TED | 什么样的人会活得最幸福？

演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏

So what have we learned? What are the lessons that come from the tens of thousands of pages of information that we’ve generated on these lives? Well, the lessons aren’t about wealth or fame or working harder and harder. The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.

那么我们得到了什么结论呢？那长达几万页的数据记录，记录了他们的生活，我们从这些记录中间，到底学到了什么？不是关于财富、名望，或更加努力工作。从75年的研究中， 我们得到的最明确的结论是：良好的人际关系能让人更加快乐和健康。就这样。

We’ve learned three big lessons about relationships. The first is that social connections are really good for us, and that loneliness kills. It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they’re physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.

关于人际关系，我们得到三大结论。第一，社会关系对我们是有益的，而孤独寂寞有害健康。我们发现，那些跟家庭成员更亲近的人，更爱与朋友、与邻居交往的人，会比那些不善交际、离群索居的人，更快乐、更健康、更长寿。

And the experience of loneliness turns out to be toxic. People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely. And the sad fact is that at any given time, more than one in five Americans will report that they’re lonely.

孤独寂寞是有害健康的。那些“被孤立”的人，跟不孤单的人相比，往往更加不快乐，等他们人到中年时，健康状况下降更快，大脑功能下降得更快，也没那么长寿。可惜的是，长久以来，每5个美国人中就至少有1个声称自己是孤独的。

And we know that you can be lonely in a crowd and you can be lonely in a marriage, so the second big lesson that we learned is that it’s not just the number of friends you have, and it’s not whether or not you’re in a committed relationship, but it’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.

而且即便你身在人群中，甚至已经结婚了，你还是可能感到孤独，因此我们得到的第二大结论是不是你有多少朋友，也不是你身边有没有伴侣，真正有影响的是这些关系的质量。

It turns out that living in the midst of conflict is really bad for our health. High-conflict marriages, for example, without much affection, turn out to be very bad for our health, perhaps worse than getting divorced. And living in the midst of good, warm relationships is protective.

整天吵吵闹闹，对健康是有害的。比如成天吵架，没有爱的婚姻，对健康的影响或许比离婚还大。而关系和睦融洽，则对我们的健康有益。

Once we had followed our men all the way into their 80s, we wanted to look back at them at midlife and to see if we could predict who was going to grow into a happy, healthy octogenarian and who wasn’t.And when we gathered together everything we knew about them at age 50, it wasn’t their middle age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old. It was how satisfied they were in their relationships.

当我们的研究对象步入80岁时，我们会回顾他们的中年生活，看我们能否预测哪些人会在八九十岁时过得快乐健康，哪些人不会。我们把他们50岁时的所有信息进行汇总分析，发现决定他们将如何老去的，并不是他们中年时的胆固醇水平，而是他们对婚姻生活的满意度。

The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80. And good, close relationships seem to buffer us from some of the slings and arrows of getting old. Our most happily partnered men and women reported, in their 80s, that on the days when they had more physical pain, their mood stayed just as happy. But the people who were in unhappy relationships,on the days when they reported more physical pain, it was magnified by more emotional pain.

那些在50岁时满意度最高的人，在80岁时也是最健康的。另外，良好和亲密的婚姻关系 能减缓衰老带来的痛苦。参与者中那些最幸福的夫妻告诉我们，在他们80多岁时，哪怕身体出现各种毛病，他们依旧觉得日子很幸福。而那些婚姻不快乐的人，身体上会出现更多不适，因为坏情绪把身体的痛苦放大了。

And the third big lesson that we learned about relationships and our health is that good relationships don’t just protect our bodies, they protect our brains. It turns out that being in a securely attached relationship to another person in your 80s is protective, that the people who are in relationships where they really feel they can count on the other person in times of need, those people’s memories stay sharper longer. And the people in relationships where they feel they really can’t count on the other one, those are the people who experience earlier memory decline.

关于婚姻和健康的关系，我们得到的第三大结论是，幸福的婚姻不单能保护我们的身体，还能保护我们的大脑。研究发现，如果在80多岁时，你的婚姻生活还温暖和睦，你对自己的另一半依然信任有加，知道对方在关键时刻能指望得上，那么你的记忆力都不容易衰退。

And those good relationships, they don’t have to be smooth all the time. Some of our octogenarian couples could bicker with each other day in and day out, but as long as they felt that they could really count on the other when the going got tough, those arguments didn’t take a toll on their memories.

而反过来，那些觉得无法信任 自己的另一半的人，记忆力会更早表现出衰退。幸福的婚姻，并不意味着从不拌嘴。有些夫妻，八九十岁了，还天天斗嘴，但只要他们坚信，在关键时刻，对方能靠得住，那这些争吵顶多只是生活的调味剂。

So this message, that good, close relationships are good for our health and well-being, this is wisdom that’s as old as the hills. Why is this so hard to get and so easy to ignore? Well, we’re human. What we’d really like is a quick fix, something we can get that’ll make our lives good and keep them that way.

所以请记住，幸福和睦的婚姻对健康是有利的，这是永恒的真理。但为什么我们总是办不到呢？ 因为我们是人类。我们总喜欢找捷径，总想一劳永逸，找到一种方法，解决所有问题。

Relationships are messy and they’re complicated and the hard work of tending to family and friends, it’s not sexy or glamorous. It’s also lifelong. It never ends. The people in our 75-year study who were the happiest in retirement were the people who had actively worked to replace workmates with new playmates.

人际关系麻烦又复杂，与家人、朋友相处需要努力付出，一点也不高大上。而且需要一辈子投入，无穷无尽。在我们长达75年的研究中，那些最享受退休生活的人，是那些主动用玩伴来替代工作伙伴的人。