礼节美语:204 De-stressing 1

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Jim在走廊上遇到同事Claire，跟Claire打招呼。

Jim: Hey Claire, you've been really quiet these last few days. Is something wrong?

Claire: I've been really stressed. It's the end of the year and I've got so much stuff to do! I feel like I'm drowning in work.

J: Well, stress is a real thing. It's not an imaginary condition.

C: It's seriously affecting my life! I can't sleep, I don't have much of an appetite and my husband says I've been kind of short tempered. Other people seem to handle stress okay...why am I so weak?

Claire最近一直不太说话，原来是因为到年底了，有做不完的事情，I've been really stressed. 她感觉压力特别大。Claire说，I feel like I'm drowning in work. Drown, d-r-o-w-n, drown 溺水，在这里是一种比喻的说法，drown in work 意思是自己快要被工作压垮了。Claire不仅睡眠不好，食欲差，而且还动不动就发脾气，short tempered。大家都有压力，是不是只有Claire承压能力差呢？ Jim说，

J: You're not weak...you're stressed out! Stress has been a part of the human condition for millions of years. Back when we still lived in the trees we had to watch out for predators...and as you might imagine, that was pretty stressful.

C: Yeah, but I don't see any tigers or leopards roaming around our office. My stress is just about silly paperwork!

J: But you're actually having the same reaction as our tree-dwelling ancestors! It's called the "flight or fight" response. Each time you feel like something's threatening you, your body decides whether to run away or fight...it causes all sorts of chemical reactions in the body.

Jim安慰Claire说，这是身体对过度压力所做出的反应，就好像原来住在树上的老祖宗，随时随地要watch out for predators警惕捕食者的来袭，虽然现代人压力的来源变了，但是Claire面对压力，身体做出的反应还是一样的，这种反应叫 flight or fight response，要在逃跑还是交战之间做出选择。Claire似懂非懂。

C: So a deadline will cause that same reaction?

J: It could. Modern humans actually have more "flight or fight" responses than our ancestors did. They just had a couple of close calls every day, but today, we have dozens or even hundreds!

C: So the life of a cave woman was less stressful than my life?

Jim说，跟生活在树上的老祖宗相比，现代人每天面对的flight or fight的情况更多。他们以前每天可能只有几次遇到危险 close calls，a close call指险些发生的厄运，比如 I was almost run over by a car. It was a close call. 我差点没被车撞到，太悬了。如果真像Jim说的，现代人比史前人类 cave man或是cave woman 面对的压力还大了？我们下次继续听。