Teach Kids to Daydream1 Mental downtime makes people more creative and less anxious.2

Jessica Lahey

做白日夢，看上去是懶散，是不務正業(yè)。所以當孩子們做白日夢時，大人總會打斷他們。其實白日夢是一個極為有益的神經(jīng)活動過程，可以幫助緩解考試和睡眠不足帶來的焦慮，也可以成為靈感的來源。這樣一來，我們終于可以心安理得盡享白日夢了。

Today’s children are exhausted, and not just because one in three kids is not getting sufficient sleep.3. exhausted： 疲憊的，筋疲力盡的；sufficient： 足夠的，充分的。Sleep deprivation in kids (who require at least nine hours a night, depending on age) has been found to significantly decrease academic achievement,lower standardized achievement and intelligence test scores, stunt physical growth, encourage drug and alcohol use, heighten moodiness and irritability, exacerbate symptoms of ADD, and dramatically increase the likelihood of car accidents among teens.4. 研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，睡眠不足（一般來說，孩子每晚需要至少九小時的睡眠，具體時間視年齡而定）會導致孩子學習成績下降，標準測試和IQ測驗的分數(shù)更低，身體發(fā)育受阻，嗑藥和酗酒的幾率更高，喜怒無常，心煩氣躁，多動癥（ADD）的癥狀更為嚴重，出車禍的概率飆升。deprivation： 剝奪，匱乏；stunt growth： 阻礙發(fā)育（或生長）；heighten： 加劇，提高；moodiness： 喜怒無常，悶悶不樂；irritability： 易怒，煩躁；exacerbate： 使……加劇，使……惡化；ADD： 即Attention Deficit Disorder，注意力缺陷障礙，最主要的癥狀是頻繁地、不自覺地走神；likelihood： 可能性。While the argument for protecting our children’s sleep time is compelling, there is another kind of rest that is equally underestimated and equally beneficial to our children’s academic, emotional, and creative lives: daydreaming.5. compelling： 引人注目的，激發(fā)興趣的；underestimate：低估，看輕；beneficial： 有益的，有利的。

I’ve been reading about daydreaming extensively lately, and it has caused me regret every time I roused one of my students out of their reverie so they would start working on something “more productive.”6. extensively： 廣泛地；rouse： 喚醒，使……醒來；reverie： 幻想，白日夢；work on： 致力于，從事。Daydreaming has been found to be anything but counter-productive7. counter-productive： 產(chǎn)生相反效果的，適得其反的。. It may just be the hidden wellspring of creativity and learning in the guise of idleness.8. wellspring： 源泉；in the guise of： 假借，以……為幌子；idleness： 懶惰，閑散。

Not all mental downtime is alike, of course. Downtime spent playing a video game or zoning out9. zone out：（使）變得頭昏腦脹。with a television show may have its charms, but the kind of downtime I am talking about is different. I’m talking about the kind of mind-wandering that happens when the brain is free of interruption and allowed to unhook from the runaway train of the worries of the day.10.我所講是一種“心不在焉”，這時大腦完全不受外界干擾，并能從當天的重重心事中解脫出來。mind-wandering： 走神；unhook： 解開，從……取下；runaway： 失控的。Television, videogames, and other electronic distractions prevent this kind of mental wandering because they interrupt the flow of thoughts and memories that cement the foundation of positive, productive daydreaming.11. distraction： 分心的事物；prevent： 妨礙，阻止；cement： 鞏固，加強。

Legendary cognitive psychologist Jerome L. Singer goes so far as to call daydreaming our default mental state.12. Jerome L. Singer： 杰羅姆·辛格，認知心理學家，美國耶魯大學心理學教授，進行了大量有關兒童心理的研究，1962年與心理學家斯坦利·沙切特一起進行了一項著名的有關認知對情緒影響的實驗，由此實驗得出的關于情緒激勵的認知學說主宰情緒研究達20年之久；default： 默認的。Singer proposed in his 1966 book,Daydreaming: an Introduction to the Experimental Study of Inner Experience, that we have two mental networks, working memory and daydreaming. The two cannot operate at the same time, so when we engage our working memory network, we shut off our daydreaming network.13. 兩者不能同時運行，因此當我們啟用工作記憶網(wǎng)絡時就必須切斷“白日夢”網(wǎng)絡。 engage： 占用；shut off： 切斷，關掉。

The two forms of thinking may be different, and mutually exclusive14. mutually： 相互地，彼此地；exclusive： 獨有的，專門的。, but they are both necessary to our emotional and intellectual health.

Scott Barry Kaufman, cognitive psychologist and author ofUngifted:Intelligence Redefined, argues that while this dreamy, reflective state might look like idleness to an outside observer, daydreaming kids are at work.15. Scott Barry Kaufman： 斯科特·巴里·考夫曼，認知科學家，性格心理學家，紐約大學心理學助理教授。Ungifted： Intelligence Redefined： 《無才：智力的重新定義》；reflective： 沉思的。“Ode to Positive Constructive Daydreaming”—an article Kaufman cowrote with Rebecca McMillan—reads:

“There is, however, another way of looking at mind wandering, a personal perspective, if you will. For the individual,mind wandering offers the possibility of very real, personal reward, some immediate, some more distant.

These rewards include self-awareness, creative incubation, improvisation and evaluation, memory consolidation, autobiographical planning, goal driven thought,future planning, retrieval of deeply personal memories, reflective consideration of the meaning of events and experiences, simulating the perspective of another person, evaluating the implications of self and others’ emotional reactions, moral reasoning, and reflective compassion.16. 這些益處包括自我意識，培養(yǎng)創(chuàng)造性，即興創(chuàng)作和評估，加強記憶，自傳安排，目標導向思維，未來規(guī)劃，重拾深藏的個人記憶，反思事件和經(jīng)歷的意義，換位思考，自我暗示評估，他人情緒反應評估和反射性同情。incubation： 醞釀，培養(yǎng)；improvisation： 即興創(chuàng)作，即興發(fā)揮；retrieval： 重新找回，檢索；simulate： 模仿，假裝?！?/p>

In other words, daydreaming only appears lazy from the outside, but viewed from the inside—or from the perspective of a psychologist, such as Kaufman,or a neuroscientist, such as Mary Helen Immordino-Yang—a complicated and extremely productive neurological process is taking place.17. view： 觀察；neuroscientist： 神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)科學家；Mary Helen Immordino-Yang： 瑪麗·海倫·愛莫迪諾-楊，心理學家，美國加州大學心理學教授。Viewed from the inside, our children are exploring the only space where they truly have autonomy18. autonomy： 自主，自主權。:their own minds.

Immordino-Yang’s work on the virtue19. virtue： 優(yōu)點，長處。of mental downtime includes the paper “Rest is not Idleness: Implications of the Brain’s Default Mode for Human Development and Education.” The title quotes a 19th-century British banker named John Lubbock, who wrote, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”20. murmur： 潺潺聲；by no means：決不，一點也不。Lubbock, according to Immordino-Yang, was way ahead of his time in understanding the value of idleness to our essential neurological functioning.21. way： adv. 大大地，遠遠地；functioning： 運行，運作。What Lubbock called rest, Immordino-Yang calls “constructive internal reflection,” and she considers it is vital to learning and emotional well-being:

“Inadequate opportunity for children to play and for adolescents22. adolescent： 青少年。to quietly reflect and to daydream may have negative consequences—both for socialemotional well-being and for their ability to attend well to tasks.”

One aspect of Immordino-Yang’s paper is particularly relevant in today’s educational climate. She describes a study that shows mental downtime can alleviate23. alleviate： 減輕，緩和。the stress of standardized testing. The burden of periodic high-stakes testing is a source of stress for educators and students alike, but for students with test anxiety, these tests are particularly onerous and anxiety-provoking.24. 周期性、高風險的考試對教師與學生都是一種壓力來源，而對那些有考試焦慮癥的學生來說，這些考試更顯得十分繁重，而且會引發(fā)焦慮。periodic： 周期性的；highstakes： 高風險；onerous： 繁重的，麻煩的。

When researchers sought to find ways to alleviate the anxiety caused by high-stakes testing, they found that simply giving students a few minutes to think about and write down their thoughts on the test significantly increased test scores, particularly for students for whom test anxiety had become a habit. In the researchers’ words:

“Expressive writing eliminates the relation commonly seen between test anxiety and poor test performance.25. expressive： 有表現(xiàn)力的，表達性的；eliminate： 消除。Moreover, it is not any writing that benefits performance, but expressing worries about an upcoming highpressure situation that accounts for enhanced exam scores under pressure.26. benefit： 有益于，對……有益，upcoming：即將來臨的，account for： 解釋，說明；enhanced： 提高的?！?/p>

How should parents and teachers respond to all this research about the benefits of mental downtime? For one thing, we should stop snapping our children out of their daydreams27. snap sb. out of sth.： 使拋掉，使擺脫。.Instead, we should protect this time much as we protect bedtime. Kick your children outside and close the door behind them. Encourage them go for a walk around the neighborhood without an electronic device.Tell your child what I have told you, that that silence and daydreaming are as important to their health and learning as sleeping and studying. Take a serious and objective look at how much time your child spends playing video games,responding to texts, messaging, watching television, or messing around on the Internet and carve out28. carve out： 擠出（時間）。some of that time for daydreaming.

Model29. model： 做榜樣，使仿效。this behavior for them and re-discover your own love of daydreaming; don’t snap out of it, fall into it, and encourage your children to do the same. I have incorporated opportunities to daydream into my daily life,because they feed both my teaching and my writing.30. incorporate： 包含，把……并入；feed： 滋養(yǎng)，供給。First thing in the morning when I am awake, but have not yet opened my eyes. On walks in the woods,free of earbuds or an agenda. The otherwise onerous and repetitive task of weed-pulling and raking has also proven fertile ground for this kind of mental meandering.31. 原本繁雜且單調重復的除草、耙地等事也成了我思緒漫游的沃土。fertile： 富饒的，肥沃的；meander： 漫步，漫游。The activity does not matter: Any place or occasion or task that allows the brain to wander will do.

Teach your kids how to just be. How to value silence and be at peace with nothing but their thoughts to occupy them. Make the romantic notion of laying back on the soft grass with nothing to do other than to watch the clouds pass overhead a reality. Teach them that, as Michael Pollan32. Michael Pollan： 邁克爾·波倫(1955—），美國作家、專欄作家、新聞學教授及伯克萊加州大學科學和環(huán)境新聞學奈特項目的主任。writes, “daydreaming is its own reward. For regardless of the result (if any), the very process of daydreaming is pleasurable.” To paraphrase two of my favorite dreamers,William Shakespeare and W.H. Auden, round out our children’s days with sleep and allow them to build their air castles undisturbed.33. paraphrase： 改寫，改述；W.H. Auden：威斯坦·休·奧登，英裔美國詩人，被公認為艾略特之后最重要的英語詩人，以能用從古到今各種詩體寫作著稱，代表作有《西班牙》、《新年書信》、《憂慮的時代》等；round out： 完成；air castle：白日夢，空中樓閣。