冥想世界:用冥思来改善记忆力

Students who did about an hour of "mindfulness training" for eight days subsequently did better on the GRE as well as tests of working memory and mind-wandering.

假如一名学生在连续八天的时间里每天做半小时的“正念冥思”，他在参加GRE考试或者做短期记忆力和注意力分散的测试时表现会更好。

Improving memory and ability to focus takes years of cultivation and training, but getting the most out of your abilities as they stand is another valuable skill.

问题：互联网可能会损害我们的注意力周期和短期记忆，但公司仍要求员工“集中注意力”。同时，尽管标准化的考试成绩很少能预测一位学生将来事业上是否成功，但高校的招生部门仍乐此不彼。改善记忆力和集中注意力的能力需要经过多年的培养和训练，但尽最大可能把你已有的能力发挥出来也是一种有价值的技巧。

METHODOLOGY: Researchers at University of California at Santa Barbara had 48 undergraduate students take either a mindfulness class or a nutrition class. Classes met for 45 minutes four times per week for two weeks. They were taught by "professionals with extensive teaching experience in their respective fields." The mindfulness class "emphasized the physical posture and mental strategies of focused-attention meditation." As they describe that class more specifically:

方法：在圣芭芭拉的加州大学研究人员把48名大学生分成两组，一组参加正念培训班，另外一组参加营养学培训班。这两个培训班都是每节课45分钟，每周四节课，连续上两周的课。学生们由在各自领域有丰富教学经验的专业人员上课。正念培训班的重点“在于做集中注意力冥思时所采用的身体姿势和精神策略”。他们对这个班的学习内容做了具体的描述如下：

It required participants to integrate mindfulness into their daily activities and to complete 10 minutes of daily meditation outside of class. During class, participants sat on cushions in a circle. Each class included 10 to 20 minutes of mindfulness exercises requiring focused attention to some aspect of sensory experience (e.g., sensations of breathing, tastes of a piece of fruit, or sounds of an audio recording). ... Classes focused on:

要求参加者把冥思融入到日常生活的行为当中，每天在课外完成10分钟的冥思。上课时参加者围坐在坐垫上，每节课包括10-20分钟的冥思练习，要求把注意力集中到某种感官体验上（如呼吸的感觉、一块水果的味道，或播放录音的声音等）。上课的重点在于：

Sitting in an upright posture with legs crossed and gaze lowered, distinguishing between naturally arising thoughts and elaborated thinking

保持身体挺直双腿盘坐的坐姿，目光低垂，辨别出自然产生的想法和故意的思维。

Minimizing the distracting quality of past and future concerns by reframing them as mental projections occurring in the present

通过改变思维方式把过去和未来关心的事项变成当下的精神投射以减少它们带来的干扰。

Using the breath as an anchor for attention during meditation

在冥思时利用呼吸来做注意力的“锚地”（即把注意力集中到自己的呼吸上来）。

Repeatedly counting up to 21 consecutive exhalations [Ed. note: presume inhalations occurred as well.]

在数到21的时间里连续吐气，反复做（设想在这期间也有吸气发生）。

Allowing the mind to rest naturally rather than trying to suppress the occurrence of thoughts.

让头脑自然休息，不要试图去压制头脑里产生出来的思维。

The students in both classes took the GRE (Graduate Record Examinations; the standardized tests considered for grad school application) before and after the two-weeks of class, as well as tests of memory and distractibility, where they counted their "task-unrelated thoughts" while doing things that required concentration.

两个班级的学生在上这两星期课的先后都参加了GRE考试，还进行了记忆力和注意力分散的测试，在测试中他们对需要集中注意力时产生的“与任务无关的思维”进行了计数。

RESULTS: Scores improved in the mindfulness-trained group, but not the nutrition-trained group. For one, their average GRE verbal score went from 460 to, two weeks later, 520. They also improved on tests of working memory and focus (had fewer task-unrelated thoughts).

结果：参加正念培训班的学生成绩有了提高，但参加营养学培训班的学生却没有改进。正念培训班学生的GRE成绩由两周前的460分提高到了520分，对短期记忆力和注意力集中进行测试的成绩也比以前有了提高（与任务无关思维的次数减少了）。

IMPLICATIONS: Taking time to think about your thoughts, breathing, posture, and the like can be valuable to overall cognitive functioning. This is the opposite of staying in a library for 86 hours fueled by Adderrall and anxiety. Kaplan's GRE prep course is $1, 299, and a ton of people buy it. Meditation is free, so while that much is invested, this is probably worth checking out. Even if you can't find time to meditate exactly, there's always a moment to think intensely about fruit or "your breathing as an anchor."

意义：花一点时间来思考一下你的思维、呼吸、姿势以及诸如此类的事情对整体的认知功能会有好处，这样做与待在图书馆里86个小时靠吃安神丸来集中注意力正好相反。卡普兰的GRE准备课程要卖1299美元，有许多人购买了这个课程，而冥思却是免费的。既然这么大的代价也舍得花，我们不妨来试一试冥思的功效。即便你没有时间来做冥思，花上片刻时间来想一想水果的味道或者“把呼吸作为集中注意力的锚地”总是可以的。