焦慮使你難以傾聽自己的直覺大綱

As an anxious person, I find the mantra "go with your gut" endlessly frustrating. What's so trustworthy about my gut instinct, which has, at various times, convinced me I'm dying of brain cancer, or about to get on an airplane doomed to crash, or destined to be alone forever? My therapist has had to remind me many times over that my so-called instincts have been wrong before and will be wrong again. But I've remained somewhat convinced that there is a "real" gut instinct somewhere beneath all my fake ones, and if only I knew how to access it, I would finally be perfectly wise, centred, and calm.

患有焦慮症的我發現"聽從自己的直覺"這一準則太難遵守了。我的直覺爲何值得信賴？畢竟直覺時不時的讓我確信自己將死於腦癌，或是上了一架註定要墜毀的飛機，亦或是註定要孤獨終老。

Unfortunately for me, a new study suggests this is probably not the case, and I am forever doomed to second-(and third-, and fourth-) guessing my every choice. In their study, researchers attempted to examine and compare the intuitive decision-making abilities of anxious, neutral, and optimistic people. More than a hundred participants were randomly assigned to each of these three groups, and "inducted" into the corresponding mood by viewing a series of emotionally coded sentences and images.

不幸的是，對我來說一項新研究表明也許情況並非如此，我將永遠懷疑自己的每一個選擇。在他們的研究中，研究人員試圖檢查和對比焦慮人士、中性人士以及樂觀人士的直觀決策能力。100多名受試者被隨機分配成上列三組，研究人員給受試者看一系列抒發情感的語句和圖片，以將他們"引入"到相應的情緒中。

For example, participants in the optimism group read: "The affection of those we love makes us feel particularly safe and confident. There is always someone who loves us," and were then shown a picture of a smiling young couple. (Huh.) Those in the anxious group read: "Safety is not guaranteed neither in our neighbourhoods nor in our own homes," followed by a picture of a man with his arm hooked around a woman's neck. I'm anxious just reading about it.

例如，樂觀組的受試者看到了這樣的話："我們所愛之人的愛慕讓我們感到特別安全、特別自信。總有人愛着我們，"然後研究人員給這些受試者看了一張面帶微笑的年輕情侶圖片。焦慮組的受試者看到了這樣的話："無論是在鄰里街坊，還是在自己家中，我們的安全都得不到保障，"然後看了一張男人將胳膊搭在女人脖子上的圖片。一讀到這句話我就感到焦慮。

Once the mood was set, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire designed to assess their tendency to make intuitive decisions, and how effectively they did so. While the researchers found that the decision-making abilities of the positive and the neutral mood groups were relatively unaffected by their moods, the anxious group showed a significantly reduced ability to use their intuition. My therapist, as usual, is right: if you're anxious, your so-called gut is pretty much useless.

確定情緒之後，研究人員要求受試者填寫問卷，旨在評估他們做出直觀決策的傾向，以及做決定時的效率。雖然研究人員發現對於正能量或心情不好也不壞的組來說，他們做決策的能力相對來說沒有受到情緒的影響，但焦慮一組憑直覺做決策時，其能力卻明顯下降。如往常一樣，我的治療師是對的：如果你感到焦慮，那麼你所謂的直覺就沒什麼用了。

The researchers hypothesized that anxiety's effects on our decision-making are damaging for several reasons: Anxiety makes us risk-averse, pessimistic, and less confident - all qualities which make us likelier to choose what we perceive as the safest, routine, and unchallenging decision.

研究人員假設焦慮對做決策的影響如此之大可能是由於如下原因：焦慮使我們厭惡風險、悲觀、不太自信--所有這些品質都讓我們更有可能選擇我們以爲的最安全的、最常規的和最沒有挑戰性的決定。