沒同情心沒關係,冥想訓練可助你

It's possible to become a more compassionate person by training your brain, according to a new study.
通過訓練你的大腦可以使你成爲一個更富有同情心的人，根據一項新的研究。

Researchers found that engaging in compassion meditation -- where you practice feeling compassion for different groups of people, including yourself -- seemed to increase a sense of altruism.
研究人員發現進行慈悲冥想——在那你練習爲不同羣體的人感到憐憫，包括你自己——似乎增添了利他主義的感覺。

"It's kind of like weight training," study researcher Helen Weng, a graduate student in clinical psychology at the university, said in a statement. "Using this systematic approach, we found that people can actually build up their compassion 'muscle' and respond to others' suffering with care and a desire to help."
“這就好像是舉重訓練，”參與這項研究的翁海倫，大學臨牀心理學的一名研究生，在一份聲明中說。“使用該系統的方法，我們發現人們可以建立他們的同情肌，用關心和渴望提供幫助來回應他人的苦難。”

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, involved having study participants engage in a compassion meditation where they thought about when others have helped them to relieve their own suffering. They repeated compassion mantras, such as "May you be free from suffering. May you have joy and ease." And they also completed an exercise where they practiced compassion for groups of people including friends, "difficult people" and themselves.
這項研究發表在《心理科學》雜誌上，研究的參與者進行了慈悲冥想，在那他們想到其他人幫助他們緩解自己痛苦的時候。他們重複慈悲咒語，比如“願你從痛苦中解脫出來。願你擁有歡樂和輕鬆。”他們還完成了一項練習，他們練習爲一羣人包括朋友、“敵人”以及自己祈禱。

Meanwhile, another group of study participants serving as the control group just learned a technique called cognitive reappraisal, which is when you reappraise your thoughts so that they are less negative.
與此同時，另一組參與者作爲對照組，只是學習了認知重評技術，就是當你重新評估你的想法這樣它們就不那麼消極。

Researchers conducted brain scans of both these groups, before and after their trainings.
研究人員在訓練前後對這兩組人進行了腦部掃描。

Then, they compared the altruism of the cognitive reappraisal group with the compassion meditation group by having them all play a game that involved donating money to people in need.
然後，通過讓其玩一個捐錢給需要的人的遊戲，他們比較了利他主義的認知重評組與慈悲冥想組。

The researchers found that the people who did the compassion training and who had the highest levels of altruism were also the ones who experienced the most brain changes in the inferior parietal cortex (involved in empathy) when exposed to others' suffering.
研究人員發現，那些做了同情訓練的人和擁有最高水平利他主義的人在感受他人痛苦時也成爲了那些在頂葉皮質(參與移情)方面經歷大腦變化最多的人。

"The fact that alterations in brain function were observed after just a total of seven hours of training is remarkable," study researcher Richard J. Davidson, who is a professor at the university and the founder and chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, said in a statement.
“大腦功能的改變僅在七個小時的訓練之後被觀察到的事實是引人注目的，”大學教授和調查健康心智中心的創始人及主席，即研究人員理查德•j•戴維森在一份聲明中說。

Of course, it shouldn't be all too surprising that meditation boosts compassion in the brain. Past research -- including a study published earlier this year by Harvard and Northeastern university researchers -- shows that meditation can help to boost do-good behavior.
當然，這不應該太奇怪，冥想增加了大腦中的同情。過去的研究，包括今年早些時候由哈佛大學和東北大學的研究人員發表的一項研究——顯示冥想可以幫助促進公益行爲。