不高興不會要人命

放心生氣吧，不高興不會要人命

A study published on Wednesday in The Lancet, following one million middle-aged women in Britain for 10 years, finds that the widely held view that happiness enhances health and longevity is unfounded.

《柳葉刀》(The Lancet)周三刊登的一篇研究論文發(fā)現(xiàn)，高興有利于健康和延年益壽這個廣泛流傳的觀點是沒有依據(jù)的。該研究對英國的100萬名中年女性進行了長達10年的跟蹤調(diào)查。

“Happiness and related measures of well-being do not appear to have any direct effect on mortality,” the researchers concluded.

“高興及與之相關(guān)的健康指標(biāo)對壽命似乎沒有任何直接影響，”研究人員給出這樣的結(jié)論。

“Good news for the grumpy” is one way to interpret the findings, said Sir Richard Peto, an author of the study and a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford. He and his fellow researchers decided to look into the subject because, he said, there is a widespread belief that stress and unhappiness cause disease.

論文作者之一、牛津大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)統(tǒng)計與流行病學(xué)教授理查德·皮托爵士(Sir Richard Peto)表示，“對脾氣壞的人來說是好消息”是對研究結(jié)果的一種解讀方式。他說，自己和其他研究人員之所以決定研究這個問題，是因為人們普遍相信，緊張和不高興會導(dǎo)致疾病。

Such beliefs can fuel a tendency to blame the sick for bringing ailments on themselves by being negative, and to warn the well to cheer up or else.

這類觀點可能會加劇一種傾向，即責(zé)怪病人自己情緒消極導(dǎo)致惹病上身，以及告誡身體健康的人要振作起來等。

“Believing things that aren’t true isn’t a good idea,” Professor Peto said in an interview. “There are enough scare stories about health.”

“相信不真實的事情并不可取，”皮托教授在接受采訪時說。“已經(jīng)有好多和健康有關(guān)的驚悚故事了。”

The new study says earlier research confused cause and effect, suggesting that unhappiness made people ill when it is actually the other way around.

這項新研究表示，早前的研究混淆了原因和結(jié)果，稱不高興導(dǎo)致了生病，但實際上卻恰恰相反。

The results come from the so-called Million Women Study, which recruited women aged 50 to 69 from 1996 to 2001, and tracked them with questionnaires and official records of deaths and hospital admissions. The questionnaires asked how often the women felt happy, in control, relaxed and stressed, and also instructed them to rate their health and list ailments like high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, arthritis and depression or anxiety.

上述結(jié)果來自一個名為“百萬女性研究”(Million Women Study)的項目。1996到2001年間，該研究項目招募了大批年齡在50到69歲之間的女性，并用調(diào)查問卷以及正式的死亡和入院記錄對她們進行跟蹤調(diào)查。問卷會詢問她們感到高興、一切盡在掌握之中、放松和緊張的頻率，同時指導(dǎo)她們評定自己的健康狀況，并列出高血壓、糖尿病、哮喘、關(guān)節(jié)炎、抑郁或焦慮等疾病。

The researchers included questions about happiness “because it’s something a lot of people were interested in,” Professor Peto said.

皮托教授稱，研究人員之所以列入和高興有關(guān)的問題“是因為很多人對此感興趣”。

When the answers were analyzed statistically, unhappiness and stress were not associated with an increased risk of death. It is not clear whether the findings apply to men.

在對答案進行統(tǒng)計分析時，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，不高興和緊張與死亡風(fēng)險的增加并不相關(guān)。尚不清楚相關(guān)研究結(jié)果是否適用于男性。

Professor Peto said particularly important data came from 500,000 women who reported on their baseline surveys that they were in good health, with no history of heart disease, cancer, stroke or emphysema. A “substantial minority” of these healthy women said they were stressed or unhappy, he said, but over the next decade they were no more likely to die than were the women who were generally happy.

皮托教授表示，特別重要的數(shù)據(jù)來自其中50萬名女性。她們在初步調(diào)查中自稱身體健康，沒有心臟病、癌癥、腦卒中或肺氣腫史。他說，這些健康女性中“可觀的少部分人”稱自己感到緊張或不高興，但在接下來的10年里，她們死亡的可能性并不比那些基本高興的女性大。

“This finding refutes the large effects of unhappiness and stress on mortality that others have claimed,” Dr. Peto said.

“這個發(fā)現(xiàn)駁斥了其他一些人宣稱的不高興和緊張對壽命有很大影響的說法，”皮托說。

Unhappiness itself may not affect health directly, but it can do harm in other ways, by driving people to suicide, alcoholism or other dangerous behaviors, he warned.

不過，他也警告，不高興本身或許不會直接影響健康，但它可能會通過其他方式產(chǎn)生危害，如逼得人自殺、酗酒或做出其他危險行為。

This type of study, which depends on participants’ self-assessments, is not considered as reliable as a rigorously designed experiment in which subjects are picked at random and assigned to a treatment or control group. But the huge number of people in this study gives it power.

這類研究有賴于參與者自我評估，被認(rèn)為不及嚴(yán)格設(shè)計的實驗可靠。在經(jīng)過嚴(yán)格設(shè)計的實驗中，研究人員隨機挑選實驗對象并將其分配到實驗組和控制組中。但參與此次調(diào)查的人數(shù)巨大，讓這項研究有了份量。

Still, some observers noted that measuring emotions is more nuanced and complex than simply declaring happiness or unhappiness.

然而，一些觀察人士指出，衡量情緒比簡單地說自己高興或不高興要更微妙、更復(fù)雜。

“I would have liked to see more discussion of how people translate these complicated feelings into a self-report of happiness,” said Baruch Fischhoff, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University who studies decision-making, who was not involved in the study. “Think about everything that’s going on in your life and tell me how happy you are. Happiness is a squishy measure.”

“我會想看到更多的討論，有關(guān)人們?nèi)绾伟堰@些復(fù)雜的感受轉(zhuǎn)化成自我評定的高興度，”卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)(Carnegie Mellon University)研究決策過程的心理學(xué)者巴魯奇·費施霍夫(Baruch Fischhoff)說。“想想生活里發(fā)生的一切，然后說出自己有多高興。但高興是一個彈性評價。”費施霍夫沒有參與此項研究。

The results of earlier studies have been mixed, with some finding that unhappiness causes illness and others showing no link, Dr. Fischhoff said.

早前的研究結(jié)果變化不定。費施霍夫表示，一些研究發(fā)現(xiàn)不高興會導(dǎo)致疾病，而其他一些研究則表明兩者之間沒有聯(lián)系。

“It looks to me like people have collected a lot of data without finding a clear signal,” he said. “So if there is some correlation out there, it’s not very big.”

“在我看來是，大家搜集了大量數(shù)據(jù)，但卻沒發(fā)現(xiàn)一個清晰的信號，”他說。“所以就算存在某種相關(guān)性，也不是很大。”

An editorial accompanying the study in The Lancet noted that it had “the largest population so far in happiness studies,” and praised its statistical methods. But it also said more research was needed.

在《柳葉刀》上，隨論文刊登的編者按指出，這是“迄今為止參與者人數(shù)最多的和高興有關(guān)的研究”，并對其統(tǒng)計方法表示了稱贊，但也表示還需要進行更多研究。

Professor Peto said he doubted that the new study would change many minds because beliefs about the perils of unhappiness are so ingrained. “People are still going to believe that stress causes heart attacks,” he said.

皮托教授稱，他懷疑這項新研究并不會讓很多人改變看法，因為認(rèn)為不高興有害健康的觀點根深蒂固。“人們還是會認(rèn)為緊張會導(dǎo)致心梗，”他說。