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我們的大腦在不斷接收信息的過程中會決定哪些是重要的。外部幹擾(如壓力)和內部幹擾(如走神)都會削弱我們的注意力。Amishi Jha是一位專注於大腦注意力機制的神經學家,主要研究如何集中注意力。她表示一些簡單的技巧可以提高注意力,一起來看看她在TED上的分享。
中英文演講稿
Consider the following statement: human beings only use 10 percent of their brain capacity. Well, as a neuroscientist, I can tell you that while Morgan Freeman delivered this line with the gravitas that makes him a great actor, this statement is entirely false.
你一定聽過這樣的描述:人類只使用了大腦10%的潛力。作為一個神經系統學家,我可以告訴你雖然這句擲地有聲的話語讓摩根弗裡曼成為一個偉大的演員,但是其實這句話是完全錯誤的。(笑聲)
The truth is, human beings use 100 percent of their brain capacity. The brain is a highly efficient, energy-demanding organ that gets fully utilized and even though it is at full capacity being used, it suffers from a problem of information overload. There's far too much in the environment than it can fully process. So to solve this problem of overload, evolution devised a solution, which is the brain's attention system.
真相是,人類其實已經使用了大腦100%的潛力。人的大腦是是一個已經完全開發的極其高效而且耗能的器官。而且,即使大腦的潛力已經被完全開發,還依然面臨著信息過載的問題。我們周圍的環境實在是太豐富了,大腦無法處理所有的信息。因此,為了解決信息過載的問題,大腦在人類進化過程中產生了注意力系統。
Attention allows us to notice, select and direct the brain's computational resources to a subset of all that's available. We can think of attention as the leader of the brain. Wherever attention goes, the rest of the brain follows. In some sense, it's your brain's boss. And over the last 15 years, I've been studying the human brain's attention system. In all of our studies, I've been very interested in one question. If it is indeed the case that our attention is the brain's boss, is it a good boss? Does it actually guide us well? And to dig in on this big question, I wanted to know three things. First, how does attention control our perception? Second, why does it fail us, often leaving us feeling foggy and distracted? And third, can we do anything about this fogginess, can we train our brain to pay better attention? To have more strong and stable attention in the work that we do in our lives.
大腦的注意力系統讓我們可以感知、選擇並引導大腦的信息處理能力,使我們專注於所有信息中特定的一部分。我們可以把注意力想像成大腦的指揮官,我們的注意力去往哪裡,大腦的其他部分就跟到哪裡。某種程度上,它就是你大腦的老闆。在過去的15年中,我一直在研究人類的注意力系統。在我的研究之中,我對這樣一個問題非常的感興趣。如果說注意力系統是我們大腦的老闆,那麼,它是一個好老闆嗎?它指揮的好不好?為了深入研究這個問題,我需要知道三件事。第一,我們的注意力如何控制我們的認知能力?第二,為什麼注意力會出問題,比如我們的大腦有時會變得不清醒或者走神?第三,當我們的大腦不夠清醒的時候我們如何應對,我們能不能通過訓練讓我們的大腦能夠有更好的注意力?這樣的話我們就能在工作生活中擁有有更專注、持久的注意力。
So I wanted to give you a brief glimpse into how we're going to look at this. A very poignant example of how our attention ends up getting utilized. And I want to do it using the example of somebody that I know quite well. He ends up being part of a very large group of people that we work with, for whom attention is a matter of life and death. Think of medical professionals or firefighters or soldiers or marines.
那麼讓我來介紹一下我們如何研究這個問題。讓我們通過一個例子來解釋我們的的注意力是如何工作的。我想舉一個我非常熟悉的人的例子。對於他所屬的職業群體來說,注意力是一個關係著生死的問題,比如醫生、消防員、士兵、海軍陸戰隊。
This is the story of a marine captain, Captain Jeff Davis. And the scene that I'm going to share with you, as you can see, is not about his time in the battlefield. He was actually on a bridge, in Florida. But instead of looking at the scenery around him, seeing the beautiful vistas and noticing the cool ocean breezes, he was driving fast and contemplating driving off that bridge. And he would later tell me that it took all of everything he had not to do so. You see, he'd just returned from Iraq. And while his body was on that bridge, his mind, his attention, was thousands of miles away. He was gripped with suffering. His mind was worried and preoccupied and had stressful memories and, really, dread for his future. And I'm really glad that he didn't take his life. Because he, as a leader, knew that he wasn't the only one that was probably suffering; many of his fellow marines probably were, too.
我們的主人公JeffDavis上尉是一名海軍陸戰隊員。正如你們所見,我要講的故事並不是發生在戰場上,而是在美國佛羅裡達州的一座橋上。可是他既沒有四處張望欣賞美麗的風景,也沒有享受涼爽的海風,他飛速開車,想著要不要把車開下橋結束自己的生命。後來他告訴我,他差一點點就決定自殺了。當時,他剛剛從伊拉克回來,雖然他人在橋上可是他的思緒和他的注意力卻在千裡之外。他當時非常的痛苦,他的思緒被憂慮佔據著,他的記憶充滿了壓抑,而且對未來充滿了恐懼。我很慶幸當時他沒有結束自己的生命。因為他知道他不是唯一在痛苦中煎熬的人,有很多海軍陸戰隊的隊友可能也在承受著痛苦的折磨。
And in the year 2008, he partnered with me in the first-of-its-kind project that actually allowed us to test and offer something called mindfulness training to active-duty military personnel. But before I tell you about what mindfulness training is, or the results of that study, I think it's important to understand how attention works in the brain.
2008年,他參加了我們首次的專注力訓練實驗項目。在這個項目中,我們為在現役士兵提供專注力方面的訓練。在介紹什麼是專注力訓練以及實驗結果之前,我覺得有必要首先弄清楚注意力在大腦中是如何運作的。
So what we do in the laboratory is that many of our studies of attention involve brain-wave recordings. In these brain wave recordings, people wear funny-looking caps that are sort of like swimming caps, that have electrodes embedded in them. These electrodes pick up the ongoing brain electrical activity. And they do it with millisecond temporal precision. So we can see these small yet detectable voltage fluctuations over time. And doing this, we can very precisely plot the timing of the brain's activity. About 170 milliseconds after we show our research participants a face on the screen, we see a very reliable, detectable brain signature. It happens right at the back of the scalp, above the regions of the brain that are involved in face processing. Now, this happens so reliably and so on cue, as the brain's face detector, that we've even given this brain-wave component a name. We call it the N170 component. And we use this component in many of our studies. It allows us to see the impact that attention may have on our perception.
在實驗室裡,很多實驗都需要記錄腦電波。實驗對象需要帶上一個奇特的帽子,樣子有點像遊泳帽,不同的是這個帽子裡邊內嵌了很多電極。這些電極會實時收集腦電波的活躍度,時間精度可以精確到毫秒級別。因此我們能夠檢測到隨時間變化的微小的電壓波動。通過這種方式,我們可以精確的畫出腦電波活躍度隨時間變化的圖像。大約在我們向實驗對象展示人臉圖像的170毫秒之後,我們可以觀測到一個非常明顯的腦部活動特徵反應。這個反應就發生在頭皮的後邊,位置大約在人腦中人臉識別功能區域的上方。這個反應非常的穩定和準確,我們甚至給了這種腦電波的活動模式一個名字叫做N170模式。我們在很多實驗中都利用這種腦電波模式,來檢測注意力對人的認知的影響。
I'm going to give you a sense of the kind of experiments that we actually do in the lab. We would show participants images like this one. You should see a face and a scene overlaid on each other. And what we do is we ask our participants as they're viewing a series of these types of overlaid images, to do something with their attention. On some trials, we'll ask them to pay attention to the face. And to make sure they're doing that, we ask them to tell us, by pressing a button, if the face appeared to be male or female. On other trials, we ask them to tell what the scene was -- was it indoor or outdoor? And in this way, we can manipulate attention and confirm that the participants were actually doing what we said. Our hypotheses about attention were as follows: if attention is indeed doing its job and affecting perception, maybe it works like an amplifier. And what I mean by this is that when we direct attention to the face, it becomes clearer and more salient, it's easier to see. But when we direct it to the scene, the face becomes barely perceptible as we process the scene information.
讓我給你們一個直觀的印象,看看在實驗室中我們的實驗是如何進行的在實驗中,我們會給實驗對象展示這樣的圖片。你會看到一張人臉的圖片和一張風景圖片互相重疊著。我們會讓實驗對象看這一系列重疊圖片的同時去做一些別的事情。在一部分實驗組裡,我們要求他們注意觀察人臉。為了確保他們的確在認真地觀察人臉,我們會讓他們通過按按鈕來回答我們這張人臉是男性還是女性。在另外一部分的實驗組裡,我們要求他們回答當前的風景照片是室內還是室外。通過這種方式,我們可以操控他們的注意力,並確保實驗對象的確在按照我們的要求去做。我們的假設是:如果注意力確實會影響人的認知,它起到的也許是促進作用。也就是說,當我們引導他們的注意力去關注人臉的時候,人臉的圖片就會變得更清楚、更明顯,也更容易察覺。但是,當我們引導他們的注意力去關注風景的時候,人臉的圖片就會變的更不容易察覺,因為大腦就會傾向於處理風景信息。
So what we wanted to do is look at this brain-wave component of face detection, the N170, and see if it changed at all as a function of where our participants were paying attention -- to the scene or the face. And here's what we found. We found that when they paid attention to the face, the N170 was larger. And when they paid attention to the scene, as you can see in red, it was smaller. And that gap you see between the blue and red lines is pretty powerful. What it tells us is that attention, which is really the only thing that changed, since the images they viewed were identical in both cases -- attention changes perception. And it does so very fast. Within 170 milliseconds of actually seeing a face. In our follow-up studies, we wanted to see what would happen, how could we perturb or diminish this effect. And our hunch was that if you put people in a very stressful environment, if you distract them with disturbing, negative images, images of suffering and violence -- sort of like what you might see on the news, unfortunately -- that doing this might actually affect their attention. And that's indeed what we found.
因此,我們要做的是去查看之前提到的這種腦電波活動模式N170看看這種腦電波模式是否會隨著實驗對象注意力的改變而改變——即他們的注意力是在人臉圖像上還是在風景圖像上。以下是我們的實驗結果:我們發現當它們的注意力在人臉上時,N170會變大;而當它們的注意力在風景上時則會變小,對應圖上紅色的線。你所看到的藍線和紅線之間的差距非常的重要。這個差距告訴我們,注意力作為實驗中的唯一變量因為實驗對象看到的都是同樣的圖片,注意力可以改變人的認知結果。而且這一影響發生的十分迅速,僅僅在看到圖片的170毫秒之內。在我們後來的研究中,我們想知道如何幹擾或減弱這種影響。我們認為,如果把人們放在極具壓力的環境中,如果使用讓人非常不適的圖片來幹擾他們,那些有關痛苦和暴力的圖片不巧的是,這些圖片人們常常在新聞裡看到的這有可能會影響他們的注意力。後來我們的實驗結果證實了我們的假設。
If we present stressful images while they're doing this experiment, this gap of attention shrinks, its power diminishes. So in some of our other studies, we wanted to see, OK, great -- not great, actually, bad news that stress does this to the brain -- but if it is the case that stress has this powerful influence on attention through external distraction, what if we don't need external distraction, what if we distract ourselves? And to do this, we had to basically come up with an experiment in which we could have people generate their own mind-wandering. This is having off-task thoughts while we're engaged in an ongoing task of some sort. And the trick to mind-wandering is that essentially, you bore people. So hopefully there's not a lot of mind-wandering happening right now. When we bore people, people happily generate all kinds of internal content to occupy themselves. So we devised what might be considered one of the world's most boring experiments. All the participants saw were a series of faces on the screen, one after another. They pressed the button every time they saw the face. That was pretty much it. Well, one trick was that sometimes, the face would be upside down, and it would happen very infrequently. On those trials they were told just to withhold the response. Pretty soon, we could tell that they were successfully mind-wandering, because they pressed the button when that face was upside down. Even though it's quite plain to see that it was upside down. So we wanted to know what happens when people have mind-wandering. And what we found was that, very similar to external stress and external distraction in the environment, internal distraction, our own mind wandering, also shrinks the gap of attention. It diminishes attention's power.
如果我們在實驗中給實驗對象看有很壓力的圖片,這兩條線之間的差距會縮小,即影響會減弱。在我們別的實驗裡,我們發現,很不幸,壓力的確會對我們的大腦產生影響。不過我們剛才所研究的壓力是來自於外部的幹擾,那麼如果是來自於內部的壓力幹擾,結果會怎麼樣?為了找出答案,我們設計了一個實驗。在這個實驗裡,我們讓實驗對象走神。簡而言之,讓他們在做某些任務時,腦中卻在想著與之無關的想法。我們通過讓實驗對象感覺無聊來使他們走神。但願我在說這些的時候,在坐的各位沒有走神。(笑聲)當感覺到無聊的時候,人們就會不由自主的產生各種想法,就會開始走神。於是我們設計了可能是世界上最無聊的實驗。所有的實驗對象會在屏幕上一個接一個看到一系列的人臉圖片,每當他們看到一張圖片,就要按一次按鈕。基本就是這樣了。不過偶爾會出現一張上下顛倒的圖片,這個頻率會非常的低。這種情況發生的時候,按我們的要求實驗對象理應什麼也不做。但很快,他們也像看到其他圖片一樣按下了按鈕。於是我們就知道,他們成功的開始走神了。因為分辨上線下顛倒的圖片一點也不困難。我們想知道當人走神時會發生什麼?於是我們發現,跟來自外界的壓力和幹擾非常相似,走神這種來自內部的幹擾,也會減少這個圖像上的差距,影響我們的注意力。
So what do all of these studies tell us? They tell us that attention is very powerful in terms of affecting our perception. Even though it's so powerful, it's also fragile and vulnerable. And things like stress and mind-wandering diminish its power. But that's all in the context of these very controlled laboratory settings. What about in the real world? What about in our actual day-to-day life? What about now? Where is your attention right now? To kind of bring it back, I'd like to make a prediction about your attention for the remainder of my talk. Are you up for it? Here's the prediction. You will be unaware of what I'm saying for four out of the next eight minutes.
那麼,我們可以從以上的實驗中得到什麼樣的啟示?那就是,注意力對於認知的影響是巨大的。雖然注意力能帶來強大的正面效益,但它也很脆弱,很容易受影響。比如壓力和走神都會影響注意力。然而我們的結論都是在嚴格條件控制下的實驗環境中得到那麼在真實世界中又是什麼樣的呢?在我們的日常生活中又是什麼樣的呢?現在呢?你們的注意力現在在哪裡?讓我們回到我們的話題,我想預測一下在剩下的時間裡你們的注意力。準備好了嗎?我的預測是這樣的:在剩下的八分鐘的演講裡,有四分鐘的內容你們會完全不記得。
It's a challenge, so pay attention, please. Now, why am I saying this? I'm surely going to assume that you're going to remain seated and, you know, graciously keep your eyes on me as I speak. But a growing body of literature suggests that we mind-wander, we take our mind away from the task at hand, about 50 percent of our waking moments. These might be small, little trips that we take away, private thoughts that we have. And when this mind-wandering happens, it can be problematic. Now I don't think there will be any dire consequences with you all sitting here today, but imagine a military leader missing four minutes of a military briefing, or a judge missing four minutes of testimony. Or a surgeon or firefighter missing any time. The consequences in those cases could be dire. So we might ask why do we do this? Why do we mind-wander so much?
這是一個挑戰,請大家集中注意力。那麼,我為什麼要這麼說?雖然你們依然在這裡坐著,我在演講的時候你們也像以前一樣禮貌的注視著我,但當這場演講的時間越來越長時,我們就很容易會走神。我們每天清醒的時間裡邊,有50%都在走神。像是走神、沉浸在自己的想法裡邊這些情況,事情雖小,但是當我們注意力不在的時候,很可能會出現問題。現在你們大家都在這兒坐著當然不會出現什麼大的問題,但是如果是軍隊的指揮官在作戰會議時候走神了四分鐘,抑或是法官在聽證詞的時候走神了四分鐘,又或者是外科醫生或者消防員稍稍一走神,都可能帶來災難性的後果。所以我們不禁要問,為什麼會這樣?為什麼我們這麼容易走神?
Well, part of the answer is that our mind is an exquisite time-traveling master. It can actually time travel very easily. If we think of the mind as the metaphor of the music player, we see this. We can rewind the mind to the past to reflect on events that have already happened, right? Or we can go and fast-future, to plan for the next thing that we want to do. And we land in this mental time-travel mode of the past or the future very frequently. And we land there often without our awareness, most times without our awareness, even if we want to be paying attention. Think of just the last time you were trying to read a book, got to the bottom of the page with no idea what the words were saying. This happens to us. And when this happens, when we mind-wander without an awareness that we're doing it, there are consequences. We make errors. We miss critical information, sometimes. And we have difficulty making decisions. What's worse is when we experience stress. When we're in a moment of overwhelm. We don't just reflect on the past when we rewind, we end up being in the past ruminating, reliving or regretting events that have already happened.
一部分原因是我們的思維是一位時間旅行大師,我們的思維很容易就會開始進行時間旅行。如果把我們的思維比作音樂播放器,就像這樣,我們可以倒帶回到過去,冥想過去發生過的事情,也可以快進到未來,計劃我們未來要做的事情。像這樣,我們的思維會非常頻繁地進入時間旅行模式,而且通常是無意識的。當我們想要集中注意力的時候,也經常會無意識的走神。回憶一下你們上次看書看了一頁卻完全不知道講了什麼。走神這件事在我們每個人身上都經常發生。當我們無意識的走神的時候,會有一些後果。我們會出錯,有時我們會忽略了重要的信息,我們會變得抉擇困難,更有甚者,當我們在壓力之下的時候,當我們臨近崩潰的時候,一方面我們容易會沉湎於過去,我們不斷的反省、重現、後悔過去的事情。在壓力之下,我們也容易陷於未來,
Or under stress, we fast-forward the mind. Not just to productively plan. But we end up catastrophizing or worrying about events that haven't happened yet and frankly may never happen. So at this point, you might be thinking to yourself, OK, mind-wandering's happening a lot. Often, it happens without our awareness. And under stress, it's even worse -- we mind-wander more powerfully and more often.
不是在制定未來的計劃,而是在擔心、懼怕未來尚未發生的事情,甚至有些事情其實根本就不會發生。到目前為止,你們應該都理解了,走神經常發生,而且是在我們不經意之間。在壓力之下會更糟糕——我們可能會更頻繁、更嚴重的走神。
Is there anything we can possibly do about this? And I'm happy to say the answer is yes. From our work, we're learning that the opposite of a stressed and wandering mind is a mindful one. Mindfulness has to do with paying attention to our present-moment experience with awareness. And without any kind of emotional reactivity of what's happening. It's about keeping that button right on play to experience the moment-to-moment unfolding of our lives. And mindfulness is not just a concept. It's more like practice, you have to embody this mindful mode of being to have any benefits. And a lot of the work that we're doing, we're offering people programs that give our participants a suite of exercises that they should do daily in order to cultivate more moments of mindfulness in their life. And for many of the groups that we work with, high-stress groups, like I said -- soldiers, medical professionals -- for them, as we know, mind-wandering can be really dire. So we want to make sure we offer them very accessible, low time constraints to optimize the training, so they can benefit from it. And when we do this, what we can do is track to see what happens, not just in their regular lives but in the most demanding circumstances that they may have.
那麼我們有什麼應對策略嗎?我很高興地說,有。通過我們的工作,我們了解到,壓力和走神的對立面是專注。專注力能幫助我們將注意力集中在現在,並且排除不良的情緒的影響。專注力是活在當下,充分的的感受和體驗生活中的一點一滴,一分一秒。專注力也並不僅僅是一個概念,它更是一種實踐。你需要將這種專注深深植入靈魂,才能獲得它所帶來的好處。我們做的很大一部分工作就是,為人們提供一整套的練習項目,參與者要堅持每日練習,在生活中建立更多的多專注的時刻。很多參與我們項目的人門,那些高壓狀態下的群體,正如我之前提到的戰士、醫療人員,對於他們來說,走神的後果非常的可怕。因此我們確保我們為他們提供易獲取、低耗時的訓練條件,從而最大化訓練的效果,讓他們能從中獲益。與之同時,我們還追蹤調查訓練的效果,不僅僅是他們的日常生活上的效果,更包括了在他們可能所處的極其嚴苛的環境下的效果。
Why do we want to do this? Well, we want to, for example, give it to students right around finals season. Or we want to give the training to accountants during tax season. Or soldiers and marines while they're deploying. Why is that? Because those are the moments in which their attention is most likely to be vulnerable, because of stress and mind-wandering. And those are also the moments in which we want their attention to be in peak shape so they can perform well. So what we do in our research is we have them take a series of attention tests. We track their attention at the beginning of some kind of high-stress interval, and then two months later, we track them again, and we want to see if there's a difference. Is there any benefit of offering them mindfulness training? Can we protect against the lapses in attention that might arise over high stress? So here's what we find.
我們這樣做的目的是什麼?因為我們想將這樣的訓練提供給處於期末考試中的學生們,我們也想將這樣的訓練提供給稅收季節中的會計們,以及執行任務的戰士和海軍陸戰隊員。為什麼是這些人?因為他們在所面臨的特殊時期裡,由於外界壓力和走神情況的存在,他們的注意力會非常容易受到影響。並且這也是我們希望他們的注意力能夠處於巔峰狀態的時期,這樣他們才能高效的學習、工作、執行任務。因此,在我們的研究之中,我們讓他們進行一系列的注意力測試。我們在他們開始一段高壓時期之前先檢測一次他們的注意力情況,然後兩個月後,我們再檢測一次,我們想要對比一下兩次的結果看看有什麼區別。為他們提供的專注力訓練是否起到了作用?我們能不能避免由高壓環境引發的注意力問題?以下是我們的發現的結論。
Over a high-stress interval, unfortunately, the reality is if we don't do anything at all, attention declines, people are worse at the end of this high-stress interval than before. But if we offer mindfulness training, we can protect against this. They stay stable, even though just like the other groups, they were experiencing high stress. And perhaps even more impressive is that if people take our training programs over, let's say, eight weeks, and they fully commit to doing the daily mindfulness exercises that allow them to learn how to be in the present moment, well, they actually get better over time, even though they're in high stress. And this last point is actually important to realize, because of what it suggests to us is that mindfulness exercises are very much like physical exercise: if you don't do it, you don't benefit. But if you do engage in mindfulness practice, the more you do, the more you benefit.
在一段壓力很大的的時間段裡,如果我們放任一切自由發展,我們的注意力就會下降。在這個高壓時期接近末尾的時候,人們的注意力比初期差了很多。但如果我們為之提供專注力的訓練,我們就可以避免這樣的結果。高壓時期結束的時候,雖然他們經歷了和別組一樣的壓力,但是他們的注意力依然可以保持在開始的水平而不下降。更令人印象深刻的是,如果能堅持做我們的專注力訓練八周以上,而且保質保量的完成每天的練習,真正掌握如何的把握當下,相同的高壓環境下,他們的實驗結果甚至會比開始的時候有很大提升。這一點非常值得注意,因為它告訴我們,專注力訓練和體能訓練一樣,不堅持做下去就沒有效果。但是,如果你能堅持專注力訓練,你做的越多,收益也就越多。
And I want to just bring it back to Captain Jeff Davis. As I mentioned to you at the beginning, his marines were involved in the very first project that we ever did, offering mindfulness training. And they showed this exact pattern, which was very heartening. We had offered them the mindfulness training right before they were deployed to Iraq. And upon their return, Captain Davis shared with us what he was feeling was the benefit of this program. He said that unlike last time, after this deployment, they were much more present. They were discerning. They were not as reactive. And in some cases, they were really more compassionate with the people they were engaging with and each other. He said in many ways, he felt that the mindfulness training program we offered gave them a really important tool to protect against developing post-traumatic stress disorder and even allowing it to turn into post-traumatic growth. To us, this was very compelling.
現在讓我們回到JeffDavis上尉的例子上來。正如我一開始所說,他的海軍陸戰隊員們參與了我們首次的專注力訓練項目。非常振奮人心的是,他們也收到了這樣的效果。我們在他們被部署到伊拉克之前為他們提供了專注力訓練。當他們回來的時候,Davis上尉跟我們分享了參加這個項目的心得。他說,跟上次執行任務的感覺完全不同,這次執行任務的時候他能夠更加的專注、感覺更加的敏銳,不再那麼被動。在某些時候,在他們互相之間以及與別人互動的時候能有更好的共鳴。他說,在很大程度上他覺得我們提供的專注力訓練成為他們應對創傷後應激障礙非常重要的手段,甚至能將創傷後的應激障礙轉變為創傷後的自我提升。這對我們而言非常的振奮人心。
And it ended up that Captain Davis and I -- you know, this was about a decade ago, in 2008 -- we've kept in touch all these years. And he himself has gone on to continue practicing mindfulness in a daily way. He was promoted to major, he actually then ended up retiring from the Marine Corps. He went on to get a divorce, to get remarried, to have a child, to get an MBA. And through all of these challenges and transitions and joys of his life, he kept up with his mindfulness practice. And as fate would have it, just a few months ago, Captain Davis suffered a massive heart attack, at the age of 46. And he ended up calling me a few weeks ago. And he said, "I want to tell you something. I know that the doctors who worked on me, they saved my heart, but mindfulness saved my life. The presence of mind I had to stop the ambulance that ended up taking me to the hospital," -- himself, the clarity of mind he had to notice when there was fear and anxiety happening but not be gripped by it -- he said, "For me, these were the gifts of mindfulness." And I was so relieved to hear that he was OK. But really heartened to see that he had transformed his own attention. He went from having a really bad boss -- an attention system that nearly drove him off a bridge -- to one that was an exquisite leader and guide, and saved his life.
後來,Davis上尉和我在2008年之後十年之間一直保持著聯繫,一直到現在。他本人也仍然堅持訓練自己的專注力,每一天都在堅持做。他被提拔為少校,後來在海軍陸戰隊一直服役到退休。他經歷了離婚、重新結婚,有了自己的孩子、後來又去讀了工商管理碩士。在這種種事情期間他都沒有停止專注力訓練。人有旦夕禍福,幾個月之前,46歲的他突發了嚴重的心臟病。幾周之前,他跟我打了一通電話,他說:「我想告訴你一件事,為我做手術的醫生,治好了我的心臟,但是真正救了我的命的,是我的專注力。專注力讓我在事發時能夠保持頭腦清醒,叫救護車把自己帶到醫院。」專注力讓他能清醒地面對自己的恐懼和焦慮,讓自己不被其支配。他說,「這就是專注力帶給我的最大的收穫。」當得知他安全脫險的時候,我感覺如釋重負。然而最讓我振奮的是看到他如何成功的改變了自己的注意力。之前他的大腦的注意力系統非常的糟糕一度差點讓他把車開下橋而喪命。而現在他的注意力系統已經變成了一位精明的嚮導,救了他的命。
So I want to actually end by sharing my call to action to all of you. And here it is. Pay attention to your attention. Alright? Pay attention to your attention and incorporate mindfulness training as part of your daily wellness toolkit, in order to tame your own wandering mind and to allow your attention to be a trusted guide in your own life.
因此,在演講的最後,我想向大家呼籲:聽好了,留心你的的注意力。明白嗎?留心你的注意力,讓專注力練習成為你的日常練習之一來幫你馴服自己走神的大腦,讓你的注意力成為你人生中值得信賴的嚮導。
Thank you.
謝謝。