受实验的英国学生们而言，在记忆隧道中流连体验能让他们认识到生活的价值。（这是否能对忧郁的法国文人起作用则有待分解。）

"Nostalgia serves a crucial existential function," Dr. Routledge says. "It brings to mind cherished experiences that assure us we are valued people who have meaningful lives. Some of our research shows that people who regularly engage in nostalgia are better at coping with concerns about death."

“怀旧对于存在感至为关键，”斯蒂基特博士说，“它唤起了珍贵的记忆，让我们相信个人的价值，觉得我们拥有有意义的生活。我们的一些研究表明，那些经常沉入怀旧情绪的人更能面对死亡这一概念。”

Feeding the Memory Bank

在记忆银行里储存

The usefulness of nostalgia seems to vary with age, according to Erica Hepper, a psychologist at the University of Surrey in England. She and her colleagues have found that nostalgia levels tend to be high among young adults, then dip in middle age and rise again during old age.

怀旧的效果似乎取决于年龄。这是英国萨里大学(University of Surrey)心理学家爱丽克·何派(Erica Hepper)的研究结果。她和同事发现，年轻人的怀旧程度相对较高，中年人程度偏低，而老年人则又重新回到较高的怀旧程度中。

"Nostalgia helps us deal with transitions," Dr. Hepper says. "The young adults are just moving away from home and or starting their first jobs, so they fall back on memories of family Christmases, pets and friends in school."

“怀旧可以帮助我们面对生活的转折期。”何派博士说，“当年轻人刚刚搬离家乡，开始他们第一份工作时，他们会沉浸于圣诞节家庭团聚、宠物和学校朋友的回忆里。”

Dr. Sedikides, now 54, still enjoys nostalgizing about Chapel Hill, although his range has expanded greatly over the past decade. He says that the years of research have inspired strategies for increasing nostalgia in his own life. One is to create more moments that will be memorable.

斯蒂基特博士现在54岁了，他依然很享受对美国教堂山城的怀旧，虽然他的怀旧范围已经在过去十年中被大大扩展了。他说，多年的研究给予他一些启发，以增加自己生活中的怀旧对象，其中一项是：创造更多值得回忆的时光。

"I don't miss an opportunity to build nostalgic-to-be memories," he says. "We call this anticipatory nostalgia and have even started a line of relevant research."

“我不愿意错过任何机会，以制造值得怀旧的记忆。”他说，“我们管这个叫可预期的怀旧，我们甚至已经开始这个相关研究了。”

Another strategy is to draw on his "nostalgic repository" when he needs a psychological lift or some extra motivation. At such moments, he tries to focus on the memories and savor them without comparing them with anything else.

斯蒂基特博士从研究中还得到了另一个启发。当他需要让自己快乐起来，或者需要一些心理激励时，他便从其“怀旧储备”中汲取能量。在这样的时刻里，他会试着让自己专注于回忆，细细品尝往事，而不去将它们与其他事情做对比。

"Many other people," he explains, "have defined nostalgia as comparing the past with the present and saying, implicitly, that the past was better — ‘Those were the days.' But that may not be the best way for most people to nostalgize. The comparison will not benefit, say, the elderly in a nursing home who don't see their future as bright. But if they focus on the past in an existential way — ‘What has my life meant?' — then they can potentially benefit."

“许多其他人，”他解释道，“将怀旧定义为用往事与现状对比，然后自我暗示地认为过去的生活更美好，感叹着‘那些年'。”但对于大多数人而言，这都不是最好的怀旧方法。比如当老年人在养老院里对比现状与过往，这并无法让他们觉得未来无限美好。但如果他们将往事看成一种人生存在的方式，思考‘我的生活意味着什么？'，他们则可能从怀旧中获益。

This comparison-free nostalgizing is being taught to first-year college students as part of a study testing its value for people in difficult situations. Other experiments are using the same technique in people in nursing homes, women recovering from cancer surgery, and prison inmates.

这种不做对比的怀旧已经作为研究的一部分，用于一年级本科生，以测试人们在不同情况下时怀旧的作用。其他实验则采用相同的方法，用以测试养老院中的老人、刚从癌症手术中恢复的妇女与监狱的囚犯。

Is there anyone who shouldn't be indulging in nostalgia? People who are leery of intimate relationships — "avoidant," in psychological jargon — seem to reap relatively small benefits from nostalgia compared with people who crave closeness. And there are undoubtedly neurotics who overdo it. But for most others, Dr. Sedikides recommends regular exercises.

有没有完全无法陷入怀旧的人呢？有的，相比起渴望亲近的人，那些对亲密关系持怀疑态度的人便在怀旧中收获较少，他们在心理学术语中被称为“回避型人格”。当然也有神经病患者会过分沉浸于怀旧之中。然而对大部分人而言，斯蒂基特博士建议我们可以对此做有规律的练习。

"If you're not neurotic or avoidant, I think you'll benefit by nostalgizing two or maybe three times a week," he says. "Experience it as a prized possession. When Humphrey Bogart says, ‘We'll always have Paris,' that's nostalgia for you. We have it, and nobody can take it away from us. It's our diamond."

如果你没有神经机能病，也没有回避型人格，我觉得如果你一周怀旧两到三次，会对你有帮助。”他说：“将怀旧的体验作为一种珍贵的经历，亨弗莱·鲍嘉(Humphrey Bogart)说：‘我们会永远拥有巴黎'（电影《卡萨布兰卡》的经典台词——译注）时，怀旧便是我们的‘巴黎'。我们拥有这些记忆，没有人能将它们夺去。这是我们的无价之宝。”