ONE of the biggest complaints in modern society is being?overscheduled, overcommitted and overextended. Ask people at a social gathering how they are and the?stock answer（慣常的回答。）is “super busy,” “crazy busy” or “insanely busy.” Nobody is just “fine” anymore.

When people aren’t super busy at work, they are crazy busy exercising, entertaining or taking their kids to Chinese lessons. Or maybe they are insanely（瘋狂地） busy playing fantasy football, tracing their genealogy or churning their own butter（字面意思是擠奶油，但閑的無聊才做這些）.

And if there is ever a still moment for reflective thought （深思熟慮）— say, while waiting in line at the grocery store or sitting in traffic（堵車） — out comes the mobile device.So it’s worth noting a study published last month in the journal Science, which shows how far people will go to avoid introspection.

這句話里的study后面有一個(gè)后置定語“published....in the journal Science”，后面還有一個(gè)由which引導(dǎo)的非限制定語從句“which shows...”，都是用來修飾名詞study的。

“We had noted how wedded（wed結(jié)婚，黏） to our devices we all seem to be and that people seem to find any excuse they can to keep busy,” said Timothy Wilson, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and lead author of the study. “No one had done a simple study letting people?go off（進(jìn)行）on their own and think.”

The results surprised him and have created a stir in the psychology and neuroscience communities.In 11 experiments involving more than 700 people, the majority of participants reported that they found it unpleasant to be alone in a room with their thoughts for just 6 to 15 minutes.

一個(gè)很好的描述實(shí)驗(yàn)結(jié)果的句式，"In a expermient involving..., ...reported that they found it..."。在一個(gè)有...人參與的實(shí)驗(yàn)中，...發(fā)現(xiàn)...

Moreover, in one experiment, 64 percent of men and 15 percent of women began self-administering electric shocks when?left alone to think(讓他們自己去思考）. These same people, by the way, had previously said they would pay money to avoid receiving the?painful jolt（痛苦的挫折）.

It didn’t matter?if the subjects engaged in the contemplative(冥想) exercise at home or in the laboratory, or if they were given suggestions of what to think about, like a coming vacation;they just didn’t like being in their own heads.

這一段其實(shí)只有兩句話。第一句是"It didn't matter+兩個(gè)if引導(dǎo)的從句”，第二句是“they..."。這樣一看，整個(gè)結(jié)構(gòu)是不是更清晰了呢？

It could be because human beings, when left alone, tend to?dwell on （思考）what’s wrong in their lives. We have evolved to become problem solvers and meaning makers.What preys on our minds, when we aren’t updating our Facebook page or in spinning class, are the things we haven’t figured out — difficult relationships, personal and professional failures, money trouble, health concerns and so on.And until there is resolution, or at least some kind of understanding or acceptance, these thoughts reverberate in our heads. Hello?rumination（沉思）. Hello insomnia（失眠）.

“One explanationwhy people keep themselves so busy and would rather shock themselvesis that they are trying to avoid that kind of negative stuff,（紅色部分是句子主干，剩下的部分都是進(jìn)行解釋說明的從句）” said Ethan Kross, director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan. “It doesn’t feel good if you’re not intrinsically good at reflecting.”

The comedian Louis C.K. has a?riff（視頻片段）that’s been watched nearly eight million times on YouTube in which he describes that not-good feeling. “Sometimes when things clear away and you’re not watching anything and you’re in your car and you start going, oh no, here it comes, that I’m alone, and it starts to visit on you, just this sadness,” he said. “And?that’s why we text and drive. People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second because it’s so hard.（這就是人們?yōu)槭裁聪矚g一邊開車一邊發(fā)短信了。他們?cè)敢饷吧闲悦奈ｋU(xiǎn)，因?yàn)樗麄冞B1秒鐘都不想一個(gè)人呆著。這對(duì)他們來說太（特么）難了。）”

But you can’t solve or let go of problems if you don’t allow yourself time to think about them. It’s?an imperative ignored（一個(gè)不可避免被忽略掉的東西）by our culture, which values doing more than thinking and believes answers are in the palm of your hand rather than in your own head.

“It’s like we’re all in this addicted family where all this busyness seems normal when it’s really harmful（這就像是我們都是這個(gè)上癮的大家庭中的一員——對(duì)我們來說忙碌似乎再正常不過，但它真的是有害的。這里面的‘family’，不是真的指“家庭”而是指這類人的集合。）,” said Stephanie Brown, a psychologist in Silicon Valley and the author of “Speed: Facing Our Addiction to Fast and Faster — and Overcoming Our Fear of Slowing Down.” “There’s this widespread belief that（一個(gè)句式）thinking and feeling will only slow you down and get in your way, but it’s the opposite.”

Suppressing(抑制) negative feelings only gives them more power, she said, leading to intrusive ?thoughts, which makes people get even busier to?keep them at bay（keep...at bay）. The constant cognitive strain of evading emotions?underlies（潛藏于）a range of psychological troubles such as?obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression and panic attacks（一系列關(guān)于心理問題的名詞，可以積累一下）, not to mention a range of addictions. It is also associated with various somatic problems like?eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, inflammation, impaired immunity and headaches（各種身體疾病）.

Studies further suggest that（句式）not giving yourself time to reflect impairs（損害）?your ability to?empathize with（與...有同樣的感受，也就是我們常說的“同理心”）others. “The more in touch with my own feelings and experiences, the richer and more accurate are my guesses of what passes through another person’s mind（這句話就用了“the more...，the more...的句式來進(jìn)一步說明了同理心的產(chǎn)生方式）,” said Giancarlo Dimaggio, a psychiatrist with the Center for Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy in Rome, who studies the?interplay（互動(dòng)）of self-reflection and empathy. “Feeling what you feel is an ability that?atrophies（衰退）if you don’t use it.”

Researchers have also found that an idle mind is a?crucible（嚴(yán)酷的考驗(yàn)）of creativity.A number of studies have shown that（句式）people tend to?come up with（想出，提出）more?novel（novel有“小說”的意思，不過這里是另一個(gè)意思，“新奇的”）uses for objects if they are first given an easy task that allows their minds to wander, rather than a more demanding one.

“Idle mental processing?encourages creativity and solutions because imagining your problem when you aren’t in it is not the same as reality,” said Jonathan Smallwood, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of York, in England. “Using your imagination means you are in fact rethinking the problem in a novel way.”

Idle mental processing是一個(gè)非常有意思的概念。在計(jì)算機(jī)的操作系統(tǒng)里，它指的是CPU的空閑狀態(tài)。用到這里就是指我們“大腦不再忙忙忙，而是放輕松”的時(shí)候了。

Perhapsthat’s whyGoogle offers its employees courses called “Search Inside Yourself” and “Neural Self-Hacking,”whichinclude instruction on mindfulness meditation,wherethe goal is to recognize and accept inner thoughts and feelings rather than ignore or repress them.（很長(zhǎng)的一句話，把主干找出來后會(huì)容易理解很多）It’s in the company’s interest because it?frees up（解放）employees’ otherwise?embattled（嚴(yán)陣以待的）brain space to intuit end users’ desires and create products to satisfy them.

“I have a lot of people who come in and want to learn meditation to shut out thoughts that come up in those quiet moments,” said Sarah Griesemer, a psychologist in Austin, Tex., who?incorporates?mindfulness meditation?into?her practice（incorporate...into...把...融入）. “But allowing and tolerating?the drifting in of thoughts（思緒的翻涌）is part of the process.” Her patients, mostly hard-charging professionals, report being more productive at work and more energetic and engaged parents.

To?get rid of（去除）the emotional static, experts advise not using?first-person pronouns（第一人稱）when thinking about troubling events in your life. Instead, use?third-person pronouns（第三人稱）or your own name when thinking about yourself. “If a friend comes to you with a problem it’s easy to coach them through it, but if the problem is happening to us we have real difficulty, in part because we have all these?egocentric biases（以自我為中心而導(dǎo)致的偏見）making it hard to?reason rationally（理性地思考）,” said Dr. Kross of Michigan. “The data clearly shows that you can use language to almosttrick yourself into（騙自己去...）thinking your problems are happening to someone else.”

Hard as they sometimes are, negative feelings are a part of everyone’s life, arguably more so if you are crazy busy. But it’s those same deep and troubling feelings, and how you deal with them, that make you the person you are. While busyness may?stanch（止血）welling sadness, it may also limit your ability to be overcome with joy.