为什么悲伤的歌反而会让我们的心情变好

We've all turned to melancholy music to make us feel better at some point in our lives, but why doesdoubling down on the sadness help drag us out of the mire?

我们都曾在生命中的某些时刻通过听悲伤的歌来让自己好受一些，但是为什么更多的悲伤反而会让我们走出低谷呢?

Double down on sth. 的本意是“对sth. 加倍下注”，这里用的当然是引申义，意思是将更多的注意力集中到悲伤的事情上。

Mire的本意是“泥潭”，这里也是根据引申义翻译的。

A new study sheds light on what's going on inside our brains when we match our music to our feels, and it looks like sad music can be enjoyable - rather than simply depressing - because it triggers positive memories that can help to lift our mood.

一项新的研究阐明了当我们将所听的音乐与心中感受配对的时候我们大脑里到底发生了什么。其结果显示：悲伤的音乐也能带来愉悦(而非简单地令人低落)，因为它能通过触发积极的回忆来使我们的心情变好。

Shed light on是英文中很常用的一个比喻，用“把sth. 照亮”来比喻“阐明sth. ”，相同的比喻还有throw light upon、throw light on等等。

What’s going on和what’s happening都是表达“在发生什么”的意思，不过what’s going on在口语中更常见。另外，what’s happening更着重表达“是什么本来没发生的事发生了?”，而what’s going on更着重表达“是什么正在进行当中?”。

Psychologist Adrian North from Curtin University in Australia says there are two groups of possible explanations for why we enjoy listening to sad music like this: one from social psychology, and one fromcognitive neuroscience.

澳大利亚科廷大学的心理学家阿德里安·诺斯说，对于我们为什么这么享受悲伤的歌曲这一点，有两派可能的解释：一派来自社会心理学，一派来自认知神经科学。

In terms of social psychology, one way of thinking about this is that we feel better about ourselves if we focus on someone who's doing even worse, a well-known process known as downward social comparison. Everything's going to be okay, because this person is having an even worse day than you are.

从社会心理学这一派来讲，有一种思路是：当我们把注意力集中在一个比我们过得还惨的人身上时，我们会觉得好受些，这个过程就是著名的下行社会比较。一切都会好起来的，因为这个人比你过得更惨。

Another hypothesis from social psychology is that people like to listen to music that mirrors the tone of their current life circumstances – the songs act as a sort of tuning fork for our own situations, and theyresonate with us.

社会心理学这一派的另一个假说是：人们喜欢听那些能反映自己现在生活境况基调的音乐，这些歌对于我们的境况来讲起到了类似音叉的作用，他们与我们产生了共鸣。

想要表达“反映”、“映照”的意思，除了用reflect还能用mirror哦。其实英文中这样的名词活用还是不少的，比如：The little boy is horsemaning his brother. 那个小男孩正在把他哥哥当马骑。