智能手機氾濫,大腦不堪重負怎麼辦

When cars first became popular 100 years ago, there were no road rules or speed limits to begin with. Inspired by the freedom of their speedy new toys, drivers zoomed around as fast as they could. Crashes were a constant.

100年前，汽車第一次流行起來時，一開始並不存在什麼道路規則或速度限制。受到這個快捷新玩具所帶來自由的鼓舞，司機們盡己所能地開車狂飆，車禍司空見慣。

Today's speedy new toys, the smartphone and tablet, help people work when, where, and how they want. Excited by their newfound freedom, people are staying connected 24/7, working as fast as they can. The crashes this time are less obvious but still producing pain.

如今的快捷新玩具是智能手機和平板電腦。它們能夠隨時隨地，在人們需要時爲工作提供助力。人們爲新發現的自由歡欣鼓舞。他們無時不刻都保持着連線狀態，以最快的速度進行工作。這次的“禍患”不太明顯，但仍然帶來了痛苦。

A creative team that used to debrief with their client by video once a week from the office is now on video daily from their tablets. A software project that took six people a few months to complete is now broken into hundreds of parts for micro developers to finish in a week. While these ideas may sound enticing, there are implications to moving this fast, as HP (HPQ) discovered withtablets and Apple (AAPL) with maps.

曾經每週在辦公室通過視頻向客戶彙報的創意團隊現在每天都得利用平板電腦進行視頻通話。以前需要6個人花費數月時間才能完成的軟件項目，現在被分解成數百個部分，微開發者們一週就能完成。雖然這些想法聽起來可能很誘人，但如此迅速的進展也會帶來一些影響，就好比惠普（HP）和蘋果（Apple）分別從各自的平板電腦和地圖應用中發現的問題。

Traveling at the speed of confusion

以“混亂”的速度行進

Perhaps the biggest implication of our new speed is what this is doing to our lives, and in particular to our brains. Recently, I was in the boardroom of a government organization outside the U.S. that was in charge of regulating what should be a slow-moving industry. They were decades old, with around 10,000 employees and mountains of money. Their biggest challenge· "Our people are so overwhelmed, no one has any time to think, it's all too much," their executives explained.

也許這種新速度的最大影響是在生活方面，尤其是對我們的大腦。最近，我有幸進入一家美國以外地區政府機構的會議室參觀。這個機構負責監管一個本應緩慢發展的行業。他們已經有幾十年的歷史，擁有10,000名僱員和大量的資金。他們面臨的最大挑戰是什麼？“我們的僱員不堪重負，沒有人有時間進行思考，信息太多了，”這家機構的管理者說。

The fire hose of information was driving folks more than a little crazy. This was a wake-up call for me. I often hear firms, including my own, fantasizing how much better life would be once they had years to get organized, better systems, the right number of employees, or plenty of capital. Yet here was a firm with all that and more, with the same chaos I see at startups.

信息的大量涌現讓人們變得多少有點瘋狂。對我來說，這敲響了警鐘。我經常聽到一些機構——包括我自己的在內——幻想，如果擁有時間進行調整，具備更好的系統、合適的員工數量或是足夠多的資金，生活會變得多麼美好。然而，這兒有一傢俱備所有條件甚至更多的機構，卻同樣存在我在創業公司身上看到的那種混亂。

Ironically, the biggest casualty of everyone being so connected is productivity. No one is getting much done at the office. One survey of 6,000 workers by the NeuroLeadership Institute found only 10% of people do their best thinking at work. "I have to go home and work at night to get anything done" is a phrase I hear all too often. Working nights and weekends leads to less time with families and friends and even less sleep, with 30% of Americans not getting the sleep they need today.

諷刺的是，所有人都保持着連線狀態，這最大的受害者乃是人們的工作效率，沒有人能夠在辦公室完成很多工作。神經領導力研究所（NeuroLeadership Institute）曾對6,000名職員進行調查，結果發現只有10%的人能夠在工作時達到最佳的思維狀態。我經常聽到這樣的話，“我必須回到家，等到晚上才能把所有事情做完。”在夜間和週末工作讓人們花在家人和朋友身上的時間變少了，甚至連睡眠的時間也縮短了，如今30%的美國人得不到充足的睡眠。

We won't let people work 20-hour factory shifts anymore, but we're okay to let them respond to emails 24/7. We organize workplaces to minimize physical injuries, yet we expect people to process huge volumes of data for hours on end. We mandate that people have vacations, yet more people are connected on vacation than ever. We are not respecting the needs of the brain largely because they are not obvious. Maybe it is time we made them more so.

我們已經不再執行20小時的輪班制了，但卻對讓員工全天候保持電郵響應安之若素。我們對工作場所進行了調整，以減少對身體的傷害，但我們卻希望員工一連幾小時處理海量數據。我們強制人們休假，但卻有比以往任何時候都要多的人在假期中保持連線。我們沒有尊重大腦的需求，這在很大程度上是因爲那些需求並不明顯。現在也許是時候揭開真相了。

In a recent edition of the NeuroLeadership Journal, UCLA psychiatrist Dan Siegel and I, along with Jessica Payne and Stephen Poelmans, outlined the deeper science behind the "Healthy Mind Platter" that Siegel and I launched in 2011. The "platter" outlines seven types of mental activities the brain needs for optimal healthy functioning.

最新一期的《神經領導力雜誌》（NeuroLeadership Journal）中，美國加州大學洛杉磯分校（UCLA）的丹·西格爾和我，連同傑西卡·佩恩以及斯蒂芬·珀爾曼斯，一起概述了“健康心靈拼盤”（Healthy Mind Platter）背後更深層次的科學原理。西格爾和我在2011年共同提出了這個概念。“拼盤”列出了大腦恢復最佳健康機能所需的7種精神活動。

Shutting down

休息

One activity we all need is sufficient down time, when the brain is refreshed through being non-goal focused. Like other organs, our neural circuits benefit from a period of recovery after being stretched. Down time is also a critical component for complex problem solving. The incessant beeping of mobile devices raises our ambient neural activity too high to notice the quieter, non-conscious brain providing a solution to everyday (or really big) problems. With the "buzz" always on, we drown out the so-called eureka moments in the morning shower, on the walk to work, or the drive home. We should be making it okay for people to disconnect for blocks of time. If folks are not good at switching off (just as we are not good at driving at sensible speeds), perhaps we need to install some limits here. Volkswagen in Germany has started switching off their Blackberry email servers for 12 hours a day to let people rest. Other firms are experimenting with similar ideas, including minimizing or even banning internalemails.

我們都需要的一種活動是，足夠的休息。這時候，大腦將通過放空，重新恢復精神。跟其他器官一樣，緊張工作之後，一段時間的恢復對我們的神經系統有好處。對於解決複雜的問題，休息時間同樣是一個關鍵要素。移動設備持續不斷的蜂鳴聲讓我們的周圍神經一直保持亢奮，以至於無法注意到安靜的、非意識的大腦更加能夠解決日常生活的問題（或是真正的大問題）。在這種“嗡嗡”聲音持續不斷的情況下，我們失去了在早上淋浴、步行上班或驅車回家時經常發生的靈光乍現。我們應該保證人們能夠在某些時間斷開連接，而且不至於出現問題。如果人們不擅長停下來休息（就像我們不擅長以合理的速度駕車行駛），那麼我們或許需要做出一些限制。德國的大衆汽車公司（Volkswagen）已經開始每天關閉黑莓郵件服務器12小時，讓員工進行休息。其他公司也在嘗試類似的設想，包括減少、甚或禁止內部的電子郵件。

For real down time, people need vacations where they fully switch off. This may require changing how we think about annual leave. Instead of expecting people to take long vacations, we can encourage a shorter annual break, with an extra-long weekend each month to enable recovery. Four days offline can be truly restful. Whereas a two-week break can be two weeks of hellish preparation, two weeks of rest, followed by two stressful weeks digging out from under 2,000 emails. Maybe we need a rule that requires total down time every few months for a minimum of a few days.

爲了獲得真正的休息時間，人們需要假期，這時候他們可以完全停下來。它可能需要我們改變自己看待年假的方式。我們並不鼓勵人們度長假，而是推薦較短的年假和每月額外的長週末，以幫助恢復精力。4天的離線生活能夠讓人獲得真正的休息，而兩週的假期卻可能成爲兩週地獄般的工作準備，人們休息兩週之後往往還要花兩週時間處理遺留下來的2,000封郵件。或許我們需要一條規則，每隔幾個月至少休息數天時間。

Focus

專注

Another ingredient of the "Healthy Mind Platter" is focus time. This is when we focus intensely on a single task, making deeper connections across the brain. Focus time is important for long-term memory as well as overall brain health. We need to design workspaces where people can focus, totally undisturbed, for blocks of time as needed.

“健康心靈拼盤”的另一個要素是專注時間，這是我們極度專注於某一工作任務的時候，在大腦中進行更深層次的連接。專注時間對長期記憶和大腦整體健康來說非常重要。我們需要對工作場所進行設計，讓人們可以在必要的時間段集中精力，完全不受干擾。

My research shows that people have one to two peak performing hours a day at best. What if those hours involve being bombarded with constant distractions? As well as having fewer insights and not being able to go deeply into an idea, the task switching exhausts our brains. Recently, I was pleased to notice some private, quiet working rooms at a large company's offices, before I noticed a sign saying "for conference calls only." As if talking to others is more important than focusing. Do we need a rule to make being able to focus at work a basic workplace right, like physical safety?

我的研究表明，人們每天至多有一到兩個小時的最佳工作時間。如果人們在這段時間受到持續的干擾呢？就像缺乏見解和無法深入到一個想法當中，任務的轉換會讓我們的大腦疲憊不堪。最近，我欣喜地看到一家大公司在辦公區域設置了一些私密的安靜工作間，不過我之後又注意到上面貼着“僅供會議使用”的標誌，就好像跟其他人交談要比專注於工作更加重要似的。我們是否需要這樣一條規則，讓能夠專注於工作成爲工作場所的基本權利，就像人身安全一樣？

Two other critical ingredients of the "Healthy Mind Platter" are connecting time, when we be social with others, and playtime, where we make novel connections in the brain. Having connecting time turns out to be more important to our well-being than even maintaining a good diet. By helping people get their work done at work, people can have more social time and playtime outside work, not to mention get more sleep.

“健康心靈拼盤”的另外兩個關鍵要素是交流時間和休閒時間。前者是用來跟其他人進行交際，後者則是我們在大腦中建立新連接的時候。事實證明，對於我們自己的福祉，與他人交流甚至比保持良好的飲食習慣更加重要。通過在上班時幫助人們完成他們的工作，人們在工作以外就可以擁有更多的社交時間和休閒時間，更不用說獲得更多的睡眠了。

We have some fast and shiny new machines that are speeding up everything about how we work. Travelling at this new speed has dangers that may not be obvious at first. Maybe now is the time to build in some limits and boundaries for our hyper-connected lives, to reduce the number of accidents along our information superhighways.

我們擁有了一些快捷而閃亮的新設備，它們能夠在各方面加快我們的工作速度。以這種新速度行進具有一定的危險性，而這種危險一開始可能並不是很明顯。也許是時候爲我們過度連線的生活設定一些限制和邊界了， 這樣我們在信息高速公路上行駛時才能減少事故的發生。

David Rock is cofounder of the Neuroleadership Institute, a consultant and author of Your Brain at Work.

大衛·洛克是神經領導力研究所的聯合創始人，他是一名顧問，著有《正常運作的大腦》一書。