Laughter as a Form of Exercise
大笑也是种运动
Is laughter a kind of exercise? That offbeat question is at the heart of a new study of laughing and pain that emphasizes how unexpectedly entwined our bodies and emotions can be.
开怀大笑也可以作为一种运动吗?这个不寻常的问题是一项有关欢笑和疼痛的新研究的核心内容，研究的重点在于发现我们的身体和情绪会如何意外地交织影响。
For the study, which was published this year in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers at Oxford University recruited a large group of undergraduate men and women.
这项研究今年发表在《皇家学会学报B》(Royal Society B)中，牛津大学(Oxford University)的研究者招募了一大批本科男女学生参与其中。
They then set out to make their volunteers laugh.
然后，在试验中他们把志愿者逗笑。
Most of us probably think of laughter, if we think of it at all, as a response to something funny - as, in effect, an emotion.
我们中的大多数人如果真的思考过大笑这件事情，恐怕会认为大笑是面对有趣事物时发生的反应——从效果上来说，它是种情感。
But laughter is fundamentally a physical action. "Laughter involves the repeated, forceful exhalation of breath from the lungs," says Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford, who led the study. "The muscles of the diaphragm have to work very hard." We've all heard the phrase "laugh until it hurts," he points out. That pain isn't metaphoric; prolonged laughing can be painful and exhausting.
但是，大笑本质上是一种机体运动。“大笑需要肺部进行重复有力的呼气，”研究领导者、牛津大学进化心理学教授(Robin Dunbar)说：“横膈的肌肉必须非常用力。”他指出，我们都听过“笑得肚子疼”这种说法。这种疼并非仅仅隐喻，长时间的大笑可以引起疼痛，令人精疲力尽。
Rather like a difficult workout.
这非常类似一次艰苦的锻炼。
But does laughter elicit a physiological response similar to that of exercise and, if so, what might that reveal about the nature of exertion?
但是，大笑引起的生理反应是否也与运动一致呢?如果是的话，这会揭示体力劳动的什么本质?
To find out, Dr. Dunbar and his colleagues had their volunteers watch, both alone and as part of a group, a series of short videos that were either comic or dryly factual documentaries.
为了寻求答案，邓巴博士与他的团队让志愿者们单独或成组观看一系列短视频，有的是搞笑喜剧，有的是干巴巴的纪实纪录片。
But first, the volunteers submitted to a test of their pain threshold, as determined by how long they could tolerate a tightening blood pressure cuff or a frozen cooling sleeve.
在此之前，志愿者进行了痛阈的测试，测试方法是看他们能在收紧的血压袖带或冰冻的冷却袖套中忍受多久。
The decision to introduce pain into this otherwise fun-loving study stems from one of the more well-established effects of strenuous exercise: that it causes the body to release endorphins, or natural opiates. Endorphins are known "to play a crucial role in the management of pain," the study authors write, and, like other opiates, to induce a feeling of euphoric calm and well-being (they are believed to play a role in "runner's high").
为什么要在这么欢乐的研究主干中引入疼痛呢?这是基于剧烈运动一个广为人知的效果：它能令身体释放内啡肽，即天然阿片类。研究作者写道，已知内啡肽“对疼痛管理有重要作用”，与其他阿片类药物一样，能够诱导出欣快的镇静和良好感觉(据信正是它们引起了“跑者高潮”)。
It's difficult to study endorphin production directly, however, since much of the action takes place within the working brain and requires a lumbar puncture to monitor, Dr. Dunbar says. That is not a procedure volunteers willingly undergo, particularly in a study about laughing. Instead, he and his colleagues turned to pain thresholds, an indirect but generally accepted marker of endorphin production. If someone's pain threshold rises, he or she is presumed to be awash in the natural analgesics.
不过，邓巴博士说，内啡肽的产生难以直接研究，因为大多数活动发生在大脑里，需要进行腰椎穿刺才能监控。这一操作可能令志愿者难以接受，尤其是在一项与笑有关的研究中。他和他的团队于是转而用痛阈取而代之，这是普遍接受的内啡肽产生的间接标记。如果一个人痛阈升高，研究者就认为他或她的体内已经充满了天然止痛剂。
And in Dr. Dunbar's experiments, pain thresholds did go up after people watched the funny videos, but not after they viewed the factual documentaries.
在邓巴博士的研究中，观看搞笑视频的人们痛阈确实出现了升高，但是观看纪录片的人则并无升高。
The only difference between the two experiences was that in one, people laughed, a physical reaction that the scientists quantified with audio monitors. They could hear their volunteers belly-laughing. Their abdominal muscles were contracting. Their endorphin levels were increasing in response, and both their pain thresholds and their general sense of amiable enjoyment were on the rise.
这两者之间唯一的区别是有没有大笑，这是科学家可以用音频监视器量化的机体反应。他们能听到志愿者捧腹大笑。他们的腹肌在收缩，内啡肽水平也随之升高，他们的痛阈和对愉悦享受的整体观感也上升了。
In other words, it was the physical act of laughing, the contracting of muscles and resulting biochemical reactions, that prompted, at least in part, the pleasure of watching the comedy. Or, as Dr. Dunbar and his colleagues write, "the sense of heightened affect in this context probably derives from the way laughter triggers endorphin uptake." 纽约时报中英文网 http://www.qqenglish.com
换言之，大笑的机体行为、肌肉的收缩以及由此产生的生化反应，至少部分促进了看喜剧时的愉悦感。用邓巴博士及其团队的话来说：“这一情境下提升的情绪也许来自大笑激发的内啡肽含量。”
The physical act of laughing contributed to the emotional response of finding something to be funny.
大笑这种机体行为造成了发现有趣事物时的情绪反应。
Why the interplay of endorphins and laughing should be of interest to those of us who exercise may not be immediately obvious. But as Dr. Dunbar points out, what happens during one type of physical exertion probably happens in others. Laughter is an intensely infectious activity. In this study, people laughed more readily and lustily when they watched the comic videos as a group than when they watched them individually, and their pain thresholds, concomitantly, rose higher after group viewing.
为什么内啡肽与大笑的互相作用对坚持运动的人有意义，原因可能并不那么明朗。但是邓巴博士指出，在一种体力活动中发生的情况，可能在其他活动中也会发生。大笑是一种具有强烈传染性的活动。在这一研究中，人们成组观看喜剧时，比他们自己单独观看时笑得更轻松更起劲，而他们的痛阈也随之在成组观看时上升得更多。
Something similar may happen when people exercise together, Dr. Dunbar says. In an experiment from 2009, he and his colleagues studied a group of elite Oxford rowers, asking them to work out either on isolated rowing machines, separated from one another in a gym, or on a machine that simulated full, synchronized crew rowing. In that case, the rowers were exerting themselves in synchrony, as a united group.
邓巴博士说，一起运动的人也会发生同样的情况。在一项从2009年开始的试验中，他和他的团队研究的是牛津的赛艇精英，试验要求他们或者在健身房中单独在划船机上锻炼，或者在同一机器上模拟整组同步划船。在这一研究中，赛艇运动员作为一个团体发挥了自己的同步性。
After they exercised together, the rowers' pain thresholds - and presumably their endorphin levels - were significantly higher than they had been at the start, but also higher than when they rowed alone.
运动完成后，赛艇运动员的痛阈——反应了内啡肽水平——比开始前有了显著的提高，而且也高于他们独自划船时。
"We don't know why synchrony has this effect, but it seems very strong," Dr. Dunbar says.
“我们不知道为什么同时划船能有这样的效果，但是效果看起来非常明显。”邓巴博士说。
So if you typically run or bike alone, perhaps consider finding a partner. Your endorphin response might rise and, at least theoretically, render that unpleasant final hill a bit less daunting. Or if you prefer exercising alone, perhaps occasionally entertain yourself with a good joke.
所以，如果你通常独自跑步或骑行，也许应该考虑找个伴了。你的内啡肽反应会因此提升，至少理论上如此，这会让令人苦恼的最后一座小山丘也不那么望而生畏。如果你还是更喜欢一个人锻炼，那就时不时要想个笑话让自己乐一乐。
But don't expect forced laughter to lend you an edge, Dr. Dunbar says. "Polite titters do not involve the repeated, uninhibited series of exhalations" that are needed to "drive the endorphin effect," he says. With laughter, as with exercise, it seems, there really is no gain without some element of pain.
但是邓巴博士说，别指望被动的大笑会带来什么好处。“礼貌的微笑不需要那种重复的、无拘无束的呼气”，但只有这样才能“驱动内啡肽效果”。看来，大笑和运动一样，不付出就没收获。
口译： 翻译资格考试二级口译模拟题
笔译： 翻译资格考试二级笔译模拟题
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