压力不一定都会成为正能量大纲

Kelly McGonigal is a convert. A health psychologist who teaches at Stanford University, for years she had held to the conventional view that stress is bad for you.

凯莉•麦戈尼格尔(Kelly McGonigal)改变了自己的观点。作为一名在斯坦福大学(Stanford University)任教的健康心理学家，她很多年里一直秉持传统的看法，即压力对人不好。

But when a few years ago she came across research which suggested that stress is bad for you only when you believe it to be damaging, she had to reconsider. Indeed, the same research found that people who lived with stress but did not view it as harmful were the healthiest people of all.

但几年前，她无意中看到了一项研究结果，认为压力只有在你相信它有害时才对你不好，之后她不得不重新思考自己的观点。事实上，同一项研究还发现，那些生活在压力之下但不把压力视为有害的人才是所有人中最健康的。

McGonigal started digging deeper into the subject and the result is this book, which argues that by recognising and working with stress, rather than trying to ignore or suppress it, we can perform better and achieve more.

麦戈尼格尔于是开始深入研究这一课题，成果就是这本书——《压力的好处》(The Upside of Stress)。书中认为，通过承认压力并在压力下工作——而非试图忽视或压制它——我们可以做得更好，取得更大成就。

It is a bold and counter-intuitive thesis, and she makes quite a good case for it. In particular, she forces the reader to take a more nuanced view. For example, there is more than one kind of response to stress. There are alternatives to “fight or flight”. We can also rise to the challenge.

这是一个大胆且与直觉相反的论点，而且她为之提出了相当充分的理由。尤其是，她极力劝说读者接受一种更加微妙的观点。例如，对于压力有不止一种反应。除了“或战或逃”之外，还有其他选择。我们也可以接受挑战。

What is more, some of our fundamental concepts could be misconceived. The Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye carried out significant research into the subject in the 1930s, studying the behaviour of rats in experiments. But, as McGonigal points out, some of these tests involved randomised electric shocks and near-death by drowning, hardly the common experience of many humans. The stress the rats endured was of the worst kind. What safe conclusions should we draw from that?

更重要的是，我们的一些基本观念可能都是错误的。匈牙利内分泌学家汉斯•谢耶(Hans Selye)上世纪30年代对这一课题开展了重要研究，观察了实验中小白鼠的行为。但是，正如麦戈尼格尔所指出的，其中一些测试涉及随机电击以及溺水造成的濒死体验，这些并非很多人共有的体验。那些小白鼠承受的是最极端类型的压力。我们能从中得出什么可靠结论呢？

McGonigal says that stress is an important signifier, not something to be ignored. “You don’t stress out about things you don’t care about, and you can’t create a meaningful life without experiencing some stress,” she writes.

麦戈尼格尔称，压力是重要的信号载体，是不应被忽视的。“你对不关心的事情不会感到有压力，不经历某种程度的压力，你无法创造出有意义的人生，”她写道。

She suggests a three-step approach to change our “mindset”: acknowledge stress when you experience it, welcome the stress by recognising that it is a response to something you care about, then make use of the energy it gives you.

她建议采取一种三步法来改变我们的“心态”：感受到压力时，你要承认它；欢迎压力，明白压力是你对所关心之事的反应；然后利用压力给你带来的能量。

McGonigal has the zeal of a convert, which possibly leads her to believe she has cracked the problem. There are some big claims. Working better with stress “could even mean the difference between having a heart attack at 50 or living into your nineties,” she says.

麦戈尼格尔拥有一名皈依者的热情，这可能使她相信自己攻克了这个难题。她说了一些大话。能否在压力下更好地工作“甚至可能意味着50岁心脏病发作与活到90岁的差别，”她说。

She acknowledges that not all life events can be managed away: “Not every trauma has an upside . . . you shouldn’t force a positive interpretation on every instance of suffering.” But only a few pages on she writes: “Choosing to see the upside in our most painful experiences is part of how we can change our relationship with stress.”

她承认，并非生活中的所有事都能被妥当处理：“不是所有心理创伤都有积极的一面……你不应对每一种痛苦经历都强迫作出积极解释。”但就在几页之后，她又写道：“选择从我们最痛苦的经历中看到积极的一面是改善我们与压力的关系的一种方式。”

“Stress is harmful, except when it’s not,” she concludes. But something is missing: any reference to the large body of work carried out by Sir Michael Marmot over recent decades. He has shown that stress can be hard to avoid, or deal with, especially for those with lower status in an organisation.

“压力是有害的，除非它不是压力，”她总结道。但本书有所欠缺的是没有参考迈克尔•马莫爵士(Sir Michael Marmot)近几十年来所做的大量工作。他的研究表明了，压力很难避免或应对，尤其是对那些组织中地位较低的人来说。

McGonigal does concede that stress can be harmful when three things are true: you feel inadequate to it, it isolates you and it feels meaningless and against your will. Unfortunately, for quite a lot of people at work, that unholy trinity can apply all too often.

麦戈尼格尔的确承认，在三种情况下压力是有害的：你觉得无法应对它，它使你孤立，它的存在毫无意义而且违背你的意愿。不幸的是，对于职场中相当多的人来说，这种邪恶的三位一体往往都可以适用。