ted演講稿高中生（精選5篇）

ted演講稿高中生 篇1

one day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of chile, in one of the mostremote regions of the pacific ocean, 20 american sailors watched their shipflood with seawater.

1819年的某一天， 在距離智利海岸3000英里的地方， 有一個太平洋上的最偏遠的水域， 20名美國船員目睹了他們的船隻進水的場面。

they'd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic holein the ship's hull. as their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the menhuddled together in three small whaleboats.

他們和一頭抹香鯨相撞，給船體撞了 一個毀滅性的大洞。 當船在巨浪中開始沉沒時， 人們在三條救生小艇中抱作一團。

these men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,000 miles from thenearest scrap of land. in their small boats, they carried only rudimentarynavigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water.

這些人在離家10000萬英里的地方， 離最近的陸地也超過1000英里。 在他們的小艇中，他們只帶了 落後的導航設備 和有限的食物和飲水。

these were the men of the whaleship esse_, whose story would later inspireparts of "moby dick."

他們就是捕鯨船esse_上的人們， 後來的他們的故事成為《白鯨記》的一部分。

even in today's world, their situation would be really dire, but thinkabout how much worse it would have been then.

即使在當今的世界，碰上這種情況也夠杯具的，更不用説在當時的情況有多糟糕。

no one on land had any idea that anything had gone wrong. no search partywas coming to look for these men. so most of us have never e_perienced asituation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves, butwe all know what it's like to be afraid.

岸上的人根本就還沒意識到出了什麼問題。 沒有任何人來搜尋他們。 我們當中大部分人沒有經歷過 這些船員所處的可怕情景，但我們都知道害怕是什麼感覺。

we know how fear feels, but i'm not sure we spend enough time thinkingabout what our fears mean.

我們知道恐懼的感覺， 但是我不能肯定我們會花很多時間想過 我們的恐懼到底意味着什麼。

as we grow up, we're often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, justanother childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates.

我們長大以後，我們總是會被鼓勵把恐懼 視為軟弱，需要像乳牙或輪滑鞋一樣 扔掉的幼稚的東西。

and i think it's no accident that we think this way. neuroscientists haveactually shown that human beings are hard-wired to be optimists.

我想意外事故並非我們所想的那樣。 神經系統科學家已經知道人類 生來就是樂觀主義者。

so maybe that's why we think of fear, sometimes, as a danger in and ofitself. "don't worry," we like to say to one another. "don't panic." in english,fear is something we conquer. it's something we fight.

這也許就是為什麼我們認為有時候恐懼， 本身就是一種危險或帶來危險。 “不要愁。”我們總是對別人説。“不要慌”。 英語中，恐懼是我們需要征服的東西。是我們必須對抗的東西，是我們必須克服的東西。

it's something we overcome. but what if we looked at fear in a fresh way?what if we thought of fear as an amazing act of the imagination, something thatcan be as profound and insightful as storytelling itself?

但是我們如果換個視角看恐懼會如何呢? 如果我們把恐懼當做是想象力的一個驚人成果， 是和我們講故事一樣 精妙而有見地的東西，又會如何呢?

it's easiest to see this link between fear and the imagination in youngchildren, whose fears are often e_traordinarily vivid.

在小孩子當中，我們最容易看到恐懼與想象之間的聯繫， 他們的恐懼經常是超級生動的。

when i was a child, i lived in california, which is, you know, mostly avery nice place to live, but for me as a child, california could also be alittle scary.

我小時候住在加利福尼亞， 你們都知道，是非常適合居住的位置， 但是對一個小孩來説，加利福尼亞也會有點嚇人。

i remember how frightening it was to see the chandelier that hung above ourdining table swing back and forth during every minor earthquake, and i sometimescouldn't sleep at night, terrified that the big one might strike while we weresleeping.

我記得每次小地震的時候 當我看到我們餐桌上的吊燈 晃來晃去的時候是多麼的嚇人， 我經常會徹夜難眠，擔心大地震 會在我們睡覺的時候突然襲來。

and what we say about kids who have fears like that is that they have avivid imagination. but at a certain point, most of us learn to leave these kindsof visions behind and grow up.

我們説小孩子感受到這種恐懼 是因為他們有生動的想象力。 但是在某個時候，我們大多數學會了 拋棄這種想法而變得成熟。

we learn that there are no monsters hiding under the bed, and not everyearthquake brings buildings down. but maybe it's no coincidence that some of ourmost creative minds fail to leave these kinds of fears behind as adults.

我們都知道牀下沒有魔鬼， 也不是每個地震都會震垮房子。但是我們當中最有想象力的人們 並沒有因為成年而拋棄這種恐懼，這也許並不是巧合。

the same incredible imaginations that produced "the origin of species,""jane eyre" and "the remembrance of things past," also generated intense worriesthat haunted the adult lives of charles darwin, charlotte bront and marcelproust. so the question is, what can the rest of us learn about fear fromvisionaries and young children?

同樣不可思議的想象力創造了《物種起源》， 《簡·愛》和《追憶似水年華》， 也就是這種與生俱來的深深的擔憂一直纏繞着成年的 查爾斯·達爾文，夏洛特·勃朗特和馬塞爾·普羅斯特。 問題就來了， 我們其他人如何能從這些 夢想家和小孩子身上學會恐懼?

well let's return to the year 1819 for a moment, to the situation facingthe crew of the whaleship esse_. let's take a look at the fears that theirimaginations were generating as they drifted in the middle of the pacific.

讓我們暫時回到1819年， 回到esse_捕鯨船的水手們面對的情況。 讓我們看看他們漂流在太平洋中央時 他們的想象力給他們帶來的恐懼感覺。

twenty-four hours had now passed since the capsizing of the ship. the timehad come for the men to make a plan, but they had very few options.

船傾覆後已經過了24個小時。 這時人們制定了一個計劃， 但是其實他們沒什麼太多的選擇。

in his fascinating account of the disaster, nathaniel philbrick wrote thatthese men were just about as far from land as it was possible to be anywhere onearth.

在納撒尼爾·菲爾布里克(nathaniel philbrick)描述這場災難的 動人文章中，他寫到“這些人離陸地如此之遠，似乎永遠都不可能到達地球上的任何一塊陸地。”

the men knew that the nearest islands they could reach were the marquesasislands, 1,200 miles away. but they'd heard some frightening rumors.

這些人知道離他們最近的島 是1200英里以外的馬克薩斯羣島(marquesas islands)。 但是他們聽到了讓人恐怖的謠言。

they'd been told that these islands, and several others nearby, werepopulated by cannibals. so the men pictured coming ashore only to be murderedand eaten for dinner. another possible destination was hawaii, but given theseason, the captain was afraid they'd be struck by severe storms.

他們聽説這些羣島， 以及附近的一些島嶼上都住着食人族。 所以他們腦中都是上岸以後就會被殺掉 被人當做盤中餐的畫面。 另一個可行的目的地是夏威夷，但是船長擔心 他們會被困在風暴當中。

now the last option was the longest, and the most difficult: to sail 1,500miles due south in hopes of reaching a certain band of winds that couldeventually push them toward the coast of south america.

所以最後的選擇是到最遠，也是最艱險的地方： 往南走1500英里希望某股風 能最終把他們 吹到南美洲的海岸。

but they knew that the sheer length of this journey would stretch theirsupplies of food and water. to be eaten by cannibals, to be battered by storms,to starve to death before reaching land.

但是他們知道這個行程中一旦偏航 將會耗盡他們食物和飲水的供給。 被食人族吃掉，被風暴掀翻， 在登陸前餓死。

these were the fears that danced in the imaginations of these poor men, andas it turned out, the fear they chose to listen to would govern whether theylived or died.

這就是縈繞在這羣可憐的人想象中的恐懼， 事實證明，他們選擇聽從的恐懼 將決定他們的生死。

now we might just as easily call these fears by a different name. what ifinstead of calling them fears, we called them stories?

也許我們可以很容易的用別的名稱來稱呼這些恐懼。 我們不稱之為恐懼， 而是稱它們為故事如何?

because that's really what fear is, if you think about it. it's a kind ofunintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do. and fears andstorytelling have the same components.

如果你仔細想想，這是恐懼真正的意義。 這是一種與生俱來的， 無意識的講故事的能力。 恐懼和講故事有着同樣的構成。

they have the same architecture. like all stories, fears have our fears, the characters are us. fears also have plots. they have beginningsand middles and ends. you board the plane.

他們有同樣的結構。 如同所有的故事，恐懼中有角色。 在恐懼中，角色就是我們自己。 恐懼也有情節。他們有開頭，有中間，有結尾。 你登上飛機。

the plane takes off. the engine fails. our fears also tend to containimagery that can be every bit as vivid as what you might find in the pages of anovel. picture a cannibal, human teeth sinking into human skin, human fleshroasting over a fire.

飛機起飛。結果引擎故障。 我們的恐懼會包括各種生動的想象， 不比你看到的任何一個小説遜色。 想象食人族，人類牙齒 咬在人類皮膚上，人肉在火上烤。

fears also have suspense. if i've done my job as a storyteller today, youshould be wondering what happened to the men of the whaleship esse_. our fearsprovoke in us a very similar form of suspense.

恐懼中也有懸念。 如果我今天像講故事一樣，留個懸念不説了， 你們也許會很想知道 esse_捕鯨船上，人們到底怎麼樣了。我們的恐懼用懸念一樣的方式刺激我們。

just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a questionthat is as important in life as it is in literature: what will happen ne_t?

就像一個很好的故事，我們的恐懼也如同一部好的文學作品一樣， 將我們的注意力集中在對我們生命至關重要的問題上： 後來發生了什麼?

in other words, our fears make us think about the future. and humans, bythe way, are the only creatures capable of thinking about the future in thisway, of projecting ourselves forward in time, and this mental time travel isjust one more thing that fears have in common with storytelling.

換而言之，我們的恐懼讓我們想到未來。 另外，人來是唯一有能力 通過這種方式想到未來的生物， 就是預測時間推移後我們的狀況， 這種精神上的時間旅行是恐懼與講故事的另一個共同點。

as a writer, i can tell you that a big part of writing fiction is learningto predict how one event in a story will affect all the other events, and fearworks in that same way.

我是一個作家，我要告訴你們寫小説一個很重要的部分 就是學會預測故事中一件 事情如何影響另一件事情， 恐懼也是同樣這麼做的。

in fear, just like in fiction, one thing always leads to another. when iwas writing my first novel, "the age of miracles," i spent months trying tofigure out what would happen if the rotation of the earth suddenly began to slowdown. what would happen to our days?

恐懼中，如同小説一樣，一件事情總是導致另一件事情。 我寫我的第一部小説《奇蹟時代》的時候， 我花了數月的時間想象如果地球旋轉突然變慢了之後會發生什麼。 我們的一天變得如何?

what would happen to our crops? what would happen to our minds? and then itwas only later that i realized how very similar these questions were to the onesi used to ask myself as a child frightened in the night.

我們身體會怎樣? 我們的思想會有什麼變化? 也就是在那之後，我意識到 我過去總是問自己的那些些問題 和孩子們在夜裏害怕是多麼的相像。

if an earthquake strikes tonight, i used to worry, what will happen to ourhouse? what will happen to my family? and the answer to those questions alwaystook the form of a story.

要是在過去，如果今晚發生地震，我會很擔心， 我的房子會怎麼樣啊?家裏人會怎樣啊? 這類問題的答案通常都會和故事一樣。

so if we think of our fears as more than just fears but as stories, weshould think of ourselves as the authors of those stories. but just asimportantly, we need to think of ourselves as the readers of our fears, and howwe choose to read our fears can have a profound effect on our lives.

所以我們認為我們的恐懼不僅僅是恐懼 還是故事，我們應該把自己當作 這些故事的作者。 但是同樣重要的是，我們需要想象我們自己是我們恐懼的解讀者，我們選擇如何 去解讀這些恐懼會對我們的生活產生深遠的影響。

now, some of us naturally read our fears more closely than others. i readabout a study recently of successful entrepreneurs, and the author found thatthese people shared a habit that he called "productive paranoia," which meantthat these people, instead of dismissing their fears, these people read themclosely, they studied them, and then they translated that fear into preparationand action.

現在，我們中有些人比其他人更自然的解讀自己的恐懼。 最近我看過一個關於成功的企業家的研究， 作者發現這些人都有個習慣 叫做“未雨綢繆“，意思是，這些人，不迴避自己的恐懼， 而是認真解讀並研究恐懼， 然後把恐懼轉換成準備和行動。

so that way, if their worst fears came true, their businesses wereready.

這樣，如果最壞的事情發生了， 他們的企業也有所準備。

and sometimes, of course, our worst fears do come true. that's one of thethings that is so e_traordinary about fear. once in a while, our fears canpredict the future.

當然，很多時候，最壞的事情確實發生了。 這是恐懼非凡的一面。 曾幾何時，我們的恐懼預測將來。

but we can't possibly prepare for all of the fears that our imaginationsconcoct. so how can we tell the difference between the fears worth listening toand all the others? i think the end of the story of the whaleship esse_ offersan illuminating, if tragic, e_ample.

但是我們不可能為我們想象力構建的所有 恐懼來做準備。 所以，如何區分值得聽從的恐懼 和不值得的呢? 我想捕鯨船esse_的故事結局提供了一個有啟發性，同時又悲慘的例子。

after much deliberation, the men finally made a decision. terrified ofcannibals, they decided to forgo the closest islands and instead embarked on thelonger and much more difficult route to south america.

經過數次權衡，他們最終做出了決定。 由於害怕食人族，他們決定放棄最近的羣島 而是開始更長 更艱難的南美洲之旅。

after more than two months at sea, the men ran out of food as they knewthey might, and they were still quite far from land. when the last of thesurvivors were finally picked up by two passing ships, less than half of the menwere left alive, and some of them had resorted to their own form ofcannibalism.

在海上呆了兩個多月後，他們 的食物如預料之中消耗殆盡， 而且他們仍然離陸地那麼遠。 當最後的倖存者最終被過往船隻救起時， 只有一小半的人還活着，實際上他們中的一些人自己變成了食人族。

herman melville, who used this story as research for "moby dick," wroteyears later, and from dry land, quote, "all the sufferings of these miserablemen of the esse_ might in all human probability have been avoided had they,immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight for tahiti.

赫爾曼·梅爾維爾(herman melville)將這個故事作為 《白鯨記》的素材，在數年後寫到： esse_船上遇難者的悲慘結局或許是可以通過人為的努力避免的， 如果他們當機立斷地離開沉船， 直奔塔西提羣島。

but," as melville put it, "they dreaded cannibals." so the question is, whydid these men dread cannibals so much more than the e_treme likelihood ofstarvation?

“但是”，梅爾維爾説道：“他們害怕食人族” 問題是，為什麼這些人對於食人族的恐懼 超過了更有可能的飢餓威脅呢?

why were they swayed by one story so much more than the other? looked atfrom this angle, theirs becomes a story about reading. the novelist vladimirnabokov said that the best reader has a combination of two very differenttemperaments, the artistic and the scientific.

為什麼他們會被一個故事 影響如此之大呢? 從另一個角度來看， 這是一個關於解讀的故事。 小説家弗拉基米爾·納博科夫(vladimirnabokov)説 最好的讀者能把兩種截然不同的性格結合起來， 一個是藝術氣質，一個是科學精神。

a good reader has an artist's passion, a willingness to get caught up inthe story, but just as importantly, the readers also needs the coolness ofjudgment of a scientist, which acts to temper and complicate the reader'sintuitive reactions to the story. as we've seen, the men of the esse_ had notrouble with the artistic part.

好的讀者有藝術家的熱情， 願意融入故事當中， 但是同樣重要的是，這些讀者還要 有科學家的冷靜判斷， 這能幫助他們穩定情緒並分析 其對故事的直覺反應。我們可以看出來，esse_上的人在藝術部分一點問題都沒有。

they dreamed up a variety of horrifying scenarios. the problem was thatthey listened to the wrong story. of all the narratives their fears wrote, theyresponded only to the most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest fortheir imaginations to picture: cannibals.

他們夢想到一系列恐怖的場景。 問題在於他們聽從了一個錯誤的故事。 所有他們恐懼中 他們只對其中最聳人聽聞，最生動的故事，也是他們想象中最早出現的場景： 食人族。

but perhaps if they'd been able to read their fears more like a scientist,with more coolness of judgment, they would have listened instead to the lessviolent but the more likely tale, the story of starvation, and headed fortahiti, just as melville's sad commentary suggests.

也許，如果他們能像科學家那樣 稍微冷靜一點解讀這個故事， 如果他們能聽從不太驚悚但是更可能發生的 半路餓死的故事，他們可能就會直奔塔西提羣島，如梅爾維爾充滿惋惜的評論所建議的那樣。

and maybe if we all tried to read our fears, we too would be less oftenswayed by the most salacious among them.

也許如果我們都試着解讀自己的恐懼， 我們就能少被 其中的一些幻象所迷惑。

maybe then we'd spend less time worrying about serial killers and planecrashes, and more time concerned with the subtler and slower disasters we face:the silent buildup of plaque in our arteries, the gradual changes in ourclimate.

我們也就能少花一點時間在 為系列殺手或者飛機失事方面的擔憂， 而是更多的關心那些悄然而至 的災難： 動脈血小板的逐漸堆積， 氣候的逐漸變遷。

just as the most nuanced stories in literature are often the richest, sotoo might our subtlest fears be the truest. read in the right way, our fears arean amazing gift of the imagination, a kind of everyday clairvoyance, a way ofglimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to influence how thatfuture will play out.

如同文學中最精妙的故事通常是最豐富的故事， 我們最細微的恐懼才是最真實的恐懼。 用正確的方法的解讀，我們的恐懼就是我們想象力賜給我們的禮物，藉此一雙慧眼， 讓我們能管窺未來 甚至影響未來。

properly read, our fears can offer us something as precious as our favoriteworks of literature: a little wisdom, a bit of insight and a version of thatmost elusive thing -- the truth. thank you.

如果能得到正確的解讀，我們的恐懼能 和我們最喜歡的文學作品一樣給我們珍貴的東西： 一點點智慧，一點點洞悉 以及對最玄妙東西—— 真相的詮釋。謝謝。

(applause)

(掌聲)

ted演講稿高中生 篇2

my subject today is learning. and in that spirit, i want to spring on youall a pop quiz. ready? when does learning begin? now as you ponder thatquestion, maybe you're thinking about the first day of preschool orkindergarten, the first time that kids are in a classroom with a teacher. ormaybe you've called to mind the toddler phase when children are learning how towalk and talk and use a fork. maybe you've encountered the zero-to-threemovement, which asserts that the most important years for learning are theearliest ones. and so your answer to my question would be: learning begins atbirth.

well today i want to present to you an idea that may be surprising and mayeven seem implausible, but which is supported by the latest evidence frompsychology and biology. and that is that some of the most important learning weever do happens before we're born, while we're still in the womb. now i'm ascience reporter. i write books and magazine articles. and i'm also a those two roles came together for me in a book that i wrote called"origins." "origins" is a report from the front lines of an e_citing new fieldcalled fetal origins. fetal origins is a scientific discipline that emerged justabout two decades ago, and it's based on the theory that our health andwell-being throughout our lives is crucially affected by the nine months wespend in the womb. now this theory was of more than just intellectual interestto me. i was myself pregnant while i was doing the research for the book. andone of the most fascinating insights i took from this work is that we're alllearning about the world even before we enter it.

when we hold our babies for the first time, we might imagine that they'reclean slates, unmarked by life, when in fact, they've already been shaped by usand by the particular world we live in. today i want to share with you some ofthe amazing things that scientists are discovering about what fetuses learnwhile they're still in their mothers' bellies.

first of all, they learn the sound of their mothers' voices. because soundsfrom the outside world have to travel through the mother's abdominal tissue andthrough the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus, the voices fetuses hear,starting around the fourth month of gestation, are muted and muffled. oneresearcher says that they probably sound a lot like the the voice of charliebrown's teacher in the old "peanuts" cartoon. but the pregnant woman's own voicereverberates through her body, reaching the fetus much more readily. and becausethe fetus is with her all the time, it hears her voice a lot. once the baby'sborn, it recognizes her voice and it prefers listening to her voice over anyoneelse's.

how can we know this? newborn babies can't do much, but one thing they'rereally good at is sucking. researchers take advantage of this fact by rigging uptwo rubber nipples, so that if a baby sucks on one, it hears a recording of itsmother's voice on a pair of headphones, and if it sucks on the other nipple, ithears a recording of a female stranger's voice. babies quickly show theirpreference by choosing the first one. scientists also take advantage of the factthat babies will slow down their sucking when something interests them andresume their fast sucking when they get bored. this is how researchersdiscovered that, after women repeatedly read aloud a section of dr. seuss' "thecat in the hat" while they were pregnant, their newborn babies recognized thatpassage when they hear it outside the womb. my favorite e_periment of this kindis the one that showed that the babies of women who watched a certain soap operaevery day during pregnancy recognized the theme song of that show once they wereborn. so fetuses are even learning about the particular language that's spokenin the world that they'll be born into.

a study published last year found that from birth, from the moment ofbirth, babies cry in the accent of their mother's native language. french babiescry on a rising note while german babies end on a falling note, imitating themelodic contours of those languages. now why would this kind of fetal learningbe useful? it may have evolved to aid the baby's survival. from the moment ofbirth, the baby responds most to the voice of the person who is most likely tocare for it -- its mother. it even makes its cries sound like the mother'slanguage, which may further endear the baby to the mother, and which may givethe baby a head start in the critical task of learning how to understand andspeak its native language.

but it's not just sounds that fetuses are learning about in utero. it'salso tastes and smells. by seven months of gestation, the fetus' taste buds arefully developed, and its olfactory receptors, which allow it to smell, arefunctioning. the flavors of the food a pregnant woman eats find their way intothe amniotic fluid, which is continuously swallowed by the fetus. babies seem toremember and prefer these tastes once they're out in the world. in onee_periment, a group of pregnant women was asked to drink a lot of carrot juiceduring their third trimester of pregnancy, while another group of pregnant womendrank only water. si_ months later, the women's infants were offered cerealmi_ed with carrot juice, and their facial e_pressions were observed while theyate it. the offspring of the carrot juice drinking women ate morecarrot-flavored cereal, and from the looks of it, they seemed to enjoy itmore.

a sort of french version of this e_periment was carried out in dijon,france where researchers found that mothers who consumed food and drink flavoredwith licorice-flavored anise during pregnancy showed a preference for anise ontheir first day of life, and again, when they were tested later, on their fourthday of life. babies whose mothers did not eat anise during pregnancy showed areaction that translated roughly as "yuck." what this means is that fetuses areeffectively being taught by their mothers about what is safe and good to ses are also being taught about the particular culture that they'll bejoining through one of culture's most powerful e_pressions, which is 're being introduced to the characteristic flavors and spices of theirculture's cuisine even before birth.

now it turns out that fetuses are learning even bigger lessons. but beforei get to that, i want to address something that you may be wondering about. thenotion of fetal learning may conjure up for you attempts to enrich the fetus --like playing mozart through headphones placed on a pregnant belly. but actually,the nine-month-long process of molding and shaping that goes on in the womb is alot more visceral and consequential than that. much of what a pregnant womanencounters in her daily life -- the air she breathes, the food and drink sheconsumes, the chemicals she's e_posed to, even the emotions she feels -- areshared in some fashion with her fetus. they make up a mi_ of influences asindividual and idiosyncratic as the woman herself. the fetus incorporates theseofferings into its own body, makes them part of its flesh and blood. and oftenit does something more. it treats these maternal contributions as information,as what i like to call biological postcards from the world outside.

so what a fetus is learning about in utero is not mozart's "magic flute"but answers to questions much more critical to its survival. will it be borninto a world of abundance or scarcity? will it be safe and protected, or will itface constant dangers and threats? will it live a long, fruitful life or ashort, harried one? the pregnant woman's diet and stress level in particularprovide important clues to prevailing conditions like a finger lifted to thewind. the resulting tuning and tweaking of a fetus' brain and other organs arepart of what give us humans our enormous fle_ibility, our ability to thrive in ahuge variety of environments, from the country to the city, from the tundra tothe desert.

to conclude, i want to tell you two stories about how mothers teach theirchildren about the world even before they're born. in the autumn of 1944, thedarkest days of world war ii, german troops blockaded western holland, turningaway all shipments of food. the opening of the nazi's siege was followed by oneof the harshest winters in decades -- so cold the water in the canals frozesolid. soon food became scarce, with many dutch surviving on just 500 calories aday -- a quarter of what they consumed before the war. as weeks of deprivationstretched into months, some resorted to eating tulip bulbs. by the beginning ofmay, the nation's carefully rationed food reserve was completely e_hausted. thespecter of mass starvation loomed. and then on may 5th, 1945, the siege came toa sudden end when holland was liberated by the allies.

the "hunger winter," as it came to be known, killed some 10,000 people andweakened thousands more. but there was another population that was affected --the 40,000 fetuses in utero during the siege. some of the effects ofmalnutrition during pregnancy were immediately apparent in higher rates ofstillbirths, birth defects, low birth weights and infant mortality. but otherswouldn't be discovered for many years. decades after the "hunger winter,"researchers documented that people whose mothers were pregnant during the siegehave more obesity, more diabetes and more heart disease in later life thanindividuals who were gestated under normal conditions. these individuals'prenatal e_perience of starvation seems to have changed their bodies in myriadways. they have higher blood pressure, poorer cholesterol profiles and reducedglucose tolerance -- a precursor of diabetes.

why would undernutrition in the womb result in disease later? onee_planation is that fetuses are making the best of a bad situation. when food isscarce, they divert nutrients towards the really critical organ, the brain, andaway from other organs like the heart and liver. this keeps the fetus alive inthe short-term, but the bill comes due later on in life when those other organs,deprived early on, become more susceptible to disease.

but that may not be all that's going on. it seems that fetuses are takingcues from the intrauterine environment and tailoring their physiologyaccordingly. they're preparing themselves for the kind of world they willencounter on the other side of the womb. the fetus adjusts its metabolism andother physiological processes in anticipation of the environment that awaits the basis of the fetus' prediction is what its mother eats. the meals apregnant woman consumes constitute a kind of story, a fairy tale of abundance ora grim chronicle of deprivation. this story imparts information that the fetususes to organize its body and its systems -- an adaptation to prevailingcircumstances that facilitates its future survival. faced with severely limitedresources, a smaller-sized child with reduced energy requirements will, in fact,have a better chance of living to adulthood.

the real trouble comes when pregnant women are, in a sense, unreliablenarrators, when fetuses are led to e_pect a world of scarcity and are borninstead into a world of plenty. this is what happened to the children of thedutch "hunger winter." and their higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heartdisease are the result. bodies that were built to hang onto every calorie foundthemselves swimming in the superfluous calories of the post-war western world they had learned about while in utero was not the same as the worldinto which they were born.

here's another story. at 8:46 a.m. on september 11th, __, there were tensof thousands of people in the vicinity of the world trade center in new york --commuters spilling off trains, waitresses setting tables for the morning rush,brokers already working the phones on wall street. 1,700 of these people werepregnant women. when the planes struck and the towers collapsed, many of thesewomen e_perienced the same horrors inflicted on other survivors of the disaster-- the overwhelming chaos and confusion, the rolling clouds of potentially to_icdust and debris, the heart-pounding fear for their lives.

about a year after 9/11, researchers e_amined a group of women who werepregnant when they were e_posed to the world trade center attack. in the babiesof those women who developed post-traumatic stress syndrome, or ptsd, followingtheir ordeal, researchers discovered a biological marker of susceptibility toptsd -- an effect that was most pronounced in infants whose mothers e_periencedthe catastrophe in their third trimester. in other words, the mothers withpost-traumatic stress syndrome had passed on a vulnerability to the condition totheir children while they were still in utero.

now consider this: post-traumatic stress syndrome appears to be a reactionto stress gone very wrong, causing its victims tremendous unnecessary there's another way of thinking about ptsd. what looks like pathology to usmay actually be a useful adaptation in some circumstances. in a particularlydangerous environment, the characteristic manifestations of ptsd -- ahyper-awareness of one's surroundings, a quick-trigger response to danger --could save someone's life. the notion that the prenatal transmission of ptsdrisk is adaptive is still speculative, but i find it rather poignant. it wouldmean that, even before birth, mothers are warning their children that it's awild world out there, telling them, "be careful."

let me be clear. fetal origins research is not about blaming women for whathappens during pregnancy. it's about discovering how best to promote the healthand well-being of the ne_t generation. that important effort must include afocus on what fetuses learn during the nine months they spend in the ning is one of life's most essential activities, and it begins much earlierthan we ever imagined.

thank you.

ted演講稿高中生 篇3

I grew up diagnosed as phobically shy,

我從小就有社交恐懼症

and like at least 20 other people in a room of this size,

這樣的空間 大約20人

I was a stutterer.

就能讓以前的我結巴語塞

Do you dare raise your hand?

更別提舉手了 根本不可能

And it sticks with us.

這種困擾如影隨形

It really does stick with us,

你走到哪 它就跟到哪

because when we are treated that way,

當大家對你的存在視若無睹

we feel invisible sometimes,

你會開始感覺自己是隱形人

or talked around and at.

而別人都在你背後竊竊私語

And as I started to look at people,

後來我仔細去觀察周遭的人

which is mostly all I did,

一直以來我都只敢默默觀察

I noticed that some people really wanted attention

然後發現有些人無法忍受被忽視

and recognition.

他們要得到大家的注意力和認同

Remember, I was young then.

當時我年輕、懵懂

So what did they do? What we still do perhaps too often?

渴望注意力的人會做什麼? 也許現在太多人在做一樣的事而不自知

We talk about ourselves.

他們談論的常常都是自己

And yet there are other people I observed who had what I called a mutualitymindset.

但另一批人就不同了 我説他們的人際關係 往往有一種“互相”的心態

In each situation, they found a way to talk about us and create that “us”idea.

無論什麼場合 他們的談話裏都會出現“我們”這個概念

So my idea to reimagine the world is to see it one where we all becomegreater opportunity-makers with and for others.

在我心目中的理想世界 每個人都能為自己和別人創造機會

There’s no greater opportunity or call for action for us now

就是現在 我們必須把握良機、採取行動

than to become opportunity-makers who use best talents together more oftenfor the greater good

多去整合各種才能 儘可能的利益他人

and accomplish things we couldn’t have done on our own.

一人做不到的 多人或許有辦法

And I want to talk to you about that,

這就是我今天的重點

cause even more than giving,

比單純給予

even more than giving,

施捨、捐贈更有影響力的

is the capacity for us to do something smarter together

就是人們學會集思廣益

for the greater good that lifts us both up

共同合作 創造雙贏局面

and that can scale.

其中的利益會一層層積累

That’s why I’m sitting here.

這是我今天演講的重點

But I also want to point something else out.

不過我還想説一件事

Each one of you is better than anybody else at something.

台下的你必定在某些事上比其他人都拿手

That disproves that popular notion that if you’re the smartest person inthe room,

和那句名言“你絕不是這裏最厲害的人”

you’re in the wrong room.

恰恰相反

So let me tell you about a Hollywood party I went to a couple yearsback,

我在幾年前的一個好萊塢聚會上

and I met this up-and-coming actress,

遇見了位有潛力的女演員

and we were soon talking about something that we both felt passionatelyabout,

我們很快就找到共同話題-

public art.

公共藝術

And she had the fervent belief that every new building in Los Angeles

她堅信洛杉磯的每棟建築裏

should have public art in it. She wanted a regulation for it,

都應該有公共藝術 她想要一套專屬公共藝術的規範

and she fervently started,

所以她興忡忡的着手進行

What is here from Chicago?

這裏有誰是芝加哥人嗎?

She fervently started talking about these bean-shaped reflective sculpturesin Millennium Park,

她滔滔不絕的説着千禧公園裏的雲門雕塑

and people would walk up to it

人們好奇的上前一探究竟

and they’d smile in the reflection of it,

看着自己的映像微笑

and they’d pose and they’d vamp and they’d take selfies together

擺pose、讚歎、自拍留念

and they’d laugh.

然後笑成一團

And as she was talking, a thought came to my mind.

聽着聽着 我突然靈光乍現

I said, “I know someone you ought to meet.

我告訴她: “妳應該見見這個人

He’s getting out of San Quentin in a couple of weeks

再幾周他就要從聖昆丁州立監獄出來了

and he shares your fervent desire that art should engage and enable peopleto connect.”

他跟妳一樣 覺得藝術應該讓人有共鳴、激發想像力”

He spent five years in solitary,

他被單獨監禁了五年

and I met him because I gave a speech at San Quentin,

我因為在聖昆丁演講 而與他結識

and he’s articulate

他口條不錯

and he’s rather easy on the eyes

長的也不賴

because he’s buff. He had workout regime he did everyday.

因為他是條熱愛健身的漢子

I think she was following me at that point.

女演員大概還滿有興趣的

I said, “he’d be an une_pected ally.”

我又説: “他會是個得力助手”

And not just that. There’s James. He’s an architect

除了他之外 我把詹姆也拉進來 詹姆是建築師

and he’s a professor,

也是個教授

and he loves place-making, and place-making is when you have thosemini-plazas

他對地方營造很有興趣 外頭的小廣場、

and those urban walkways

城市人行道

and where they’re dotted with art,

任何有藝術點綴的地方 都屬於地方營造的範疇

where people draw and come up and talk sometimes.

許多人會在那兒畫畫、閒聊

I think they’d make good allies.

我想他們一定能合作無間

And indeed they were.

果真沒錯

They met together. They prepared.

他們碰面之後 就開始籌備

They spoke in front of the Lost Angeles City Council.

到洛杉磯市政府傳達訴求

And the council members not only passed the regulation,

結果市議員通過了他們訂的條例

half of them came down and asked to pose with them afterwards.

之後甚至半數議員還去與藝術品合影

They were startling, compelling and credible.

他們給人的印象是震懾、具説服力、可靠

You can’t buy that.

全都是用錢買不到的

What I’m asking you to consider is what kind of opportunity-makers we mightbecome,

希望各位想想自己能成為哪種機會製造者

because more than wealth

比財富、

or fancy titles

頭銜、

or a lot of contacts,

人脈更可觀的

it’s our capacity to connect around each other’s better side and bring itout.

是我們發掘他人優點的能力

And I’m not saying this is easy,

這一點都不容易

and I’m sure many of you have made the wrong moves too about who you wantedto connect with,

相信許多人都有找錯對象、牽錯線的經驗

but what I want to suggest is, this is an opportunity.

但畢竟都是個“機會”

I started thinking about it way back when I was a Wall Street Journalreporter and I was in Europe

這個領悟要從好幾年前説起 當時我在歐洲 擔任華爾街日報記者

and I was supposed to cover trends and trends that transcended business orpolitics or lifestyle.

採訪內容為時尚與流行 跨越商業、政治、生活型態隔閡的流行

So I had to have contacts in different worlds very different than mine,

因此得和背景截然不同的人打交道

because otherwise you couldn’t spot the trends.

否則就無法掌握潮流走向

And third, I had to write a story in a way stepping into the reader’sshoes,

寫故事時 還得設身處地為讀者想

they could see how these trends could affect their lives.

要讓他們覺得自己和這些潮流息息相關

That’s what opportunity-makers do.

這就是機會製造者的任務

And here’s a strange thing:

奇怪之處在於

Unlike an increasing number of Americans who are working and living andplaying with people who think e_actly like them

越來越多人工作、生活、娛樂都喜歡尋找與自己相似的人

because we then become more rigid and e_treme,

久而久之就變得挑剔、極端起來

opportunity-makers are actively seeking situations with people unlikethem,

機會製造者尋找與自己不相似的人

and they’re building relationships,

和他們建立關係

and because they do that,

這樣做的話

they have trusted relationships where they can bring the right team in

兩方之間就有互信 能在適當的時機介紹彼此適當的人

and recruit them to solve a problem better and faster and seize moreopportunities.

用更快、更好的方法解決問題 同時也抓住了更多機會

They’re not affronted by differences.

機會創造者不會被歧異冒犯

They’re fascinated by them,

反而深受吸引

and that is a huge shift in mindset,

這是心態上的極端不同

and once you feel it, you want it to happen a lot more.

你一旦意識到 就會為它的魅力着迷

This world is calling out for us to have a collective mindset,

和別人形成“共同體”才是王道

and I believe in doing that.

我個人深信

It’s especially important now.

攜手合作在這世代特別重要

Why is it important now?

為什麼呢?

Because things can be devised like drones

機器小幫手

and drugs and data collection,

藥物開發、數據收集

and they can be devised by more people.

都可以讓更多人蔘與其中

and cheaper ways for beneficial purposes

用更經濟的方式創造收益

and then, as we know from the news every day, they can be used fordangerous ones.

只是水能載舟 亦能覆舟 也可能被有心人士利用

It calls on us, each of us, to a higher calling.

這個理念非常需要大家的重視

But here’s the icing on the cake:

成為機會製造者是一箭雙鵰

It’s not just the first opportunity that you do with somebody else that’sprobably your greatest,

除了獲得和更高竿對象合作的機會

as an institution or an individual.

無論對於機構或個人來説

It’s after you’ve had that e_perience and you trust each other.

都是開啟了這扇門 建立信任後

It’s the une_pected things that you devise later on you never could havepredicted.

團隊合作帶來的驚人成果

For e_ample, Marty is the husband of that actress I mentioned,

麥迪是那位女演員的丈夫

and he watched them when they were practicing,

詹姆等三人排練時 他就在旁邊看

and he was soon talking to Wally, my friend the e_-con,

並很快和韋利聊開了 就是剛出獄的那位

about that e_ercise regime.

大概在聊健身吧?

And he thought, I have a set of racquetball courts.

麥迪心想: “我有個壁球館

That guy could teach it. A lot of people who work there are members at mycourts.

韋利可以來當教練 很多教練都是體育館的會員

They’re frequent travelers.

他們很常來我這邊

They could practice in their hotel room, no equipment provided.

旅館房間裏沒有設備 也照樣能練習”

That’s how Wally got hired.

韋利就這樣得到了板球教練的工作

Not only that, years later he was also teaching racquetball.

幾年後他也開始教壁球學生

Years after that, he was teaching the racquetball teachers.

再過了幾年則是教壁球老師

What I’m suggesting is, when you connect with people

我想説的是 當你把周遭有相同興趣、

around a shared interest and action,

喜好的人圈在一塊

you’re accustomed to serendipitous things happening into the future,

就會逐漸適應隨之而來、意想不到的收穫

and I think that’s what we’re looking at.

我想這才是至關重要

We open ourselves up to those opportunities,

面對機會 我們敞開心胸

and in this room are key players and technology,

關鍵推手-這裏的你們 再加上科技

key players who are uniquely positioned to do this,

每個人各司其職 有自己的位置

to scale systems and projects together.

提升制度和計劃的整體價值

So here’s what I’m calling for you to do. Remember the three traits ofopportunity-makers.

我想拜託大家的 就是記得機會製造者的三項特質

Opportunity-makers keep honing their top strength

一、機會製造者不斷磨練自己專長

and they become pattern seekers.

開拓事物運作的新方式

They get involved in different worlds than their worlds

二、他們樂於接觸不同人的世界

so they’re trusted and they can see those patterns,

獲取信任 學習各種合作方式

and they communicate to connect around sweet spots of shared interest.

三、他們周旋於各方之間 讓參與的人都分一杯羹

So what I’m asking you is, the world is hungry.

我想説的是 人與人之間太缺乏連結

I truly believe, in my firsthand e_perience,

根據親身經驗 我相信

the world is hungry for us to unite together as opportunity-makers

這世界很需要機會製造者

and to emulate those behaviors as so many of you already do, I know thatfirsthand,

可能台下的你已經是其中之一 大家都應該效仿機會製造者

and to reimagine a world where we use our best talents together

重塑我們的世界 融合各領域人才

more often to accomplish greater thing together than we could on ourown.

一人不能做的事 藉由合作來完成

Just remember,

請把這句話放在心上

as Dave Liniger once said,

大衞˙林傑説過

“You can’t succeed coming to the potluck with only a fork.”

“只帶一隻叉子就來百樂餐的人 永遠無法成功”(注: 後衍伸為商業成長需要集體合作、貢獻)

Thank you very much.

謝謝大家

Thank you.

謝謝。

ted演講稿高中生 篇4

over the ne_t five minutes, my intention is to transform your relationshipwith sound. let me start with the observation that most of the sound around usis accidental, and much of it is unpleasant. (traffic noise) we stand on streetcorners, shouting over noise like this, and pretending that it doesn't e_, this habit of suppressing sound has meant that our relationship with soundhas become largely unconscious.

there are four major ways sound is affecting you all the time, and i'd liketo raise them in your consciousness today. first is physiological. (loud alarmclocks) sorry about that. i've just given you a shot of cortisol, yourfight/flight hormone. sounds are affecting your hormone secretions all the time,but also your breathing, your heart rate -- which i just also did -- and yourbrainwaves.

it's not just unpleasant sounds like that that do it. this is surf. (oceanwaves) it has the frequency of roughly 12 cycles per minute. most people findthat very soothing, and, interestingly, 12 cycles per minute is roughly thefrequency of the breathing of a sleeping human. there is a deep resonance withbeing at rest. we also associate it with being stress-free and on holiday.

the second way in which sound affects you is psychological. music is themost powerful form of sound that we know that affects our emotional state.(albinoni's adagio) this is guaranteed to make most of you feel pretty sad if ileave it on. music is not the only kind of sound, however, which affects youremotions.

natural sound can do that too. birdsong, for e_ample, is a sound which mostpeople find reassuring. (birds chirping) there is a reason for that. overhundreds of thousands of years we've learned that when the birds are singing,things are safe. it's when they stop you need to be worried.

the third way in which sound affects you is cognitively. you can'tunderstand two people talking at once ("if you're listening to this version of")("me you're on the wrong track.") or in this case one person talking twice. tryand listen to the other one. ("you have to choose which me you're going tolisten to.")

we have a very small amount of bandwidth for processing auditory input,which is why noise like this -- (office noise) -- is e_tremely damaging forproductivity. if you have to work in an open-plan office like this, yourproductivity is greatly reduced. and whatever number you're thinking of, itprobably isn't as bad as this. (ominous music) you are one third as productivein open-plan offices as in quiet rooms. and i have a tip for you. if you have towork in spaces like that, carry headphones with you, with a soothing sound likebirdsong. put them on and your productivity goes back up to triple what it wouldbe.

the fourth way in which sound affects us is behaviorally. with all thatother stuff going on, it would be amazing if our behavior didn't change. (technomusic inside a car) so, ask yourself: is this person ever going to drive at asteady 28 miles per hour? i don't think so. at the simplest, you move away fromunpleasant sound and towards pleasant sounds. so if i were to play this --(jackhammer) -- for more than a few seconds, you'd feel uncomfortable; for morethan a few minutes, you'd be leaving the room in droves. for people who can'tget away from noise like that, it's e_tremely damaging for their health.

and that's not the only thing that bad sound damages. most retail sound isinappropriate and accidental, and even hostile, and it has a dramatic effect onsales. for those of you who are retailers, you may want to look away before ishow this slide. they are losing up to 30 percent of their business with peopleleaving shops faster, or just turning around on the door. we all have done it,leaving the area because the sound in there is so dreadful.

i want to spend just a moment talking about the model that we've developed,which allows us to start at the top and look at the drivers of sound, analyzethe soundscape and then predict the four outcomes i've just talked about. orstart at the bottom, and say what outcomes do we want, and then design asoundscape to have a desired effect. at last we've got some science we canapply. and we're in the business of designing soundscapes.

just a word on music. music is the most powerful sound there is, ofteninappropriately deployed. it's powerful for two reasons. you recognize it fast,and you associate it very powerfully. i'll give you two e_amples. (first chordof the beatles' "a hard day's night") most of you recognize that younger, maybe not. (laughter) (first two notes of "jaws" theme) and most ofyou associate that with something! now, those are one-second samples of c is very powerful. and unfortunately it's veneering commercial spaces,often inappropriately. i hope that's going to change over the ne_t fewyears.

let me just talk about brands for a moment, because some of you run y brand is out there making sound right now. there are eight e_pressions ofa brand in sound. they are all important. and every brand needs to haveguidelines at the center. i'm glad to say that is starting to happen now. (intelad jingle) you all recognize that one. (nokia ringtone) this is the most-playedtune in the world today. 1.8 billion times a day, that tune is played. and itcost nokia absolutely nothing.

just leave you with four golden rules, for those of you who run businesses,for commercial sound. first, make it congruent, pointing in the same directionas your visual communication. that increases impact by over 1,100 percent. ifyour sound is pointing the opposite direction, incongruent, you reduce impact by86 percent. that's an order of magnitude, up or down. this is ndly, make it appropriate to the situation. thirdly, make it valuable. givepeople something with the sound. don't just bombard them with stuff. and,finally, test and test it again. sound is comple_. there are many countervailinginfluences. it can be a bit like a bowl of spaghetti: sometimes you just have toeat it and see what happens.

so i hope this talk has raised sound in your consciousness. if you'relistening consciously, you can take control of the sound around you. it's goodfor your health. it's good for your productivity. if we all do that we move to astate that i like to think will be sound living in the world. i'm going to leaveyou with a little bit more birdsong. (birds chirping) i recommend at least fiveminutes a day, but there is no ma_imum dose. thank you for lending me your earstoday. (applause)

ted演講稿高中生 篇5

壓力大，怎麼辦?壓力會讓你心跳加速、呼吸加快、額頭冒汗!當壓力成為全民健康公敵時，有研究顯示只有當你與壓力為敵時，它才會危害你的健康。心理學家kellymcgonigal 從積極的一面分析壓力，教你如何使壓力變成你的朋友!

stress. it makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your foreheadsweat. but while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new researchsuggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the hologist kelly mcgonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, andintroduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out toothers.

kelly mcgonigal translates academic research into practical strategies forhealth, happiness and personal success.

why you should listen to her：

stanford university psychologist kelly mcgonigal is a leader in the growingfield of “science-help.” through books, articles, courses and workshops,mcgonigal works to help us understand and implement the latest scientificfindings in psychology, neuroscience and medicine.

straddling the worlds of research and practice, mcgonigal holds positionsin both the stanford graduate school of business and the school of medicine. hermost recent book, the willpower instinct, e_plores the latest research onmotivation, temptation and procrastination, as well as what it takes totransform habits, persevere at challenges and make a successful change.

she is now researching a new book about the "upside of stress," which willlook at both why stress is good for us, and what makes us good at stress. in herwords: "the old understanding of stress as a unhelpful relic of our animalinstincts is being replaced by the understanding that stress actually makes ussocially smart -- it's what allows us to be fully human."

i have a confession to make, but first, i want you to make a littleconfession to me. in the past year, i want you to just raise your hand

if you've e_perienced relatively little stress. anyone?

how about a moderate amount of stress?

who has e_perienced a lot of stress? yeah. me too.

but that is not my confession. my confession is this: i am a healthpsychologist, and my mission is to help people be happier and healthier. but ifear that something i've been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harmthan good, and it has to do with stress. for years i've been telling people,stress makes you sick. it increases the risk of everything from the common coldto cardiovascular disease. basically, i've turned stress into the enemy. but ihave changed my mind about stress, and today, i want to change yours.

let me start with the study that made me rethink my whole approach tostress. this study tracked 30,000 adults in the united states for eight years,and they started by asking people, "how much stress have you e_perienced in thelast year?" they also asked, "do you believe that stress is harmful for yourhealth?" and then they used public death records to find out who died.

(laughter)

okay. some bad news first. people who e_perienced a lot of stress in theprevious year had a 43 percent increased risk of dying. but that was only truefor the people who also believed that stress is harmful for your health.(laughter) people who e_perienced a lot of stress but did not view stress asharmful were no more likely to die. in fact, they had the lowest risk of dyingof anyone in the study, including people who had relatively little stress.

now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were trackingdeaths, 182,000 americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the beliefthat stress is bad for you. (laughter) that is over 20,000 deaths a year. now,if that estimate is correct, that would make believing stress is bad for you the15th largest cause of death in the united states last year, killing more peoplethan skin cancer, hiv/aids and homicide.

(laughter)

you can see why this study freaked me out. here i've been spending so muchenergy telling people stress is bad for your health.

so this study got me wondering: can changing how you think about stressmake you healthier? and here the science says yes. when you change your mindabout stress, you can change your body's response to stress.

now to e_plain how this works, i want you all to pretend that you areparticipants in a study designed to stress you out. it's called the socialstress test. you come into the laboratory, and you're told you have to give afive-minute impromptu speech on your personal weaknesses to a panel of e_pertevaluators sitting right in front of you, and to make sure you feel thepressure, there are bright lights and a camera in your face, kind of like the evaluators have been trained to give you discouraging, non-verbalfeedback like this.

(laughter)

now that you're sufficiently demoralized, time for part two: a math unbeknownst to you, the e_perimenter has been trained to harass you duringit. now we're going to all do this together. it's going to be fun. for me.

okay. i want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of 're going to do this out loud as fast as you can, starting with 996. go!audience: (counting) go faster. faster please. you're going too slow. , stop, stop. that guy made a mistake. we are going to have to start allover again. (laughter) you're not very good at this, are you? okay, so you getthe idea. now, if you were actually in this study, you'd probably be a littlestressed out. your heart might be pounding, you might be breathing faster, maybebreaking out into a sweat. and normally, we interpret these physical changes asan_iety or signs that we aren't coping very well with the pressure.

but what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized,was preparing you to meet this challenge? now that is e_actly what participantswere told in a study conducted at harvard university. before they went throughthe social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response ashelpful. that pounding heart is preparing you for action. if you're breathingfaster, it's no problem. it's getting more o_ygen to your brain. andparticipants who learned to view the stress response as helpful for theirperformance, well, they were less stressed out, less an_ious, more confident,but the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress responsechanged. now, in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up, and yourblood vessels constrict like this. and this is one of the reasons that chronicstress is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease. it's not reallyhealthy to be in this state all the time. but in the study, when participantsviewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed rela_ed likethis. their heart was still pounding, but this is a much healthiercardiovascular profile. it actually looks a lot like what happens in moments ofjoy and courage. over a lifetime of stressful e_periences, this one biologicalchange could be the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at age 50and living well into your 90s. and this is really what the new science of stressreveals, that how you think about stress matters.

so my goal as a health psychologist has changed. i no longer want to getrid of your stress. i want to make you better at stress. and we just did alittle intervention. if you raised your hand and said you'd had a lot of stressin the last year, we could have saved your life, because hopefully the ne_t timeyour heart is pounding from stress, you're going to remember this talk andyou're going to think to yourself, this is my body helping me rise to thischallenge. and when you view stress in that way, your body believes you, andyour stress response becomes healthier.

now i said i have over a decade of demonizing stress to redeem myself from,so we are going to do one more intervention. i want to tell you about one of themost under-appreciated aspects of the stress response, and the idea is this:stress makes you social.

to understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone,o_ytocin, and i know o_ytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone canget. it even has its own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it'sreleased when you hug someone. but this is a very small part of what o_ytocin isinvolved in. o_ytocin is a neuro-hormone. it fine-tunes your brain's socialinstincts. it primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships.o_ytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. itenhances your empathy. it even makes you more willing to help and support thepeople you care about. some people have even suggested we should snort o_ytocinto become more compassionate and caring. but here's what most people don'tunderstand about o_ytocin. it's a stress hormone. your pituitary gland pumpsthis stuff out as part of the stress response. it's as much a part of yourstress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. and when o_ytocinis released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. yourbiological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel insteadof bottling it up. your stress response wants to make sure you notice whensomeone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. whenlife is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people whocare about you.

okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier?well, o_ytocin doesn't only act on your brain. it also acts on your body, andone of its main roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system fromthe effects of stress. it's a natural anti-inflammatory. it also helps yourblood vessels stay rela_ed during stress. but my favorite effect on the body isactually on the heart. your heart has receptors for this hormone, and o_ytocinhelps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. thisstress hormone strengthens your heart, and the cool thing is that all of thesephysical benefits of o_ytocin are enhanced by social contact and social support,so when you reach out to others under stress, either to seek support or to helpsomeone else, you release more of this hormone, your stress response becomeshealthier, and you actually recover faster from stress. i find this amazing,that your stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience, andthat mechanism is human connection.

i want to finish by telling you about one more study. and listen up,because this study could also save a life. this study tracked about 1,000 adultsin the united states, and they ranged in age from 34 to 93, and they started thestudy by asking, "how much stress have you e_perienced in the last year?" theyalso asked, "how much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors, peoplein your community?" and then they used public records for the ne_t five years tofind out who died.

okay, so the bad news first: for every major stressful life e_perience,like financial difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk of dyingby 30 percent. but -- and i hope you are e_pecting a but by now -- but thatwasn't true for everyone. people who spent time caring for others showedabsolutely no stress-related increase in dying. zero. caring created so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on your health arenot inevitable. how you think and how you act can transform your e_perience ofstress. when you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create thebiology of courage. and when you choose to connect with others under stress, youcan create resilience. now i wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressfule_periences in my life, but this science has given me a whole new appreciationfor stress. stress gives us access to our hearts. the compassionate heart thatfinds joy and meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding physicalheart, working so hard to give you strength and energy, and when you choose toview stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress, you'reactually making a pretty profound statement. you're saying that you can trustyourself to handle life's challenges, and you're remembering that you don't haveto face them alone.

thank you.

(applause)

chris anderson: this is kind of amazing, what you're telling us. it seemsamazing to me that a belief about stress can make so much difference tosomeone's life e_pectancy. how would that e_tend to advice, like, if someone ismaking a lifestyle choice between, say, a stressful job and a non-stressful job,does it matter which way they go? it's equally wise to go for the stressful jobso long as you believe that you can handle it, in some sense?

kelly mcgonigal: yeah, and one thing we know for certain is that chasingmeaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort. and so iwould say that's really the best way to make decisions, is go after what it isthat creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stressthat follows.

ca: thank you so much, kelly. it's pretty cool. km: thank you.

(applause)