Like we're always required to be responding to something, to be saying something new.

我們似乎總是被要求必須要做出回應，或說些新的話題。

Whether that's answering a text or an email, a tweet, a WhatsApp message, or even the phone.

不論是回覆簡訊或電子郵件、推文、WhatsApp 訊息，甚至是講電話時都一樣。

My name's Harriet Shawcross. I'm a filmmaker and a journalist, and I think we would all benefit from a little bit more silence in our lives.

我的名字是 Harriet Shawcross，我是一名電影製作人和記者，而我認為我們能藉由在生活中多增添一些沉默來獲益。

[What We Can Learn From Silence]

[我們能從沉默中學到什麼]

One of the reasons I'm interested in silence, and in what can and can't be said, is that when I was a teenager, there was about a year when I didn't really talk to people at school.

我對沉默，以及什麼該說什麼又不該說出口感興趣的原因之一，在以前我青少年時期時，曾經有大約一整年完全沒和學校裡的任何人談話的經驗。

I would answer direct questions if a teacher asked them or I would read out loud, but the kind of communication that makes us human—spontaneous conversation, sharing jokes—was something that I wasn't able to do.

我會在老師問問題時直接回答或朗誦課文，但那種人人都會的交流方法，像是即興的對話、分享笑話等等，我卻無法做到。

And it had a huge impact on me and was really formative in terms of how I relate to people both professionally and personally.

而這對我的影響非常的大，培養出我之後不論是在公事或私事上與人相處的方法。

So what's so great about silence?

所以沉默究竟有什麼好處呢？

While in the course of researching my book, I came across several studies into the impact that silence can have on both the body and the brain.

在為撰寫我的書籍做研究時，我找到了一些探討沉默會如何影響身體與頭腦的研究。

In one study involving mice, silence was shown to promote the growth of brain cells in the part of the brain responsible for memory related to the senses.

在一項利用小鼠進行的研究中，沉默被發現能夠提升大腦中負責記憶感官的腦細胞增長。

Scientists played mice a selection of sounds, including baby mouse cries, white noise, and silence, and observed that during silence there was cell growth in the hippocampus.

科學家們向小鼠播放了一系列的聲音，其中包含幼鼠的叫聲、白噪音和沉默，接著觀察到在沉默之中，海馬迴內的細胞有所成長。

Another study looked at the impact of listening to music on the body and the researchers found that if silence was inserted into a track of music,

另一項研究則考察了聆聽音樂對身體會有什麼影響，而科學家發現若是在音樂之中插入靜音的沉默片段，

the blood pressure dropped, the heart rate reduced and the subject relaxed much more than when listening to a relaxing piece of music.

血壓便會下降、心跳率降低，且實驗體的狀況比在聆聽令人放鬆的音樂時還要更加放鬆。

This only happened when the silence was inserted in the middle of the tune itself.

只有在將沉默片段插入之歌曲的中間時才會有效果。

It didn't work for silence at the beginning or end of the experiment.

在實驗的開頭與結尾時播放並沒有效果。

So there's something about silence that comes in the middle of noise that's particularly beneficial.

所以這代表在一片嘈雜之中的寧靜是特別有正面效果的。

So silence can also enable people to actually say things that they've never been able to say before.

沉默也能讓人說出平常說不出口的話。

I looked into the formation of the Samaritans, a support service for people that are feeling despairing or suicidal.

我研究了撒瑪利亞會的創立過程。這是一個幫助深受絕望或是自殺情緒所困人們的一個支援服務機構。

The service was set up in the 50s by a vicar, and he started it because he had to conduct the funeral of a young girl who had taken her own life.

這個服務由一位牧師在 1950 年代時創立，而他的創辦動機始於某次為一位自殺的年輕女孩舉辦葬禮之後。

The reason she took her own life is that she'd started her periods and thought she'd contracted some terrible disease and was dying.

這位女孩自殺的原因是因為她的月經開始來了，而她誤以為自己得了什麼可怕的疾病，並且即將死去。

She was deeply ashamed of what was happening to her and had no one to talk to about it.

她對自己身體發生的狀況感到非常羞愧，而周遭沒有任何能聽她訴說的人。

It was this that inspired the vicar, Chad Varah, to set up the Samaritans as he didn't want people to feel that there were things that they couldn't talk about, particularly things that they were ashamed of.

這件事啟發了牧師 Chad Varah 設立撒瑪利亞會，因為他不想要有人覺得自己內心藏著無法訴說的心事，特別是他們覺得羞愧的事情。

He believed that you should be able to sit with someone, no matter what they're going through, without feeling the need to answer back or offer solutions or problem solve.

他相信每個人都能夠坐下來好好聆聽他人的心事，不論對方在經歷些什麼問題，且不一定非得要回答一個妥善的答案，或是提供解決方案或實際幫他們解決問題。

And a really central way of doing that is through using silence and giving them space to explain what's going on for them.

而要做到這點的核心手段，便是利用沉默來給予對方空間來解釋到底發生了什麼事情。

And frankly, if normal conversations could involve a little bit more silence like that, I think the world would be a much happier place.

坦白說，如果日常的對話也能多一點這樣的沉默的話，我想這個世界會變得更加幸福。

So silence is also at the heart of most major world religions.

而沉默也是大多數世界主要宗教的核心。

In Buddhism silence is really highly valued and conversation can be seen as something that gets in the way of our experiences.

在佛教中，沉默是非常非常重要的，而對話則被視為阻礙我們體驗沉默的行為。

And if you strip away all of that language, you're left with a deeper understanding of your own experiences in the world and your connection to other people.

如果去除掉所有語言，你將能對自己在世界上的體驗，以及你與他人的聯繫有了更深刻的理解。

But can too much silence be a bad thing?

但是太過沉默會不會反而有害？

There's a condition known as Assidy, which was experienced by monks who spent prolonged periods in silence, and it's basically distinguished by a feeling of torpor, of not being able to do anything,

佛教中有種叫做阿西迪的境界，會在僧人長期處於沉默之中後達到。這個境界基本上會讓人的感覺變得遲鈍，什麼事情都做不了，

and that's specifically associated with spending long periods of time without speaking to anybody.

而這與長時間以來沒有跟任何人說話特別有關。

I also spoke to people who had spent more time than probably most of us would want to in silence.

我也和那些曾身處在大部分人望而生畏的長時間沉默中的人們聊過天。

One of them was a Buddhist who spent nine months on a silent and solitary retreat, and the silence had a really profound effect on him.

其中一位是一名在一個寂靜而孤獨的隱居地中生活了九個月的佛教徒，而沉默對他產生了非常深遠的影響。

After a certain amount of time, he felt like he was losing control of both his mind and his body.

在過了一段時間之後，他感覺到自己的身心都失去了控制。

He actually felt like he was having a heart attack.

他竟然能實際上感覺到自己的心臟病發作了。

He knew logically he'd just pulled a muscle in his chest, but without anyone to say, "I've pulled a muscle in my chest" to, the pain that he was feeling, the sensations of panic meant that he actually really thought that he was dying,

他知道從邏輯上來說，他不過就是拉傷了胸口的肌肉，但由於沒辦法和任何人說「我拉傷胸口的肌肉了」，他所感受到的痛苦以及恐慌讓他認真開始覺得自己正在瀕死，

and the only way that he could snap out of that was by calling a friend of his.

而他解決這個狀況的唯一辦法就是打電話給自己的朋友。

And it was only once he had words and language to attach to what was happening to him that he was able to make sense of it and eventually feel better.

而直到他總算能用言語來形容自己身上發生的事情後，他才總算能釐清整個情況，並在最後感覺身體好轉。

So that Buddhist actually described silence to me as being like love—it's something that, instinctively, we all feel we want and need in our lives, but silence, like love, is a really strong medicine, and it can actually completely tear you apart.

所以那名佛教徒在與我談話時，將沉默形容為愛——這是我們本能上覺得自己的人生中需要且渴望的事物，但沉默也像愛一樣，是種非常強烈的藥物，並且能將人撕心裂肺。

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