原标题：快乐的大脑更有创造力，更快，更具精神警觉。

If you want to be happy the rest of your life, make sure you keep your brain happy. Why? Because being happy matters more to your brain than you might think. In fact, feeling pleasure can be so stimulating for your brain that it is primed to respond to pleasure in a way that reinforces pleasure.

如果你想下半辈子快乐，一定要让你的大脑保持快乐。为什么？因为快乐对你的大脑比你想象的更重要。事实上，感觉快乐对你的大脑来说是如此的刺激，以至于它已经准备好以一种强化快乐的方式来回应快乐。

Your brain offers rewards to steer you on a pathway to happiness, and you can offer your brain rewards that will encourage it to become even more finely tuned-and to grow well into your old age.

你的大脑会提供奖励，引导你走上通往幸福的道路，你也会提供奖励，鼓励你的大脑变得更加精细，并在你年老时茁壮成长。

Other reasons to want a happy brain: Negative mood variance disturbs your interaction with your environment, affecting your ability to perceive, remember, and reinforce existing or create new neural connections, while being happy improves your ability to be more cognitively alert and productive.

想要一个快乐的大脑的其他原因是：消极情绪的变化扰乱了你与周围环境的互动，影响你感知、记忆和加强现有的或新的神经联系的能力，而快乐会提高你的认知能力，提高警觉和生产能力。

Being happy also:

快乐也：

Stimulates the growth of nerve connections

刺激神经连接的生长

Improves cognition by increasing mental productivity

通过提高智力生产力提高认知能力

Improves your ability to analyze and think

提高你的分析和思考能力

Affects your view of surroundings

影响你对周围环境的看法

Increases attentiveness

增加注意力

Leads to more happy thoughts

带来更多快乐的想法

Happy people are more creative, solve problems faster, and tend to be more mentally alert.

快乐的人更有创造力，解决问题的速度更快，精神上也更警觉。

〈

The Power of Positive Thoughts

积极思想的力量

〉

Your thoughts form your character, how you operate in the world, and how far you travel mentally, physically, and spiritually. You are what you think you are, and all of your actions proceed from thought.

你的思想形成了你的性格，你在这个世界上是如何运作的，你在精神上、身体上和精神上走了多远。你是你认为你是什么，你所有的行动都是从思想开始的。

Your inner thoughts will always be reflected in your outer circumstances because self-generated changes in your life are always preceded by changes in the way you think about something.

你内心的想法总是反映在你的外部环境中，因为你生活中自我产生的变化总是在你思考事物的方式发生变化之前。

As far as your brain, every thought releases brain chemicals. Being focused on negative thoughts effectively saps the brain of its positive forcefulness, slows it down, and can go as far as dimming your brain's ability to function, even creating depression.

就你的大脑而言，每一个想法都会释放出大脑中的化学物质。专注于消极的想法会有效地削弱大脑的积极力量，减缓它的速度，甚至会削弱大脑的功能，甚至导致抑郁。

On the flip side, thinking positive, happy, hopeful, optimistic, joyful thoughts decrease cortisol and produce serotonin, which creates a sense of well-being. This helps your brain function at peak capacity.

另一方面，积极、快乐、希望、乐观、快乐的想法会降低皮质醇，产生5-羟色胺，从而产生幸福感。这有助于你的大脑功能达到峰值。

Happy thoughts and positive thinking, in general, support brain growth, as well as the generation and reinforcement of new synapses, especially in your prefrontal cortex (PFC), which serves as the integration center of all of your brain-mind functions.

快乐的想法和积极的思考，一般来说，支持大脑的生长，以及新突触的产生和强化，特别是在你的前额叶皮层（PFC），它是你大脑所有心智功能的整合中心。

In other words, your PFC not only regulates the signals that your neurons transmit to other brain parts and to your body, but it allows you to think about and reflect upon what you are physically doing.

换言之，你的PFC不仅调节你的神经元传递到大脑其他部位和身体的信号，而且还允许你思考和反思你的生理行为。

In particular, the PFC allows you to control your emotional responses through connections to your deep limbic brain. It gives you the ability to focus on whatever you choose and to gain insight into your thinking processes.

尤其是，PFC允许你通过与深边缘大脑的连接来控制你的情绪反应。它让你能够专注于你选择的任何事情，并洞察你的思维过程。

The PFC is the only part of your brain that can control your emotions and behaviors and help you focus on whatever goals you elect to pursue. It helps you grow as a human being, change what you wish to change, and live life the way you decide!

PFC是你大脑中唯一能控制你的情绪和行为，帮助你专注于你选择追求的目标的部分。它帮助你成长为一个人，改变你想要改变的，并以你决定的方式生活！

〈

Why Optimism Leads to Greater Happiness

为什么乐观会带来更大的幸福

〉

Neuroscientists have discovered that people who have a more cheerful disposition and are more prone to optimism generally have higher activity occurring in their left PFC. But that's a brain explanation.

神经学家们发现，性格开朗、乐观的人，其左前房的活动度普遍较高，但这是大脑的解释。

Interestingly, behavioral scientists have observed fascinating differences between optimists and pessimists. Optimism, for example, involves highly desirable cognitive, emotional, and motivational components.

有趣的是，行为科学家观察到乐观主义者和悲观主义者之间有着惊人的差异。例如，乐观主义包括非常理想的认知、情感和动机成分。

Optimistic people tend to have better moods, to be more persevering and successful, and to experience better physical health. One factor may be simply that optimists attribute good events to themselves in terms of permanence, citing their traits and abilities as the cause, and bad events as transient (using words like "sometimes" or "lately"), or the fault of other people.

乐观的人往往会有更好的情绪，更坚持和成功，并体验更好的身体健康。一个因素可能很简单，乐观主义者把好的事情归因于他们自己的永久性，把他们的特点和能力作为原因，把坏的事情归因于短暂的（用“有时”或“最近”这样的词），或者归因于别人的错误。

〈

In addition, optimists:

此外，乐观主义者：

〉

Lead happy, rich, fulfilled lives

过着幸福、富有、充实的生活

Spend the least amount of time alone, and the most time socializing花最少的时间独处，花最多的时间社交

Have good relationships

有良好的人际关系

Have better health habits

有更好的健康习惯

Have stronger immune systems

有更强的免疫系统

Live longer than pessimists

比悲观主义者长寿

On the flip side, pessimistic people explain good events by citing transient causes, such as moods and effort, and bad events as permanent conditions (using words like "always" or "never").

另一方面，悲观主义者用暂时的原因来解释好的事情，比如情绪和努力，而坏的事情则是永久的条件（用“总是”或“从不”这样的词）。

〈

Pessimists:

悲观主义者：

〉

Automatically assume setbacks are permanent, pervasive, and due to personal failings

自然而然地认为挫折是永久的，普遍的，是由于个人的失败

Are eight times more likely to be depressed than optimists

抑郁的可能性是乐观主义者的八倍

Perform worse at school and work

在学校和工作中表现差

Have rockier interpersonal relationships

有更稳定的人际关系

Die sooner than optimists

比乐观主义者早逝

According to Sonia Lyubomirsky, a University of California researcher, unhappy people spend hours comparing themselves to other people, both above and below themselves on the happiness scale; happy people didn't compare themselves with anyone.

根据加州大学的研究人员索尼娅·柳博米尔斯基（Sonia Lyubomirsky）的说法，不快乐的人会花上几个小时把自己与他人进行比较，无论是在快乐程度上，还是在快乐程度上，都是高于自己还是低于自己；快乐的人不会把自己与任何人进行比较。

The good news is that you can use your mind to train your brain to tamp down the negative thoughts that lead to pessimism while ramping up the types of positive thoughts that lead to optimism.

好消息是，你可以用你的头脑来训练你的大脑，以抑制导致悲观的消极想法，同时增加导致乐观的积极想法的类型

You can be the master of the neuronal changes that will lead to greater happiness, and the rewiring starts in those teensy miracles known as your brain cells, or neurons. Even if depression runs in your family, you have the capability of improving the way your brain functions, of setting up neuronal roadblocks and diminishing the neuronal patterns linked to negative thinking. You may not be able to eradicate a genetic disposition towards depression, but you can greatly reduce its impact and its reoccurrence.

你可以成为神经元变化的主人，这些变化将带来更大的快乐，而重新连接开始于那些被称为你的脑细胞或神经元的微小奇迹。即使抑郁在你的家庭中存在，你也有能力改善你的大脑功能，设置神经障碍，减少与消极思维相关的神经模式。你可能无法根除对抑郁症的遗传倾向，但你可以大大减少其影响和复发。

〈

Negative Thinking, Negative Balance

消极思维，消极平衡

〉

Negative thinking slows down brain coordination, making it difficult to process thoughts and find solutions. Feeling frightened, which often happens when focused on negative outcomes, has been shown to decrease activity in your cerebellum, which slows the brain's ability to process new information-limiting your ability to practice creative problem-solving. Additionally, the fear factor impacts your left temporal lobe, which affects mood, memory, and impulse control.

消极的思维会减缓大脑的协调，使处理思维和寻找解决方案变得困难。恐惧感，通常发生在关注消极结果的时候，已经被证明会降低你小脑的活动，这会减慢大脑处理新信息的能力，限制你练习创造性解决问题的能力。此外，恐惧因素会影响你的左颞叶，影响情绪、记忆和冲动控制。

Your frontal lobe, particularly your PFC, decides what is important according to the amount of attention you pay to something and how you feel about it. Thus, the more you focus on negativity, the more synapses and neurons your brain will create that support your negative thought process.

你的额叶，特别是你的PFC，根据你对某事的关注程度和你对它的感觉来决定什么是重要的。因此，你越是关注消极性，你的大脑就会产生更多的突触和神经元来支持你的消极思维过程

Your hippocampus provides the context of stored memories, which means the emotional tone and deion your mind creates can potentially rewire your brain by creating stronger neuronal pathways and synapses.

你的海马体提供了储存记忆的环境，这意味着你的大脑所创造的情绪基调和描述可以通过创造更强的神经通路和突触来潜在地重塑你的大脑。

What you think and feel about a certain situation or thing can become so deeply ingrained that you will have to work hard to dismantle the negative connections and rewire your brain in order to be less afraid, to think positively, to believe that dreams can come true, to trust that your efforts will be successful.

你对某一情况或事物的想法和感受会变得如此根深蒂固，以至于你必须努力消除消极的联系，重新调整你的大脑，以便减少恐惧，积极地思考，相信梦想能够实现，相信你的努力会成功。

〈

Train Your Brain to Think More Positively

训练你的大脑去更积极地思考

〉

One of the oldest precepts of neuroscience has been that our mental processes (thinking) originate from brain activity: that our brain is in charge when it comes to creating and shaping our mind. However, more recent research has shown that it can also work the other way around: that focused, repetitive mental activity can affect changes in your brain's structure, wiring, and capabilities.

神经科学的一个最古老的箴言是，我们的心理过程（思维）起源于大脑活动：在创造和塑造我们的大脑时，我们的大脑负责。然而，最近的研究表明，它也可以以另一种方式发挥作用：集中、重复的精神活动可以影响大脑结构、线路和能力的变化

The actions we take can literally expand or contract different regions of the brain, firing up circuits or tamping them down. The more you ask your brain to do, the more cortical space it sets up to handle the new tasks. It responds by forging stronger connections in circuits that underlie the desired behavior or thought and weakening the connections in others.

我们所采取的行动实际上可以扩展或收缩大脑的不同区域，启动电路或将它们压下来。你要求你的大脑做的越多，它为处理新任务而建立的皮层空间就越多。它通过在电路中锻造更牢固的连接来作出反应，这些电路构成了期望的行为或思想的基础，削弱了其他电路中的连接。

Thus, what you do and what you think, see, or feel is mirrored in the size of your respective brain regions and the connections your brain forms to accommodate your needs.

因此，你所做的，你所想的，所见的，或所感的，都反映在你各自大脑区域的大小，以及你的大脑为了满足你的需要而形成的连接上。

What does all this mean? It means that what we think, do, and say matters; that it affects who we become on the outside, the inside, and in our brain. Mostly, it means that you can retrain your brain to be more positive.

这一切是什么意思？它意味着我们的想法、行为和言论都很重要；它影响着我们在外部、内部和大脑中的形象。基本上，这意味着你可以重新训练你的大脑变得更加积极。

Start by thinking happy thoughts, looking on the bright side, and refocusing your brain when negative thoughts occur. Your mind has the ability to determine how your brain thinks about what happens in your life. Use it to your own advantage to reframe events and think positively.

从思考快乐的想法开始，往好的方面看，当消极的想法出现时重新调整你的大脑。你的大脑有能力决定你的大脑如何思考你生活中发生的事情。利用它来重新定义事件并积极思考。

Stick with us, as we'll post more specifics on training your brain to get happy in the coming weeks.

坚持住，因为我们将在未来几周发布更多关于训练你的大脑以获得快乐的细节。

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