保持快乐的秘诀：写日记

Note to self: the key to happiness is keeping a diary and writing down the things that make you smile.

写给自己：保持幸福的诀窍就是记日记，记下那些让你快乐的事。

For while fictional diarists Bridget Jones and Adrian Mole used journals to record their woes and embarrassments, paying attention to the things that lift our moods mean we can learn how to cheer ourselves up, says a leading physicist.

一位著名的物理学家说，《BJ单身日记》和《艾德里安·莫尔的秘密日记》等虚构日记的作者用日记记录他们的伤心和尴尬事，不过多关注那些能提振我们心情的事情或许意味着我们可以学会让自己快乐起来。

Author Dr Stefan Klein has found that being happy is a skill that can be learned like a foreign language, and one way to train ourselves to be happy is to write down the little things that cheer us up each day – a technique he practises himself.

作者斯蒂芬·克莱因博士发现保持快乐是一门技巧，它可以像学习外语一样通过学习来掌握，训练我们自己快乐的方法之一就是记下每天让我们高兴的事，这门技巧他自己也在研习。

Dr Klein, who analysed psychological research for his book The Science of Happiness, added he often writes about his three young children, despite occasionally finding them ‘incredibly annoying’.

克莱因博士在他的著作《幸福的科学》一书中进行了心理学研究，他表示，他会经常写一些关于他三个小孩儿的事情，虽然偶尔也会发现这些孩子“出奇地恼人”。

Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival, the German-born researcher said that decades of study into happiness has shown that people who are clinically depressed often believe there are no sources of joy in their lives.

出生于德国的克莱因博士在切尔腾纳姆科学节的演讲中表示，几十年来对于幸福的研究表明，那些通过临床诊断为抑郁的人们通常认为在他们的生活中没有快乐的来源。

But a study by Italian psychiatrist Giovanni Fava found that when patients were asked to keep diaries of events that made them happy, it ‘helped them a lot to get better’.

但是，意大利精神病学家乔瓦尼·法瓦通过研究发现，当病人被要求将那些使他们快乐的事情记录下来时，“他们的情况好转很多。”

Dr Klein said: ‘It is incredibly simple – you just sit down in the evening and write down the moments where you feel happy and the circumstances.

克莱因博士说：“这个方法非常简单，你只要每晚坐下来，然后把那些让你感到快乐的时刻与当时的情景写下来就可以了。”

‘The object of the exercise is to simply make you more aware of these moments to know yourself better.

“这个练习的目的只是为了让你更多地意识到那些感觉良好的时刻，让你更了解自己。”

‘Even in states of severe depression there are moments of happiness, but the person suffering it doesn’t believe they have these moments in their lives.’

“即使处于严重的抑郁状态，也总会有幸福快乐的时刻，但是患抑郁的人却不相信在他们的生命中也有快乐的时刻。”

And if you decide to take Dr Klein’s advice, you can make yourself even happier by recommending the technique to others.

如果你决定接受克莱因博士的建议，那么把这个技巧介绍给他人吧，这会让你更快乐。

Happiness occurs when the brain releases endorphins – chemicals that trigger positive feelings – and scientists have found this occurs not only when we achieve one of our own goals, but when we help someone else achieve theirs.

当大脑释放内啡肽（能引发积极情感的化学物质）时，幸福感就会产生。此外，科学家发现幸福感不仅仅在我们达到自己的预期目标时产生，在我们帮助他人实现目标时也会产生幸福感。

Dr Klein added it is important not to dwell on the times we felt sad, saying: ‘Going deep down into your negative feelings, [the idea] it has a cathartic effect, and you have to cry your tears out and shout your fears out, is really c**p’.’

克莱因博士补充道，最重要的是不要一味沉浸于那种悲伤情绪之中，“沉入你内心的负面情绪，（那种说）这样做有宣泄作用，你必须哭出来，将害怕的情绪宣泄出来，那都是胡说。”

The idea we should delve into our sadness became popular under Sigmund Freud, who saw the mind as a pressure cooker that needed to let out steam. But Dr Klein argued this was a ‘misguided analogy’.

精神分析学家西格蒙德·佛洛伊德，将心灵看做一个需要释放压力的高压锅，在他的提倡下，深入探究我们的悲伤情绪这种理念得以普及。但是克莱因博士却认为这种看法是个“有误导性的类比”。

Vocabulary

woe: 苦恼，悲痛

trigger: 引发

dwell on: 老是想着