Name: 懶惰的進化：人類為何抗拒健身 | 丹尼爾-利伯曼：訪談全文 (The evolution of laziness: Why humans resist the gym | Daniel Lieberman: Full Interview)
Uploaded: 2025-08-29T18:32:42.000Z
Duration: 1 h 13 min 32 s

My name is Dan Lieberman. I'm a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and I'm the author of Exercised, Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding.

我叫丹-利伯曼。我是哈佛大學人類進化生物學教授，也是《鍛鍊，為什麼我們從未進化過的事情卻有益健康》（Exercised, Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding）一書的作者。

Chapter 1. How Evolution Shaped the Human Body

轉承詞

If you want to understand anything about human beings, from our behavior to our biology, right, there are sort of two ways of thinking about humans and the way we are. One is a kind of a mechanistic set of explanations, right? You know, how does my immune system work? You know, how do my muscles work? You know, how does my brain, you know, create memories and how do I speak, etc. Those are the kind of bread and butter of most aspects of biology. But our bodies weren't engineered. They're not machines. They evolved. And so if you want to understand why we do what we do, why our brains work the way they do, why our feet work the way they do, why we run, you know, why our immune systems function the way they do, the only explanation for those sets of questions is an evolutionary question, you know, because evolution explains why things are the way they are. And so, you know, good biology combines both how questions, processes, with ultimate questions, you know, why explanations, which have to be evolutionary. And on top of that, because we're humans, I think you also have to add on anthropology, because just as there's an old expression, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, I would say that nothing about human behavior makes sense except in the light of culture and in anthropology.

如果你想了解人類的一切，從我們的行為到我們的生物學，對吧，有兩種思考人類和我們的方式的方式。一種是機械的解釋，對嗎？你知道，我的免疫系統是如何工作的嗎？我的肌肉是如何工作的？我的大腦如何創造記憶，我如何說話等等。這些都是生物學的主要內容。但我們的身體不是設計出來的它們不是機器它們是進化而來的是以，如果你想了解我們為什麼會做我們所做的事 為什麼我們的大腦會以它們的方式工作 為什麼我們的腳會以它們的方式工作 為什麼我們會奔跑 為什麼我們的免疫系統會以它們的方式運作 這些問題的唯一解釋就是進化問題是以，好的生物

And we need to understand the cultural component to our behaviors as well. So a really kind of full, complete explanation of anything, including exercise, but it could also be diet, it could be language, it could be anything, we really need to integrate not just, you know, standard sort of physiology and, you know, other kind of branches of biology, but we also need to think about them from an evolutionary perspective. And it always helps to include an anthropological perspective.

我們還需要了解我們行為中的文化因素。是以，要真正全面、完整地解釋任何事物，包括運動，但也可能是飲食，可能是語言，可能是任何事物，我們不僅需要整合標準的生理學和其他生物學分支，還需要從進化的角度來思考它們。人類學的視角也總是很有幫助的。

I started off my career as kind of a head guy. I studied fossils, and I was interested in, you know, when humans evolved and why we had sort of the shape heads we do. We have very weird heads, by the way. And I got very interested in the topic of how we stabilize our heads when we run. So if you ever, like, watch somebody running, and you see that they have a ponytail, right? That ponytail will do like this crazy figure eight, right? And it's kind of fun to follow somebody when they're running that way. And that ponytail is like an accelerometer on the head. It's telling you the forces that are acting on the head. And yet, despite all those crazy forces, we managed to keep our heads really still. And most animals, the way they keep their head still is they have, you know, a neck that comes out the back of the head, and the neck comes out of the front of the thorax, and they can kind of flex and extend their neck and keep it still. But we can't, because we have tiny little short necks that come out of the bottom of our heads. We're like pogo sticks when we run. And so I did some experiments on how we stabilize our head when we run. And that led to the realization that we have these special adaptations that evolved around two million years ago that only function to stabilize the head when you're running. And as I said, they showed up like two million years ago in the fossil record. And all of a sudden, I had this interest in how we evolved to become really good long-distance runners. And from there, it just kind of took off. I've been working in Kenya for a long time, but I've been specifically working in the western part of Kenya around the city of Eldoret. And it's a wonderful natural experiment to study how bodies are changing as we go into sort of industrial lifestyles, urban lifestyles.

我的職業生涯是從研究頭部開始的。我研究化石，我感興趣的是，你知道，人類是什麼時候進化的，為什麼我們會有這樣的頭型。順便說一句，我們的頭很奇怪。我對跑步時如何穩定頭部這個話題很感興趣。所以，如果你曾經，比如，看別人跑步，看到他們扎著馬尾辮，對嗎？那馬尾辮就會像瘋狂的八字形，對吧？跟著別人這樣跑很有趣馬尾辮就像是頭上的加速度計它告訴你作用在頭上的力量然而，儘管有這麼多瘋狂的力 我們還是能保持頭部不動大多數動物保持頭部不動的方法是 它們的頸部從頭部後方伸出 頸部從胸部前方伸出但我們不行，因為我們的脖子很短，從頭

So because the city of Eldoret's the fifth largest city in Kenya, it's a very big, modern sort of urban sort of African city. And then just a few miles out of the city is a very rural area where there's no roads, there's no electricity, there's no running water. People are subsistence farmers, but from the same group, the Kalenjin-speaking population. And so we have a kind of a natural experiment. We can study how people's bodies change when they go from the countryside to the city. And so one of the things we were really interested in is carrying, because people, until recently, carried things a lot. I mean, everything you wanted to have, you had to carry.

埃爾多雷特市是肯亞第五大城市，是一座非常大的現代化非洲城市。而在離城市幾英里遠的地方，則是一個沒有公路、沒有電、沒有自來水的農村地區。人們都是自給自足的農民，但都來自同一個群體，即講卡倫金語的群體。是以，我們有了一種自然實驗。我們可以研究人們從農村到城市後身體會發生怎樣的變化。是以，我們真正感興趣的事情之一是攜帶，因為直到最近，人們還經常攜帶東西。我的意思是，你想擁有的一切，你都必須攜帶。

You carried your babies, you carried your food, you carried your water, you carried your fuel.

你揹著嬰兒，揹著食物，揹著水，揹著燃料。

And people there carry a ton of water. And we wanted to do some experiments on how women, especially women, carry huge amounts of weight on their head. And they don't seem to spend that much energy. And so our idea was to use a treadmill, because it's a lot easier to measure some of these things on a treadmill. And we'd have them carry the kinds of things they normally carry. We put on a respirometry mask to measure the oxygen and do some biomechanics to study how they do their gait, et cetera. So we bought this treadmill and schlepped it all these horrible roads to the nearest place we could plug it in. And then we brought the people from the area where we're doing research to the treadmill and put people on the treadmill. And if you've never been on a treadmill your whole life and all of a sudden somebody sticks you on a treadmill and you start walking, it's kind of a weird experience. And we realized that we couldn't really do the experiment because people weren't walking normally on the treadmill. So we abandoned the treadmill. After all that money and expense, we gave the treadmill to a local school and did our experiments by having people walk on ground as they normally do. And to me, it's a perfect manifestation, it's a perfect demonstration of the fact that treadmills are really weird. They're a strange, modern piece of equipment that we buy, we spend a lot of money on, and we spend a lot of money to go to a gym that makes you work really hard to get to stay in the same place. It's the apotheosis of exercise. And that's why in the book I spend a lot of time making fun of treadmills.

那裡的人都揹著一噸水。我們想做一些實驗，研究女人，尤其是女人，是如何把巨大的重量壓在頭上的。而她們似乎並沒有花費那麼多能量。所以我們的想法是用跑步機 因為在跑步機上測量這些東西要容易得多我們會讓他們攜帶他們通常攜帶的東西。我們會戴上呼吸面罩來測量氧氣 然後做一些生物力學研究 來研究他們的步態等等所以我們買了這臺跑步機，扛著它走了這麼多可怕的路，到了最近的一個可以插電的地方。然後我們把研究地區的人帶到跑步機旁，讓他們在跑步機上跑步。如果你一輩子都沒坐過跑步機，突然有人把你放在跑步機上，然後你就開始走，那是一

And by the way, if you think treadmills are a form of torture, I think it's kind of interesting that kind of the modern treadmill's origins are in Victorian prisons where they were actually invented as a form of torture. They were invented to keep prisoners from enjoying themselves. They made them trudge for hours and hours on these early treadmills. I don't know anybody who really enjoys being on a treadmill. Most of us, if we're forced to be on a treadmill, we either listen to a podcast or some music or watch something on our iPhones or whatever to kind of make it tolerable. But they really kind of, to me, epitomize how so many modern forms of exercise are kind of like cod liver oil. They're not really pleasant, right? We do them because they're good for us, but it's not fun. And so it's like taking your medicine. I study the human body and why it is the way it is. And I'm especially interested in the evolution of physical activity. And as I've been studying walking and running and various other sort of physical activities, it's become really clear to me that a lot of people are exercised about exercise. They're anxious. They're confused. They don't understand what's the right amount of exercise to do. They have trouble getting off the couch. And they feel kind of shamed and blamed for not being as physically active as they might like to be. And so I wanted to write a book to try to debunk a lot of myths about physical activity and about exercise using the lenses of evolution and anthropology. So the word exercise comes from the Latin exercisio, and it meant to train. So we still do math exercises or soldiers do exercises to get fit. But eventually the term has changed its meaning and it's developed new meanings. So on one hand, it means to do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health and fitness. That's that kind of sort of fitness, physical activity kind of exercise. But on the other hand, it also means to be exercised. It means to be upset, to be confused, to be anxious, to be kind of worried about something. And then again, we get exercised by our math exercises. And so to me, it's part and parcel of this strange concept of exercise. It's this modern idea of doing voluntary, discretionary physical activity for the sake of health and fitness. But we don't do it often. Most people don't do it because they want to. They do it because it helps stave off death and decrepitude. And in the modern world, of course, a lot of people are confused about it because they find it hard to do. They're not quite sure how much to do. There are all kinds of myths surrounding it. So very much people are exercised about exercise today. And really, I think that by shining the light of evolution and using kind of an anthropological perspective, my goal really is to help people be less exercised about exercise.

順便說一句，如果你認為跑步機是一種酷刑，我認為現代跑步機起源於維多利亞時代的監獄，這一點很有趣。發明跑步機是為了不讓囚犯盡情享受。他們讓囚犯在這些早期的跑步機上跋涉幾個小時。我不知道有誰真的喜歡在跑步機上跑步。我們中的大多數人，如果被迫在跑步機上，要麼聽播客或音樂，要麼用 iPhone 或其他設備看點東西，讓自己還能忍受。但在我看來，它們真的有點像魚肝油，是許多現代運動形式的縮影。它們並不討人喜歡，對吧？我們做這些是因為它們對我們有好處，但並不有趣。所以就像吃藥一樣。我研究人體以及人體為什麼會這樣我對身體

I would say that the definition I use of exercise is pretty much the bog standard definition that people in the fitness, exercise science world use. It's important to make a distinction between physical activity and exercise. So physical activity is just moving. When you do anything, go shop, pick up your groceries and take them to your car, that's physical activity. When you sweep the kitchen floor, that's physical activity. But exercise is discretionary, voluntary physical activity for the sake of health and fitness. So it can include everything from sports to running on a treadmill to going for a walk. I think the paradox of exercise is that everybody knows it's good for them. I don't know that really anyone who says they don't want to ever exercise. But the paradox is that most things that are good for us kind of want to do. But exercise is kind of the reverse. It's something that we all know we want to do. It's good for us.

我想說的是，我對運動所下的定義與健身和運動科學界人士所下的標準定義大同小異。區分體力活動和運動很重要。體力活動就是運動。當你做任何事情，去購物，拿起雜貨，然後把它們搬上車，這就是體力活動。當你清掃廚房地板時，這就是體力活動。但運動是為了健康和健身而進行的酌情、自願的體力活動。是以，它可以包括從運動到在跑步機上跑步，再到散步等一切活動。我認為運動的悖論在於，每個人都知道運動對自己有好處。我不知道真的有人說他們不想運動。但悖論在於，大多數對我們有益的事情都是我們想做的。但運動恰恰相反。我們都知道這是我們想做的

And yet a lot of us have a hard time doing it. The proof is in the data. According to the CDC, only about 20% of Americans get the very minimum levels of exercise that every health organization in the world thinks is the minimum for an adult, which is 150 minutes a week. So 80% of us really struggle and fail to get the very basic amounts of exercise. But almost everyone says that they want to get enough exercise. The most common reason that people don't like to do exercise when you ask them is that they don't have time. They find it stressful and they're busy. And that's a legitimate concern for a lot of people. Imagine if you have to commute a long distance, you have a job that is very sedentary, you've got to deal with your kids in the evening, or maybe you have two jobs or whatever. It's very challenging for people to exercise and to find the time in the modern world. The other reason that people often give for not exercising is they don't like to.

然而，我們中的很多人卻很難做到這一點。數據就是證明。根據美國疾病預防控制中心（CDC）的數據，只有約 20% 的美國人達到了世界上所有健康組織認為的成人最低運動量，即每週 150 分鐘。是以，我們當中有 80% 的人都在努力掙扎，無法獲得最基本的運動量。但幾乎每個人都說，他們希望獲得足夠的運動量。當你問起人們不喜歡做運動的原因時，最常見的是他們沒有時間。他們覺得壓力大，而且很忙。對很多人來說，這是一個合理的擔憂。試想一下，如果你需要長途通勤，你的工作是久坐不動的，你晚上還要照顧孩子，或者你可能有兩份工作或

They find it uncomfortable. They find it unpleasant. They get hot and bothered and they don't feel like they get much reward out of it. And so there's a lot of inertia that prevents people from doing it. They have a hard time getting off the couch. And

他們覺得不舒服。他們覺得不愉快。他們會感到燥熱和煩惱，而且他們覺得從中得不到什麼回報。是以，有很多惰性阻礙了人們去做這件事。他們很難離開沙發。而且

I think we need to be compassionate towards both of those reasons. Because yes, people are stressed for time. And yes, it is often unpleasant and unfun. But we make them feel bad about that.

我認為，對於這兩個原因，我們都要有同情心。因為是的，人們時間緊張。是的，這往往是不愉快和不有趣的。但我們卻讓他們為此感到難過。

We make them feel bad for being stressed. We make them feel bad for having that inertia when actually it's completely normal. Nobody ever exercised in the Stone Age. People were physically active when they had to be. And they might dance or do other things that were for fun. But volitionally going on a five-mile run in the morning or going to the gym to lift weights whose sole purpose is to be lifted, that's a really strange, weird, modern behavior. And there are all kinds of instincts that we have not to do it. And we shouldn't make people feel bad for having those instincts.

我們讓他們為壓力感到難過。我們讓他們為自己的惰性感到難過，而實際上這完全是正常的。在石器時代，沒有人鍛鍊身體。人們在必須運動的時候才會運動。他們可能會跳舞或做其他有趣的事情。但自願在早上跑五英里，或者去健身房舉重，其唯一目的就是為了舉重，這是一種非常奇怪、詭異的現代行為。我們有各種本能去避免這樣做。我們不應該因為人們有這些本能而讓他們感到難過。

Instead, we should help them figure out ways to overcome those instincts. Because we live in a world where we now, because we've mechanized everything, we no longer have to be physically active. We now, in a very strange way, have to choose to be physically active. And that's not so easy. Oh my gosh, there are so many myths about exercise. It's hard to know where to start. But

相反，我們應該幫助他們想辦法克服這些本能。因為我們現在生活的世界，因為一切都機械化了，所以我們不再需要身體力行。現在，我們不得不以一種非常奇怪的方式選擇鍛鍊身體。而這並不容易。天哪，關於運動的神話太多了。不知道從何下手。但是

I would say that one myth is that our ancestors were just natural, incredible athletes who just get up in the bed in the morning and run ultra-marathons at will without much stress or difficulty, that our ancestors were really incredibly strong, that there's a trade-off between speed and strength, that it's normal to be less physically active as you get older, that there's a perfect type of exercise, perfect amount of exercise, that sports equals exercise.

我想說的一個神話是，我們的祖先都是天生的、不可思議的運動員，早上從床上爬起來，沒有太大的壓力或困難，就可以隨意跑超級馬拉松；我們的祖先真的非常強壯；速度和力量之間有一個權衡；隨著年齡的增長，運動量減少是正常的；有一種完美的運動類型、完美的運動量，運動等於鍛鍊。

I could go on. The topic of exercise is just laden with myths. A common view about our evolutionary origins and about the evolution of physical activity is that we evolved from these super athlete ancestors and that civilization has contaminated us. So if you wear shoes or you drink Gatorade or you have a fancy watch or something like that, somehow that deprives you of the natural talent that you have. And if only you had been born in some little village somewhere and didn't have TV and didn't have access to all these commercial goods, that you'd be a natural, incredible athlete and that you could just get out of bed and run an ultra-marathon or something like that. A lot of these myths, to be honest, stem from, I think, this idea of this Rousseauian idea of the myth of the noble savage, that humans uncontaminated by civilization are also sort of naturally good and fine. And they also come from terrible, horrible, racist stereotypes about, for example, Africans not experiencing pain as much and Asians having some kind of natural sort of proclivity to sneak around in the dark. We all know these stereotypes and they're pernicious and they're wrong, but they've been applied in various ways to hunter-gatherers and to subsistence farmers in various parts of the world to make us feel that somehow they're these kind of basically fundamental super-athletes.

我可以繼續說下去。運動這個話題充滿了神話。關於我們的進化起源和體育鍛煉的進化，一種常見的觀點是，我們是從這些超級運動員的祖先進化而來的，而文明已經汙染了我們。是以，如果你穿鞋、喝佳得樂、戴高級手錶或諸如此類的東西，某種程度上就剝奪了你與生俱來的天賦。如果你出生在某個小村莊，沒有電視，接觸不到這些商品，你就會是一個天生的、不可思議的運動員，你就可以下床跑個超級馬拉松什麼的。老實說，這些神話很多都源於盧梭的 "高貴的野蠻人神話"，即沒有被文明汙染的人類也是天性善良的。它們還來自於可怕的、可怕的、種族主義的刻板

And when you do that, I think you do harm to people all around the planet. You do harm to those populations because you kind of dehumanize them. I mean, when they run an ultra-marathon, it's just as hard as when I were to try to run an ultra-marathon. They sweat, they toil, they get nausea, they get cramps. They do it not because it's easy for them. They do it because they value it. They think it's worth doing. And you also make people in the West feel terrible, like somehow there's something wrong with them, right? And they should throw away their shoes and eat a paleo diet or something like that. And all of a sudden, ta-da, they'll become this amazing athlete. And that's just not true. That's just a myth.

當你這樣做的時候，我認為你會傷害到地球上所有的人。你傷害了這些人，因為你把他們非人化了。我的意思是，當他們跑超級馬拉松時，就像我跑超級馬拉松一樣艱難。他們流汗、勞累、噁心、抽筋。他們這樣做並不是因為這對他們來說很容易。他們這樣做是因為他們重視它。他們認為這樣做是值得的。你還讓西方人覺得很糟糕，好像他們有什麼問題，對吧？他們應該扔掉鞋子，改吃古生物飲食之類的東西。然後突然間，"嗒嗒 "一聲，他們就會成為了不起的運動員。但事實並非如此。這只是一個神話。

And so it's pernicious in a variety of ways. In 2012, I had the good fortune to be invited to go to the Ironman World Championships in Kona in Hawaii. It's an amazing event, right? And if you don't know what a full Ironman triathlon is like, you start off with a 2.4-mile open-water swim. Then the athletes rush out of the water, jump onto bikes with these high-tech helmets and stuff like that. They speed off, and they do a 112-mile bike ride across the desert. And then they come back, throw off their bike, jump off their bikes, and then they do a full marathon in the heat. It's like 90 degrees Fahrenheit, right? It's really amazing. And the elite athletes do this in a little bit over eight hours. They're just like cyborgs. They're not like human beings. It's astonishing to watch. And then the lesser athletes take longer to do, and everybody has to finish by 17 hours, so by midnight. It's just astonishing to see people put their bodies through that kind of endurance to achieve something like that. And I was really impressed by that. I'd never seen a full Ironman before. And then just a few weeks later, I was in a very rural part of Mexico, in Chihuahua, up in the Sierra Tarahumara, where I got to observe a rara hippery, which is the traditional foot race that the Tarahumara Native Americans do. And it's kind of almost like a soccer game. There are two teams, and they have a little ball, a little round ball that's carved out of wood that morning. And there are about five people on each team, and they kind of kick the ball with their feet and then chase it and find it and kick it again and chase it and find it and kick it again. There's like a little circuit they do, and there are two teams, and whichever team laps the other team wins. And the race I saw must have been about 40, 50 miles long. And so it's another incredible endurance event. And on the surface, you'd say, oh my god, these events are totally different. Ironman is very commercial, and everybody's wearing the fanciest, latest gear. And they've got super fancy shoes. They're using gel and goo and all kinds of specially formulated nutrition drinks. And their bikes cost like $10,000, $20,000.

是以，它在很多方面都是有害的。2012 年，我有幸受邀前往夏威夷科納參加鐵人三項世界錦標賽。這是一項了不起的賽事，對吧？如果你不知道鐵人三項賽是什麼樣的，那麼你可以從 2.4 英里的公開水域游泳開始。然後運動員衝出水面，跳上帶有高科技頭盔的自行車。他們加速出發，騎車穿越沙漠，全程 112 英里。然後他們回來，扔掉自行車，跳下自行車，然後在高溫下跑完全程馬拉松。華氏90度，對吧？真的很驚人精英運動員只用了八個多小時就完成了比賽他們就像機械人一樣和人類完全不同令人歎為觀止而較差的運動員則需要更長的時間 所有人

And it's very commercial. And there are speakers and crowds, et cetera. Whereas the Tarahumara, when they're running, they're just wearing the clothes that they normally wear. They're running in sandals. It's very uncommercial. And you think, oh my gosh, it's so different. One is more authentic than the other. But if you stop and think, actually, they're very similar, right?

而且非常商業化。有演講者和人群，等等。而塔拉烏馬拉人在跑步時 他們只穿著平時穿的衣服他們穿著涼鞋跑步非常不商業化你會想，天哪，太不一樣了一個比另一個更真實。但如果你停下來想一想，其實他們很相似，對嗎？

Because both involve rewards, right? So Ironman, there's the winner, and the winner gets a prize, et cetera. Well, the Tarahumara also have prizes. They bet huge amounts of stuff, right? They bet clothes and goats and corn and stuff like that. They don't have Gatorade, but they make their own form of Gatorade out of corn. And they cheer on their runners, too. And there's the joy of victory and the agony of defeat and all that. So in some ways, they're very different. But in other ways, it's kind of the same thing. And it's a personal journey that people undertake, a very small number of them. The vast majority of people are observers. They're not participants.

因為兩者都有獎勵，對嗎？鐵人三項賽有優勝者，優勝者會得到獎品，諸如此類。塔拉烏馬拉人也有獎品他們賭很多東西，對吧？他們賭衣服、山羊和玉米之類的東西他們沒有佳得樂 但他們用玉米自制佳得樂他們也為自己的選手歡呼有勝利的喜悅 失敗的痛苦等等所以在某些方面，他們是非常不同的。但在其他方面，它們又是相同的這是人們的個人旅程，其中的一小部分人。絕大多數人都是觀察者。他們不是參與者。

So really, it made me realize that, oh, yes, there are some differences between more modern, commercialized Western forms of endurance physical activity. This is something basic and fundamental that all cultures do. And actually, I think what makes us similar is greater than what makes us different. There are different kinds of training, right? Play is a form of training, in a way, right? Children play, right? Because they're learning skills. They're developing capacities. And humans are one of the few species, dogs are another, that continue to play as adults, and that play helps us maintain our capacities. It helps us with social relationships. I mean, there's all kinds of good things that happen with play, right? But exercise is kind of very,

是以，這真的讓我意識到，哦，是的，與更現代、更商業化的西方耐力體育活動形式之間存在一些差異。這是所有文化都會做的最基本、最根本的事情。實際上，我認為我們的相似之處大於我們的不同之處。訓練有很多種，對嗎？在某種程度上，遊戲也是一種訓練，對嗎？孩子們會玩，對嗎？因為他們在學習技能。他們在發展能力人類是少數幾個成年後還繼續玩耍的物種之一 狗是另一個 玩耍幫助我們保持能力它幫助我們建立社會關係我是說，玩耍能帶來各種好處，對吧？但運動是非常重要的

I wouldn't say exercise is generally play, although some play is exercise. And when you kind of exercise in order to train for an event, you're doing something, you're spending a lot of energy, you're doing physical activity kind of to get ready for something, right? And certainly, you know, for the kinds of things that we do, again, that's a very modern Western behavior.

雖然有些遊戲也是運動，但我不會說運動一般就是遊戲。當你為了參加某項活動而鍛鍊時，你在做某件事情，你花費了大量的精力，你在做身體活動，為某件事情做好準備，對嗎？當然，你知道，對於我們所做的這些事情來說，這也是一種非常現代的西方行為。

So when I was talking to, and I've talked to Native American runners who participate in these long-distance races, when I asked them how they get ready for the race, how they train, they would kind of look at me like they didn't understand the question. There was, you know, what are you talking about? And so, you know, I was working with the translator. The translator was saying, you know, this gringo, he runs five miles every day to kind of get ready for a race.

是以，當我和參加這些長跑比賽的美國本土選手交談時，當我問他們如何為比賽做好準備，如何訓練時，他們會看著我，好像不明白這個問題。你知道，你在說什麼？於是，我和翻譯一起工作。翻譯說，這個外國佬每天跑五英里，為比賽做準備。

And, you know, the question that I got was, you know, why would you run if you didn't have to, right? Because their life is their training, right? You know, when I ask people there or ask people in Africa, in the places where I work, you know, like, when do you run? The most common answer I get is, oh, well, to chase a goat. You know, that's the most common answer I get.

你知道，我收到的問題是，你知道，你為什麼要跑，如果你沒有，對不對？因為他們的生活就是他們的訓練，對嗎？在我工作的地方，當我問那裡的人或者非洲的人，你知道，比如，你什麼時候跑步？我得到的最常見的答案是，哦，追山羊。你知道，這是我得到的最常見的答案。

There are a lot of ways to quantify how physically active somebody is, right? And a very simple one, it's not necessarily the best one, but a simple way of doing it is what's called the physical activity level. It's just a ratio. So it's the total amount of energy you spend in a day divided by the energy you would spend if you were just in, you know, at bedrest, what's called your basal metabolic rates, the energy you spend just taking care of the most basic essential functions of your body. And so, say if you're in bedrest, you know, in a hospital and, you know, lying in bed with just like a clicker for the TV and you're doing absolutely nothing, not even digesting food, your physical activity level would be about, your power, physical activity level would be about a 1.2. And if you're like a Tour de France cyclist, it would be above 3. If you're kind of a desk worker, it would be like 1.6. So it's kind of a way to compare individuals but also species because it's standardized by how your body size, because your body size essentially determines your basal metabolic rate. And it's interesting that most animals have physical activity levels of about 2 to 3. So they're, you know, pretty active.

有很多方法可以量化一個人的運動量，對嗎？有一種非常簡單的方法，不一定是最好的方法，但卻是一種簡單的方法，就是所謂的體力活動水準。這只是一個比率。它是你一天所消耗的能量總量除以你在臥床休息時所消耗的能量，也就是所謂的基礎代謝率，也就是你在維持身體最基本功能時所消耗的能量。是以，如果你臥床休息，你知道，在醫院裡，你知道，躺在床上，就像電視機的咔噠聲，你什麼也不做，甚至不消化食物，你的體力活動水準大約是1.2，你的力量，體力活動水準大約是1.2。如果你是環法自行車賽的選手，那就會超過 3。如果你是文職工作者，則

We evolved from apes and it turns out that primates in general and apes in particular have really low PALs, really low physical activity levels. Chimpanzees have physical activity levels of about 1.4. And so their physical activity levels are actually lower than sedentary Americans. So your average sedentary American who doesn't really do much and, you know, spends most of his or her time in chairs and, you know, etc. and takes elevators and all that is still more physically active actually than your average chimpanzee. Whereas hunter-gatherers, people who, you know, every day have to go out and get their food, their physical activity levels tend to be around 2, about, you know, 1.92. Or subsistence farmers who don't have a lot of machines and tractors and stuff like that, they're maybe a little bit harder working, maybe 2.1, 2.2. And it really, it wasn't until the industrial revolution that people's physical activity levels were able to go back, go down like about 25% to, you know, 1.6, 1.7, which is sort of typical of your average American. So it's a useful kind of simple standard to help us compare just generally how active different groups or different individuals are.

我們是從類人猿進化而來的，而事實證明，一般靈長類動物，尤其是類人猿，PALs 都非常低，體力活動水準非常低。黑猩猩的體力活動水準約為 1.4。是以，它們的體力活動水準實際上低於久坐不動的美國人。是以，久坐不動的美國人其實並不怎麼活動，你知道的，他們大部分時間都坐在椅子上，你知道的，坐電梯等等，但他們的體力活動量實際上還是比普通黑猩猩要多。而狩獵採集者，你知道的，每天都要外出獲取食物的人，他們的體力活動水準往往在2左右，你知道的，1.92左右。自給自足的農民沒有很多機器和拖拉機之類的東西，他們可能會更努力一

So your basal metabolic rate is a really important number because it tells you kind of just how much energy you're spending on just the essential maintenance of your body, you know, paying for your brain and paying for all the tissues in your body. And, you know, you have to turn over tissues all the time, like the cells in your gut are being replaced like every five days or so. I mean, your fingernails are growing. Everything's happening in your body, right? And that all costs energy. And it turns out that a kind of typical, say, adult male my size, right? I'm not all that big, but, you know, spends about two-thirds of his or her physical metabolism just on basal metabolic rate. So I spend about 1600 calories a day just existing, you know, just taking care of my body. So the vast majority of the energy that we spend isn't spent on running around and being physically active and moving. It's actually spent on just maintenance, just basic total maintenance. And that's one of the reasons why we kind of evolved not to be, you know, all that physically active when it wasn't necessary. Because until recently, energy used to be limited, right? It wasn't like, you know, 7-Elevens or Dunkin' Donuts or

是以，基礎代謝率是一個非常重要的數字，因為它能告訴你，你在維持身體的基本功能上花費了多少能量，你知道，為你的大腦付費，為你身體的所有組織付費。而且，你知道，你必須不停地更換組織，比如你腸道里的細胞每五天左右就要更換一次。你的指甲也在生長你身體裡的一切都在發生，對吧？這些都需要消耗能量事實證明，像我這樣體型的成年男性我的體型並不算大，但是，你知道，他或她身體新陳代謝的大約三分之二都花在了基礎代謝率上。所以，我每天大約要消耗 1600 卡路里的熱量，你知道，僅僅是維持我的身體。所以，我們所花費的絕大部分能量並

Whole Foods or whatever your, you know, favorite place to get food is right around the corner.

全食超市或任何你最喜歡的食品店就在附近。

You know, if you wanted something to eat, you had to go find it. You had to either, you know, hunt it or gather it or dig it up. And so energy was limited. And when energy is limited, you have to engage in trade-offs, right? And so if you spend energy on physical activity, that means you're not spending energy on taking care of your body or reproducing, which is what the only thing natural selection really cares about. And so the fact that our bodies are so expensive helps explain why we tend to avoid unnecessary physical activity. Because it prevents, you know, like for example, this morning I went for a 5-mile run. So I spent about 500 calories. Those are 500 calories that I could have spent on my metabolism. And if I were energy limited, that would have been a bit of a problem, right? Which is why people who are energy limited and already physically active, it makes no sense for them to go for a needless, completely pointless 5-mile run in the morning. So technically, a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise one gram of water one degree centigrade. So it's a unit of energy. And so we convert various kinds of energy into calories. There are, of course, other units of energy, like the joule, for example. But calories are kind of a useful one because our food is labeled in calories. So a calorie is the most common one. But actually, the calories that we mostly talk about that are on our food labels are actually kilocalories. They're actually 1,000 calories.

你知道，如果你想吃點什麼，你就得去找。要麼去打獵 要麼去採集 要麼去挖掘所以能量是有限的當能量有限時，你就必須有所取捨，對嗎？是以，如果你把精力花在體力活動上，就意味著你沒有把精力花在照顧身體或繁殖上，而這才是自然選擇真正關心的事情。是以，我們的身體如此昂貴這一事實 有助於解釋為什麼我們傾向於避免不必要的運動因為這樣可以避免，你知道，比如說，今天早上我跑了5英里。所以我消耗了大約 500 卡路里。這500卡路里本可以用於新陳代謝。如果我的能量有限，那就有點麻煩了，對吧？這就是為什麼那些能量有限，但身體已經

So when you look at a label for a chocolate bar or a can of beans or something, and it says there are 50 calories, it actually means that there are 50,000 calories, right? But anyway, that's neither here nor there. But that's fine. But so most of the time, we're talking about calories with a capital C or Kcal, kilocalories. And our bodies use a lot of calories. A typical human body spends about 2,000 to 3,000 calories or, in this case, kilocalories a day existing. That's your basal metabolic rate plus all the energy you spend running around, doing chores, making dinner, whatever it is you do for your day. When you go for a walk, you probably spend an extra 50 calories per mile. If you go for a run, you're spending probably an extra 100 calories per mile for that run. So that hopefully gives you a sense of what kind of energy amounts we're talking about.

所以，當你看到巧克力棒或豆子罐頭之類的標籤上寫著有 50 卡路里熱量時，實際上意味著有 50000 卡路里熱量，對嗎？但無論如何，這既不在這裡，也不在那裡。不過沒關係。但大多數時候，我們說的卡路里都是大寫的C 或者Kcal，千卡。我們的身體需要消耗大量的卡路里。一個典型的人體每天需要消耗大約 2000 到 3000 卡路里，在這裡就是千卡熱量。這是你的基礎代謝率，再加上你四處奔波、做家務、做晚飯等一天中所花費的所有能量。當你散步時，你可能每走一英里要多消耗 50 卡路里。如果你去跑步，每跑一英里可能要多消

Chapter two, smarter sitting, smarter sleeping. All right, so I'm sitting here talking to you.

第二章 坐得更聰明 睡得更聰明好吧，我坐在這裡跟你說話。

But other than that, I'm basically doing nothing. Maybe I'm gesticulating a little bit, moving my mouth. But I'm completely physically inactive in any other regard. But even now, I'm spending a fair amount of calories just existing. And for every five breaths, one of my breaths is just taking care of my brain. My brain is constantly consuming vast quantities of energy. I spend about three, four, maybe 500, 450 calories a day just paying for my brain. My muscle, even if I'm not doing anything with my muscles, my muscles constantly require energy. My gut is requiring energy. My kidneys require energy. My liver is requiring energy. My heart is requiring energy.

除此之外，我基本上什麼也沒做。也許我會比劃一下，動動嘴。但在其他方面，我完全沒有任何身體活動。但即使是現在，我也在消耗相當多的卡路里。我每呼吸五次，就有一次是在照顧我的大腦。我的大腦一直在消耗大量的能量。我每天要為大腦消耗三四百卡路里的熱量。我的肌肉，即使我沒有用我的肌肉做任何事情，我的肌肉也不斷需要能量。我的腸道需要能量我的腎臟需要能量我的肝臟需要能量我的心臟需要能量

My immune system, which is taking care of my body and making sure that I don't die from some virus or bacteria, that's taking up energy. So all of these processes are all adding up.

我的免疫系統在照顧我的身體，確保我不會死於病毒或細菌，這也在消耗能量。是以，所有這些過程都在消耗能量。

And a typical human is spending about 1,300, 1,400, 1,500, 1,600 calories a day just on all those basic processes, even if they're doing nothing else. So just existing is a fairly expensive prospect. And we have unusually expensive bodies in one regard, which is that our brains are really big. So brains are extraordinarily expensive organs. My brain is about 2% of my body weight, but it's using something like a fifth of my metabolism at the moment. Because of all kinds of reasons, it's because there's lots of pumps that have to pump energy in and out of the brain, because I've separated my brain from my bloodstream with this barrier, and neurons are very expensive, and I'm synthesizing all kinds of neurotransmitters.

一個典型的人，即使什麼都不做，每天也要花費大約 1300、1400、1500 或 1600 卡路里的熱量在所有這些基本過程上。是以，僅僅存在就是一個相當昂貴的前景。我們有一個異常昂貴的身體，那就是我們的大腦非常大。所以大腦是異常昂貴的器官。我的大腦只佔我體重的 2%，但它卻消耗了我新陳代謝的五分之一。由於種種原因，有許多泵必須將能量泵入和泵出大腦，因為我用這道屏障將大腦和血液分隔開來，神經元非常昂貴，我正在合成各種神經遞質。

There's a whole bunch of things going on that make my brain super, super expensive.

有一大堆事情讓我的大腦變得超級、超級昂貴。

And the thing about brains is that they don't store any energy. So unlike my muscles and my liver and other organs, which have some energy on board, all the energy from my brain constantly has to be delivered. And if I stop delivering that energy, even for just a short amount of time,

大腦的特點是不儲存任何能量。是以，我的肌肉、肝臟和其他器官都會儲存一些能量，而大腦則不同，它的所有能量都需要持續不斷地輸送。如果我停止輸送能量 哪怕只是很短的時間

I'll die. So human brains, which are so big, require us to constantly have a little bit of extra energy on board. I decided to start this book on physical activity and exercise with actually discussing physical inactivity, because if you want to understand activity, you need to understand inactivity. There are as many myths about inactivity as there are about activity, and they illustrate, I think, how we make people exercise about health and about physical activity and other such things. And I think, for me, the most pernicious maybe is this idea that sitting is the new smoking. And it's a well-meaning expression. People who are public health experts who are trying to help people be more physically active, they think that by saying, trying to encourage people to get off the couch, get out of their chairs and be more physically active, that sitting is the new smoking as a way of doing that. And it's true that if you're never physically active, you increase your vulnerability to a wide range of diseases. But I think that the idea, that the concept kind of backfires because, look, I mean, the chair that I'm sitting in right now, I mean, it's not like a toxin like a cigarette, and it's not delivering poison to my bloodstream. It's just a completely harmless sort of thing. And furthermore, sitting is very normal. My dog spends most of her day just sitting around the house. If you go to any other part of the world, you go to villages all over the world, if you go to study hunter-gatherers, when they're not physically active, and we've already talked about how they're not physically active all day long, guess what they're doing? They're sitting. Now, they may not be sitting in chairs because they may not necessarily have chairs. They'll be sitting on the ground, or they might have benches or stools. But it turns out that when you measure amounts of sitting in non-Western, non-high-income populations, they sit pretty much as much as we do, about 10 hours a day. So I think we're not honest to people. Instead of saying sitting isn't you smoking and making people feel bad about themselves, why not tell them the truth, which is that there are better ways to sit and worse ways to sit. So it's good to be active when you sit, break up your sitting in bouts. Don't sit for huge amounts of time. Get up every once in a while. Make yourself a cup of tea, scratch the dog or something like that. And then the other is that there are more active kinds of sitting where you use some of your muscles. Right now,

我會死的是以，人類的大腦如此之大，需要我們不斷地補充能量。我決定在這本關於體力活動和鍛鍊的書中，首先討論缺乏體力活動的問題，因為如果你想了解體力活動，你就需要了解缺乏體力活動的問題。關於不運動的神話和關於運動的神話一樣多，我認為，它們說明了我們是如何讓人們對健康和體育鍛煉以及其他諸如此類的事情產生誤解的。我認為，對我來說，最有害的可能是 "久坐是新的吸菸方式 "這一觀點。這是一種善意的表達。那些試圖幫助人們加強體育鍛煉的公共衛生專家們認為，通過鼓勵人們離開沙發，離開椅子，加強體育鍛煉，坐著就是新的吸菸方式

I'm sitting in this comfy chair, and it's stabilizing my back. I don't have to spend any energy. But if I was sitting on a stool or squatting on the ground, I would have to spend some muscles to keep my body going. And all of that just turns on the cellular engine of our body. It's like turning on the car engine. It causes you to use up some of the sugar in your blood. It uses up some of the fats in your blood. It turns on various kinds of genes. It's all good, right? So you don't have to exercise hugely to get some of the benefits of being a little bit more active. Just moving a little bit is actually kind of healthy. And furthermore, when you look at the data on sitting, it turns out that how much you sit at work isn't really that much associated with health outcomes. It's how much people sit in leisure time that's associated with negative health outcomes. So if you sit all day at work, and then you go home, and you sit all day, and you're driving to work, and you're driving home, and you basically never do any physical activity, well, yeah. Then your risk of a wide range of diseases goes up. But if you have a normal desk job, but you also walk around and get some exercise and do various stuff, you're fine.

我坐在這張舒適的椅子上，它能穩定我的背部。我不需要花費任何力氣。但如果我坐在凳子上或蹲在地上，我就需要消耗一些肌肉來維持身體的運轉。而所有這些都只是開啟了我們身體的細胞引擎。就像打開汽車引擎一樣。它會讓你消耗掉血液中的一些糖分。消耗血液中的脂肪開啟各種基因這都是好事，對吧？所以，你不需要做大量的運動，就能從多運動中得到一些好處。只要稍微動一動，其實就很健康。此外，當你查看有關坐姿的數據時，會發現工作時坐多少與健康結果並無太大關聯。人們在閒暇時間坐多少才會對健康產生負面影響。是以，如果你上班時坐一整天，回家

There's no evidence that there's any problem with that. It's a completely normal thing to do.

沒有證據表明這有什麼問題。這是完全正常的事情。

So I got interested in the myths about sleep because we're told all the time to sit less, but then we're also told to sleep more. Why is that? What's going on there? And one of the myths about sleep, which is, of course, one of the most fundamental forms of physical inactivity is sleeping, is that the modern Western world has robbed us of sleep. We have television and iPhones and electric light bulbs and all these sorts of things. And ever since Edison, nobody's been able to sleep very much. And yet, I've spent time in various parts of the world where there's no electricity, and people seem to be up all night. I've always wondered about that. And I was delighted to see that there's been some research recently on that. This is not my research, where people have shown that in parts of the world, and we're talking about multiple continents, we're talking about Africa and South America and North America, places where people don't have electricity, people don't sleep eight hours a night. They actually sleep five and a half, six, sometimes seven hours a night. And so there's no evidence whatsoever that people sleep less in the modern industrial world because of televisions and iPhones and stuff like that.

是以，我對有關睡眠的神話產生了興趣，因為我們一直被告知要少坐，但同時也被告知要多睡。這是為什麼呢？這是怎麼回事？其中一個關於睡眠的神話是，現代西方世界剝奪了我們的睡眠。我們有電視、蘋果手機、電燈泡，諸如此類的東西。自愛迪生以來，沒有人能夠睡得很好。然而，我曾在世界上許多地方待過，那裡沒有電，人們似乎整夜不睡。我一直對此感到好奇。我很高興看到最近有一些關於這方面的研究。這不是我的研究，人們已經證明，在世界上的一些地方，我們說的是多個大洲，我們說的是非洲、南美洲和北美洲，在這些沒有電的地方，人們每晚睡不到8個

And then furthermore, when you look at the epidemiological data, so you look at how much people sleep, and not just what they say they sleep, but how much they actually sleep using sensors, because who knows actually how much they slept? How can you know that you're asleep?

此外，當你研究流行病學數據時，你會研究人們的睡眠時間，而不僅僅是他們所說的睡眠時間，而是他們使用傳感器實際睡眠的時間，因為誰知道他們實際睡了多少？你怎麼知道自己睡著了？

But if you measure sensor-based data on how much people sleep against their health outcomes on the y-axis, it turns out it's a U-shaped curve. And the bottom of that curve, so the optimal amount of sleep, turns out to be, for most people, around seven. Now, it's not a law. There's some people who do better with eight, and some people better with six, et cetera. But seven turns out to be better than eight for most people. So where this idea that we all need eight hours of sleep is,

但是，如果用傳感器測量人們的睡眠時間和他們的健康狀況，就會發現這是一條U型曲線。而曲線的底部，也就是最佳睡眠時間，對於大多數人來說，大約是7小時。這並不是定律。有些人睡八小時會更好，有些人睡六小時會更好，等等。但對大多數人來說，7 比 8 更好。所以，我們都需要八小時睡眠的觀點是：

I think, pernicious. Now, it's true. It is definitely true that if you don't get enough sleep, you are compromising your health. If you're getting three or four hours of sleep, and you're constantly exhausted, and you fall asleep all the time, that's an issue. And it's worth paying some attention to that. But then just making people feel bad about their sleep, if they're actually getting normal amounts of sleep, just makes them anxious. It makes them concerned. And of course, when you make somebody anxious about sleep, what do you do? You arouse them. You elevate their levels of cortisol, which is a stress hormone. And guess what cortisol does?

我認為是有害的。現在看來，這是真的。如果你睡眠不足，你的健康就會受到損害，這絕對是事實。如果你只睡三四個小時，卻總是精疲力竭，總是睡著，這就是個問題。這一點值得關注。但是，如果人們的睡眠時間實際上是正常的，只是讓他們對自己的睡眠感覺不好，只會讓他們焦慮不安。這讓他們感到擔憂。當然，當你讓人對睡眠感到焦慮時，你會怎麼做？喚醒他們你提高了他們的皮質醇水準，這是一種壓力荷爾蒙。你猜皮質醇有什麼作用？

It keeps you from sleeping. So making people kind of nervous about their sleep sets in motion, or can set in motion, a kind of vicious circle where you make people feel bad about their sleep. And then because of that, they're less likely to sleep. And it kind of drives a positive feedback loop. And so look, we should relax about sleep. We should help people more compassionate. If people aren't getting enough sleep, let's help them figure out ways to get sleep. And do that by treating the cause, not the symptoms of the lack of sleep.

它讓你無法入睡。是以，讓人們對自己的睡眠感到緊張，就會啟動或可能啟動一種惡性循環，讓人們對自己的睡眠感到糟糕。正因為如此，他們更不可能入睡。這就形成了一種正反饋循環。所以，我們應該放鬆對睡眠的關注。我們應該更有同情心地幫助人們。如果人們睡眠不足，我們就幫助他們找出獲得睡眠的方法。要做到這一點，我們要治療睡眠不足的原因，而不是症狀。

But let's not make people stressed about it in ways that are unhelpful.

但是，我們不要以無益的方式讓人們為此感到緊張。

If you want to look at the power of culture and affecting biology, sleep is such a great example.

如果你想了解文化的力量對生物學的影響，睡眠就是一個很好的例子。

Because in places like America, Western countries, we have such culturally prescribed ways of sleeping that would baffle our ancestors and baffle people in other parts of the world.

因為在美國這樣的地方，在西方國家，我們有這樣的文化規定的睡眠方式，會讓我們的祖先和世界其他地方的人感到困惑。

We have this idea that sleep is this sort of solitary thing you do in a dark room with no noise and a super comfortable mattress. And we get upset if we hear a car honking or a dog barking or whatever. But for most of human evolution, in many cultures, sleep is a very social thing.

在我們的觀念裡，睡覺是一件孤獨的事情，你要在一個沒有噪音、床墊超級舒適的黑暗房間裡睡覺。如果我們聽到汽車鳴笛聲或狗叫聲什麼的，我們就會心煩意亂。但在人類進化的大部分時間裡，在許多文化中，睡眠是一件非常社會化的事情。

People sleep in groups. And you're outside and you hear animals in the distance. And actually hearing them in the distance is maybe a good thing because it helps your brain realize that they're in the distance. They're not nearby. And people sleep on the ground. They don't need to sleep in mattresses. And they don't have fancy pillows and all that kind of stuff. And you can learn to sleep in all kinds of situations if you relax, if you allow yourself. And the fact that we kind of feel like we have to have this sort of special circumstances. I'm no different. I like a nice quiet room and a comfortable mattress and all that sort of stuff. But I do try to remind myself when I have trouble sleeping that you can sleep on an airplane. You can sleep in a chair in a lecture when it's boring. I can sleep in all kinds of crazy places. And I can certainly sleep in this bed tonight if I want to. It's just a question of my mindset, not the environment that

人們成群結隊地睡覺。你在外面聽到遠處傳來動物的叫聲聽到它們在遠處也許是件好事 因為這能讓你的大腦意識到它們在遠處它們不在附近人們睡在地上他們不需要睡在床墊裡也沒有花哨的枕頭之類的東西只要你放鬆，只要你允許自己，你就能學會在各種情況下睡覺。而事實上，我們覺得自己必須有這種特殊的環境。我也一樣我喜歡安靜的房間和舒適的床墊之類的東西。但是，當我失眠的時候，我會提醒自己，你可以在飛機上睡覺。無聊的時候，你可以在講座的椅子上睡覺。我可以在各種瘋狂的地方睡覺。如果我願意，今晚我當然也可以睡在這張床上。這只是我的心態問

I'm in. Chapter 3. Walking, running, and everyday strength. Humans really suck at speed. I mean, there's just no way around it, right? I mean, as soon as we became bipedal, which was a great thing in some ways, right? About 7 million years ago, probably to save energy when we were walking.

我進來了第三章行走、跑步和日常力量人類的速度真的很爛。這也是沒辦法的事，對吧？我是說，當我們變成兩足動物時，這在某些方面是件好事，對嗎？大約700萬年前 可能是為了節省行走時的能量

And it helps us carry things and we can have tools and we can gesticulate in ways that quadrupeds can't. Lots of great things about being a biped. But the second we get up on two legs, we lose half our horsepower, right? We only have two legs to generate power as opposed to four.

它可以幫助我們攜帶東西，我們可以擁有工具，我們可以用四足動物無法做到的方式比劃。兩足動物有很多優點但一旦我們用兩條腿站起來 我們就失去了一半的馬力，對嗎？我們只有兩條腿來產生動力 而不是四條腿

And so we're about half as fast as a quadruped, our size. And that's true for the world's best runners. So Usain Bolt, who still owns the world record in the 100 meters, he can run a little bit over 10 meters a second, right? He can run, I think, 10.4 meters a second.

所以我們的速度只有我們這種體型的四足動物的一半左右。世界上最好的選手也是如此。尤塞恩-博爾特至今仍保持著 100 米的世界紀錄，他每秒能跑 10 米多一點，對嗎？他每秒能跑10. 4米吧

Your average goat from a pen just down the street can run 20 meters a second, and for a lot longer than Usain Bolt, right? So humans in general are slow, even the fastest humans on the planet.

街邊羊圈裡的普通山羊每秒能跑 20 米，而且比尤塞恩-博爾特跑得更久，不是嗎？所以說，人類普遍都很慢，即使是地球上跑得最快的人類。

And so we have this idea that humans evolved for running, but not for sprinting, but more for endurance running. And so there's this general idea out there that there's a trade-off between speed and endurance, and that you can either be really fast and not go very far, or can be slow and you can go forever. And we all know that's kind of true. But at the elite levels, it's especially true in terms of performance. But for most of us, actually, if you want to improve your endurance, one of the best ways to do that is actually to work on your speed, do what we call interval training. Occasionally get around, do some track work, do 200, 400, 600 meter repeats.

是以，我們有這樣一種觀點，即人類是為奔跑而進化的，但不是為衝刺而進化，而是為耐力而進化。是以，人們普遍認為速度和耐力之間需要權衡，要麼跑得很快但跑不遠，要麼跑得很慢但能跑很遠。我們都知道，這是事實。但在精英水準上，這一點在成績方面尤為明顯。但實際上，對於我們大多數人來說，如果你想提高耐力，最好的方法之一就是提高速度，進行我們所說的間歇訓練。偶爾跑跑步，做做田徑運動，重複跑 200、400、600 米。

That'll not only make you faster, it'll also improve your endurance. But we often think about this trade-off because of the world's best athletes, right? And I think it shows how we get kind of off track by focusing too much on elite sports and professional athletics. So Usain

這不僅能讓你跑得更快，還能提高你的耐力。但我們經常會因為世界上最優秀的運動員而考慮這種取捨，對嗎？我認為，這說明我們過於關注精英體育和職業競技體育是如何偏離正軌的。所以，尤塞恩

Bolt, he can run like 10.4 meters a second for like 10, 20 seconds, but he can't run a marathon at that distance. The world's record holder at the moment for the marathon is a guy named Elliot

博爾特，他能以每秒10.4米的速度跑上10秒或20秒，但他跑不了這個距離的馬拉松。目前馬拉松世界紀錄保持者是一個叫埃利奧特的人

Kipchoge, fantastic runner too. And he can run a 440 mile, that's like six meters a second, a little more than six meters a second for 26 miles, which is astonishing. But I can't do that for one mile, right? And so you look at Bolt and Kipchoge and you think, okay, this guy's running almost twice as fast as the other guy, there's a trade-off between speed and endurance. But for most of us, actually, we can run, people can run, as I said before, if you want to run longer distances, one of the best ways to do that is to increase your speed. And people who are good at speed tend to also be better at endurance, unless they're elite athletes. So if you look at decathletes, for example, people who are amateur decathletes, the ones who are really good at the speed events are also good at the endurance events. So that trade-off is true only for really elite athletes.

基普喬格也是很棒的選手他能跑440英里，相當於一秒鐘跑6米，26英里一秒鐘跑6米多一點，太驚人了。但我連一英里都做不到，對吧？所以當你看到博爾特和基普喬格時，你會想，好吧，這個人跑得幾乎是另一個人的兩倍，速度和耐力之間需要權衡。但實際上，對於我們大多數人來說，我們可以跑，人們也可以跑，正如我之前所說，如果你想跑更長的距離，最好的方法之一就是提高你的速度。速度好的人往往耐力也更好，除非他們是精英運動員。是以，如果你看看十項全能運動員，例如業餘十項全能運動員，真正擅長速度項目的人也擅長耐力項目。是以，只有真正

It's not really true for the vast majority of us. So strength is important. And I think, and there are misconceptions about strength too. So strength is the ability, how much force you can produce, right? And power is the rate at which you can produce that force. So you can be, you don't need a lot of, you can be really strong, but not actually necessarily all that powerful, right? And so people who aren't all that strong, you know, if I were to get out of this chair, that requires power. I have to rapidly push my body up, right? And one of the problems that happens in the world today is that people get really frail as they get old. They lose strength.

其實我們絕大多數人都不是這樣。所以，力量很重要。我認為，人們對力量也有誤解。力量是一種能力，你能產生多大的力量，對嗎？而力量是你產生力量的速度。所以，你可以不需要很大的力量，你可以很強壯，但實際上並不一定那麼有力，對嗎？是以，如果我想從椅子上站起來，就需要力量。我必須迅速把身體推上去，對嗎？當今世界出現的一個問題是，人老了就會變得非常虛弱。他們失去了力量。

So hunter-gatherers aren't super strong. They tend to be about 75th percentile for sort of standard measures of strength, like, you know, grip strength tests. So, you know, they're, you know, like 25% of Americans would be stronger than your average hunter-gatherer, right? So they're not super strong. They're strong, but they're not, like, crazy strong.

所以狩獵採集者並不強壯。就力量的標準測量而言，他們的力量往往在75%左右，比如，你知道的，握力測試。所以，你知道，他們，你知道，就像25%的美國人會比普通的狩獵採集者更強壯，對嗎？所以他們不是超級強壯他們很強壯，但並不像瘋子一樣強壯。

But the difference is that as they age, they stay strong. So Americans, as we get older, or Brits, as they get older, you know, the strength declines rapidly. By the time people are in their 60s and 70s, they're pretty frail. But hunter-gatherers remain fairly physically active as they age because they're doing stuff. You know, they don't have can openers. They have to, you know, they don't have jars anyway, but they're, you know, they have to lift things and carry things and do stuff that keeps them strong. And the end result is that they maintain that strength. And that strength is important because one of the real serious, most pernicious issues of aging is a disease, or it's a problem called sarcopenia. Sarco is flesh, and penia is loss.

但不同的是，隨著年齡的增長，他們會保持強壯。美國人隨著年齡的增長，英國人隨著年齡的增長，體力會迅速下降。到六七十歲的時候，他們已經非常虛弱了。但狩獵採集者隨著年齡的增長，體力仍然相當充沛，因為他們在做事情。你知道，他們沒有開罐器。他們必須，你知道，他們沒有罐子，但他們，你知道，他們必須舉起東西，搬運東西，做一些讓他們保持強壯的事情。最終的結果是，他們能保持這種力量。這種力量很重要，因為真正嚴重、最有害的衰老問題之一是一種疾病，或者說是一種叫做 "肌肉疏鬆症 "的問題。Sarco 是肉，penia 是損失。

So it's flesh loss. And as people get older in the West, they tend to lose a lot of strength and power. And that makes basic tasks difficult, like getting out of a chair, you know, going to the bathroom, you know, climbing the stairs, you know, doing chores, you know, going to the store. And when that happens, people become less active. When they become less active, they become less fit, and it kind of sets in motion a really disastrous, vicious cycle, right? And so as we get older, strength training becomes more and more important so that we can avoid those losses of vigor that are really important to maintaining your health and staying strong and staying healthy as we age.

所以，這是肉體的損失。在西方，隨著年齡的增長，人們往往會失去很多力氣和力量。這使得基本的工作變得困難，比如離開椅子、上廁所、爬樓梯、做家務、去商店。一旦出現這種情況，人們就會變得不那麼活躍。當他們變得不那麼活躍時，他們的體能也會變差，這就形成了一個災難性的惡性循環，對嗎？是以，隨著年齡的增長，力量訓練變得越來越重要，這樣我們就能避免活力下降，而活力下降對於保持健康、保持強壯和保持健康非常重要。

I mean, every culture engages in sports, right? It's a human universal. And sports are important for, and they're fun, and they're kind of play, right? And they serve all kinds of functions.

我的意思是，每種文化都有體育運動，對嗎？這是人類的普遍現象。體育運動很重要，很有趣，是一種遊戲，對吧？它們有各種各樣的功能

And sports are socially important, especially when you're children, you learn good sportsmanship, right? You learn not to, if somebody scores a goal on you, it's not appropriate to bash them in the face, you know, that sort of thing. You learn to be, you know, you learn hierarchies, you learn companionship, you learn how to cooperate. There's a lot of wonderful things about being on a team and sports and all that. But some sports also have another origin, which is, I think, to train warriors. It's not coincidental that a lot of the sports, for example, in the Olympics, think about the ancient Olympics especially, were skills that were really important for warriors, right? You know, javelin throwing and chariot racing. Well, we don't do chariot racing anymore. You know, sprinting, wrestling, boxing, right? These are all very kind of physically demanding sports that are kind of combat related, right? So sports have all kinds of different meanings. And of course, the problem is that not everybody enjoys sports, and not all sports are all that physically active. I mean, take baseball, for example, which is a perfectly wonderful game. But I call it a game, not a sport, because you don't really have to be that physically active to play baseball. You have to have incredible reflexes. I mean, it takes a lot of skill to be a great baseball player. But, you know, it's not, you know, maybe if you're stealing bases, you have to be fast. But the vast majority of baseball players don't really actually have to engage in that much physical activity, right? And that's not a criticism of baseball. It's just that let's not equate all sports with physical activity. And I think that kind of an interesting dimension of sports that we never really think about that much is that sports, I think, evolved also to help us learn not to be reactively aggressive. So there's two kinds of aggression. There's reactive aggression. So like, you know, you figured it, like, take my watch, I'd like to be really mad at you, and I might hit you, right? But, you know, that's kind of an instant kind of non-planned, you know, aggression. But, you know, road rage is a perfect example of reactive aggression. But there's also proactive aggression, right? Which is when you plan something, you know, premeditate, you work it out in advance, right?

體育對社會很重要，尤其是當你還是孩子的時候，你會學到良好的體育精神，對嗎？你要學會不要，如果有人在你身上進了一個球，你就不應該打他的臉，你知道，諸如此類的事情。你要學會分等級，學會陪伴，學會合作。在團隊和運動中有很多美好的東西。但有些運動還有另一個起源，我認為是為了訓練戰士。舉例來說，在奧運會上，尤其是在古代奧運會上，很多運動都是對戰士非常重要的技能，這並非巧合，對嗎？你知道，標槍投擲和戰車比賽。我們現在已經不玩戰車比賽了。短跑、摔跤、拳擊，對吧？這些都是非常耗費體力的運動，與戰鬥有關，對吧？所以，運動有

And war is an example of a proactive aggression. I think sports are also kind of proactive aggression sometimes. And in a lot of sports, we teach people not to be reactively aggressive.

戰爭就是主動侵略的一個例子。我認為體育運動有時也是一種主動侵略。在很多體育運動中，我們教導人們不要被動攻擊。

I mean, the extreme to me is tennis, right? You're not even allowed to swear when you're playing tennis, right? But it's perfectly acceptable to be appropriately, proactively aggressive, as long as you're within the rules, right? And that's what humans excel at. We excel at curbing our reactive aggression. And we excel in many cultures, and the US is no exception, at being really good at proactive aggression. That's what we call war.

我的意思是，對我來說最極端的是網球，對嗎？打網球時你甚至不能說髒話，對吧？但只要在規則範圍內，適當地、主動地咄咄逼人是完全可以接受的，對嗎？而這正是人類所擅長的。我們擅長抑制我們的被動攻擊性。在許多文化中，我們都擅長主動進攻，美國也不例外。這就是我們所說的戰爭

I like to try participant observation. You know, I like to try what I study, right? You know,

我喜歡嘗試參與觀察。你知道，我喜歡嘗試我所研究的東西，對吧？你知道的

I like to try barefoot running, and I like to eat foods that other people eat. And when I was working on this chapter on aggression, I realized, you know, I'm a very unaggressive person.

我喜歡嘗試赤腳跑步，喜歡吃別人吃過的食物。當我在寫 "攻擊性 "這一章時，我意識到，我是一個非常沒有攻擊性的人。

And I didn't want to, like, you know, go participate in some kind of brawl in a bar or something like that. But I thought, I'll go to a mixed martial arts fight. That's like, you know, because I've never been to one before. You see them on TV, but it's not the same thing.

我不想，比如，你知道的，去酒吧參加什麼鬥毆之類的。但我想，我還是去看綜合格鬥吧這就像，你知道，因為我從來沒有去過。你在電視上看到過，但那不一樣。

So I went to a mixed martial arts fight, not too far from Boston. And it was a fascinating experience to see, you know, how people, because, you know, mixed martial arts, there are really almost no rules, you know, you're not allowed to kick somebody in the groin, you're not allowed to bite them. And if somebody wants to stop, you know, if they're in peril, you have to stop. But that's about it. There's not a lot of other rules, right? And, you know, apart from a few, you know, fights when I was in school, when people, you know, bullies, you know, hit me and stuff like that. I mean, I've never really, you know, seen a lot of fighting in my life. I've kind of cloistered life. So it was fascinating to go see these mixed martial arts fights and see how people can be, you know, how humans fight. Because, you know, we're as a species, you know, we do fight hand to hand, but most of the fighting that humans do is with weapons, right? You know, we've invented weapons millions of years ago. And it's kind of strange to see people willingly fight each other without the benefit of weapons, right? And what it really shows is just how bad we are as a species, how inadequately adapted we are for combat without weapons. You know, we really are adapted for fighting with weapons. You know, we don't have claws. We don't have fangs. We're bipedal. So we have these big heads that are very vulnerable.

我去看了一場綜合格鬥比賽 就在離波士頓不遠的地方那是一次奇妙的經歷，你知道，人們是怎麼做的，因為，你知道，綜合格鬥，幾乎沒有規則，你知道，你不允許踢別人的腹股溝，你不允許咬別人。如果有人想停手 如果他們處於危險之中 你就必須停手但僅此而已沒有太多其他規則，對吧？你知道，除了我在學校的時候打過幾次架 還有人欺負我，打我之類的我的意思是，我從來沒有真正，你知道， 看到了很多戰鬥在我的生活。我一直過著隱居的生活。所以去看這些綜合格鬥比賽 真是太吸引人了 看看人們是怎樣的 你知道 人類是怎樣格鬥的因為，你知道，我

And so it's really kind of fascinating to see how human fighting is really so different from the way animals fight. You know, going to see a mixed martial arts fight really kind of, at least for me as somebody who's thinking about it from an evolutionary and anthropological perspective, just how much weapons have changed the nature of human aggression. If there's any one physical activity that humans evolved to do, it's to walk. We are the walking champions of, you know, among the world. I mean, we're just, you know, walking is the most fundamental basic form of human physical activity. We know from studies of hunter-gatherers in tropical environments, you know, there's not just one group of people, but people from different parts of the world, that women on average walk about nine kilometers or five miles a day. And men walk on average about 14, 15 kilometers a day, about nine to 10 miles every single day, right? They do it seven days a week. There are no holidays. There's no weekends. There's no retirement. Walking is the way in which humans get around, get food. You know, it's kind of fundamental to who we are as a species.

人類的格鬥方式與動物的格鬥方式大相徑庭 讓人目不暇接你知道，去看一場綜合格鬥，至少對我這個從進化論和人類學角度思考問題的人來說，武器改變了人類攻擊的本質。如果說人類進化過程中需要做什麼體力活動的話，那就是走路。我們是世界上最會走路的人我的意思是，我們只是，你知道，行走是人類最基本的體力活動形式。通過對熱帶環境中的狩獵採集者的研究，我們知道，不僅僅是一個群體，而是來自世界不同地區的人們，女性平均每天步行9公里或5英里。而男性平均每天要走14到15公里 約9到10英里，對吧？他們一週走七天。沒有節假日。沒有周

We often carry when we walk. And today, in the modern sort of Western world with cars and escalators and elevators and, you know, Zoom and, you know, TV and all that sort of stuff, we just don't walk very much. So especially during this pandemic, people have been walking, you know, step counts have plummeted around the world from already pretty low levels. So, you know, the average sort of hunter-gatherer will take maybe, you know, 10, 15,000 steps a day.

我們走路時經常要背東西。而如今，在汽車、自動扶梯、電梯、Zoom、電視等現代西方世界，我們很少走路。是以，特別是在這次大流行病期間，人們的步行次數，你知道的，在全世界範圍內從已經很低的水準直線下降。所以，你知道，一般的狩獵採集者每天也許會走1萬到1.5萬步。

The average American before the pandemic was taking something like 4,700 and something steps a day. So a lot less than our ancestors. And, you know, my step counter for the, you know, when I'm not running, you know, my discount running, I mean, my steps have decreased by about 50% during this pandemic, during COVID, because, you know, I'm not going anywhere.

大流行之前，美國人平均每天要走 4700 步左右。所以比我們的祖先少很多。而且，你知道，我的步數計數器，你知道，當我不跑步時，你知道，我的折扣運行，我的意思是，我的步驟減少了約50％，在這個大流行，在COVID期間，因為，你知道，我不會去任何地方。

You know, I'm traveling to the bathroom and occasionally, you know, I go on a little errand here or there and I walk the dog around the block. But that's about it, right? And one of the misconceptions that, and it's a bit of a debate right now, but people often sort of discount how important walking is because people think that walking really isn't very good for weight control and weight loss. And I would disagree with that. I think it's to be sure that if you walk only, you know, a few miles a day, you're not going to lose very much weight very fast. It's, you know, you don't spend that much energy walking. So if you want to go on a, if you want to lose weight, you know, not eating, you know, bacon or cheese or, you know, other things that are really, you know, sugary things that are full of calories, you're going to go, you're going to lose a lot more calories than if you walk for a few miles, right? But walking is important because even if you do a fair amount, you still will actually lose some weight. You'll just lose small amounts and you'll lose it slowly, but that's still good. But more importantly, walking is, turns out to be an important way to kind of keep your metabolism going to prevent weight gain. And there's a lot of studies which show that physical activity, you know, it's not the best way to lose weight, but it is an important component of preventing people from gaining weight or regaining weight after a diet. So if people go on a diet and then they lose weight and then they stop the diet, they often regain the weight. It's very common. But people go on a diet, lose weight, and then they stay physically active, they're much more likely to keep that weight off. Again, one of the ways which we medicalize exercise in the Western world is we think there's a certain amount you should do, right? We prescribe it, you know? You should have, you should take two aspirin, you should get eight hours of sleep, and you should walk 10,000 steps a day. You know, we like that, right? And there's nothing necessarily wrong with a goal, right? Goals can be really helpful, actually. But 10,000 steps is kind of arbitrary, right? The number actually came from when the first pedometer was invented in Japan before the 1960s Olympics. They were, you know, in the board room, they were trying to decide what to call it. Turns out that 10,000 is a very auspicious number in Japan. And they thought it kind of sounded good. It seemed kind of reasonable. So they called it, you know, 10,000 step monitor. And that kind of stuck. And surprisingly, it turns out that 10,000 steps isn't actually a bad goal, right? It's, if you actually look at what, you know, a lot of, you know, people in non-Western societies do, you know, 10,000 steps isn't actually that far off.

你知道，我去洗手間，偶爾，你知道，我去這裡或那裡辦點事，我帶著狗在街區散步。但僅此而已，對吧？其中一個誤解是，現在有一些爭論，但人們常常認為走路並不重要，因為人們認為走路對控制體重和減肥並沒有什麼好處。我不同意這種觀點。我認為可以肯定的是，如果你每天只走幾英里，你的體重不會很快減輕很多。你知道，走路並不會消耗太多能量。所以，如果你想減肥，你知道，不吃培根、奶酪或其他含有大量熱量的含糖食物，你會比走幾英里路減掉更多的熱量，對嗎？但走路很重要，因為即使你走得不多，實際上還是會減輕一些體重。雖然只是少量，而且減

So it's a perfectly reasonable goal to shoot for. But there's nothing, like, special about it.

是以，這是一個完全合理的目標。但這並沒有什麼特別之處。

If you do 8,000 steps, that's fine. If you do 15,000 steps, that's fine. The important thing is to get, you know, get, be physically active because some is better than none. And a little bit more is, you know, tends to be better than that. But, you know, it's all good. You know, there's no magical number. There's no, it's not a U-shaped curve with a, you know, a bottom on it, right, where that tells you, like, where you should aim for. That doesn't, that does not exist.

如果你走 8000 步，那就沒問題。如果你走 15000 步，也沒問題。重要的是要多運動，你知道，多運動總比不運動好。多走一點，你知道，往往比不走要好。但是，你知道，這一切都很好。你知道，沒有什麼神奇的數字。沒有，它不是一個U型曲線，上面有一個底部，對吧，它告訴你，比如，你應該瞄準哪裡。那是不存在的。

I'm especially interested in running. It's actually one of my major areas of research. And

我對跑步特別感興趣。這實際上是我的主要研究領域之一。而且

I'm interested in how humans evolved to run long distances and what role running plays in our, in our, in our lives and in our evolution. And look, running is the most fundamental form of vigorous physical activity. Walking is the most fundamental form of moderate activity. Running is what we do to be vigorous, right? You know, because there were no ellipticals and, you know, other kinds of machines back in the Stone Age. If you want to get your heart rate up, you probably were running, right? And people ran long distances in order to hunt or scavenge, etc.

我感興趣的是人類是如何進化成長跑的，以及長跑在我們的生活和進化中扮演了什麼角色。你看，跑步是最基本的劇烈運動。步行是最基本的中度運動。跑步是我們進行劇烈運動的方式，對嗎？你知道，因為在石器時代沒有橢圓機和其他健身器材。如果你想提高心率，你可能會跑步，對嗎？人們長距離奔跑是為了狩獵或覓食等等。

But running today is kind of, you know, a very popular sport, way to exercise. And a lot of sports use a lot of running. You know, a typical soccer player will run, you know, five, six miles in a game. So, so running is, there's a lot of ways in which people run. And, but, but, but people are kind of exercised about running too, like there are so many other kinds of physical activity.

但如今，跑步是一種，你知道的，非常流行的運動和鍛鍊方式。很多運動都需要大量的跑步。你知道，一個典型的足球運動員一場比賽要跑五六英里。所以，跑步有很多方式。不過，不過，不過，不過，人們對跑步也很有興趣，就像還有很多其他種類的體育活動一樣。

And one of the biggest myths about running is that it'll destroy your knees. And, and like all myths, this is a bit complicated, because it is true that the most common injuries that runners experience are knee injuries, right? But there are kind of two kinds of knee injuries. Some knee injuries are caused by, you know, by your muscles being kind of out of whack, and, you know, you kind of pull a ligament or you pull a tendon or something like that, or your IT band, etc.

關於跑步的最大迷思之一就是跑步會毀掉你的膝蓋。就像所有的神話一樣，這個說法有點複雜，因為跑步者最常見的損傷確實是膝蓋，對吧？但膝傷有兩種。有些膝傷是由於，你知道，你的肌肉出了問題，你知道，你拉傷了韌帶，或你拉傷了肌腱或類似的東西，或你的IT帶等造成的。

But those are injuries that you can recover from. And the other kind of injury are wear and tear injuries, which you can't recover from, the worst being osteoarthritis. And the idea that running too much wears out your joints is just wrong. It's just fundamentally, completely wrong.

但這些損傷是可以恢復的。而另一種損傷是磨損性損傷，無法恢復，最嚴重的是骨關節炎。認為跑步過多會磨損關節的觀點是錯誤的。從根本上說，這是完全錯誤的。

You know, it's like, you know, if you think about your joints, like the shock absorber in your car, it's just like, it's just nonsense. There's tons and tons of studies, more than a dozen, randomized, controlled, perspective, gold standard studies, which show that people who run more are not more likely to get arthritis. In fact, lots of research shows, and research from my lab among them, that physical activities like running actually cause your joints to repair themselves and to stay healthy. The other kinds of running injuries, so you're not going to destroy your knees by running, at least in terms of arthritis. But if you have arthritis and you run, it can be excruciating. You can exacerbate it. The other kinds of running injuries, I think that a lot of them are caused because people, we don't learn how to run properly anymore. I think running is a skill, right? Like swimming or throwing or, you know, all kinds of other things that we do. And we don't learn the skill that much of running anymore in the Western world. But the cultures

你知道，這就像，你知道，如果你想想你的關節，就像你車上的減震器，這就像，這只是無稽之談。有數不清的研究，十幾項隨機對照的金標準研究表明，跑步多的人並不會更容易得關節炎。事實上，大量研究表明，其中包括我的實驗室的研究，像跑步這樣的體育活動實際上會讓你的關節自我修復，保持健康。其他類型的跑步傷害，所以你不會因為跑步而毀掉你的膝蓋，至少在關節炎方面是這樣。但如果你有關節炎，跑步會讓你痛苦不堪。你可能會加重病情。其他類型的跑步損傷，我認為很多都是因為人們不再學習如何正確跑步而造成的。我認為跑步是一項技能，對嗎？就

I work in, like, you know, you ask people about running, they believe that it's a skill and that there's like a right way to run and a wrong way to run. And how do they learn the right way to run?

我的工作就像，你知道，你問人們關於跑步的問題，他們認為跑步是一種技能，有正確的跑步方法和錯誤的跑步方法。那他們怎麼才能學會正確的跑步方法呢？

Well, they imitate people who are really good. They'll actually follow them. Like in Kenya, like a good runner will run in the front and then people will run behind him or her and imitate their, the way they run. They'll move their arms and legs, etc. They'll imitate them to try to learn that person's skill, just as we do that for, you know, we watch, you know, Andre Agassi hit a backhand, you know, try to hit the backhand in the same way. And the other thing is that we also use these cushioned running shoes, etc. And we run in different ways. And I think running shoes enable you to slam into the ground so you don't learn to run lightly and gently. And we overstride, we have overly slow cadences. And the other thing is that when people run in other cultures, especially in the Stone Age, you know, they didn't run every day and they weren't running, you know, they didn't stand on one line and run 26.2 miles to another line as fast as they could on a regular basis. And they'd probably go running maybe once a week or something like that, you know. So the idea that you go running five, six times a week, which is what I do, you know, and for long distances on pavement, etc. These are all kind of weird, strange Western things. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with them. And there's nothing necessarily harmful about them. You have to learn how to do it properly. And you have to build up enough strength and learn the skills of running. But let's not scare people off running. I think the most pernicious, the most serious, the most problematic, the most concerning way in which we think about exercise in the Western world is that as people get older, it's kind of normal to be less physically active. And I think that maybe the most important argument that I make in my book is that that's actually really problematic. Because, you know, we evolved, we're a unique species. We evolved to live long after we stopped reproducing. We evolved to be grandparents, basically. And the reason we evolved to be grandparents is that grandparents in foraging societies and also in farming societies are active. They go out and they hunt and they gather or they work in the fields and they help get food for their children and their grandchildren. And that physical activity helps their reproductive success, right? Because they make it more likely for their children and grandchildren to survive and they make it easier for their children to be parents, right? But there's another benefit. And the other benefit is that physical activity is important because it turns on repair and maintenance mechanisms. When you're physically active, you stress your body. You produce what's called reactive oxygen species, which cause cellular damage throughout your body. It causes mutations. It causes inflammation. It causes cells to get kind of cruddy, proteins to get kind of cruddy. But because that's normal, our bodies turn on all kinds of repair and maintenance mechanisms that counter those. We produce antioxidants. Our muscles produce all kinds of molecules that turn down the inflammation of our bodies that causes a wide range of diseases. We repair our muscles. We repair our bones. We repair our brains. We turn on like hundreds, maybe thousands of genes that get turned on by exercise that they're involved in repair and maintenance. And as we get older, that repair and maintenance becomes really important because it prevents senescence. It prevents our bodies from decaying.

他們會模仿那些真正優秀的人。他們會跟著他們跑。就像在肯亞，跑得好的人會跑在最前面，然後人們會跑在他或她後面，模仿他們跑步的樣子。他們會移動胳膊和腿等等。他們會模仿他們，試圖學習那個人的技巧，就像我們做的那樣，你知道，我們看安德烈-阿加西打反手，你知道，試圖用同樣的方式打反手。還有一點就是，我們也會使用這種緩衝跑鞋等等。我們用不同的方式跑步。我認為跑鞋會讓你撞到地面，所以你學不會輕盈地跑步。我們的步幅過大，節奏過慢。還有一點，在其他文化中，尤其是石器時代，人們跑步時，並不是每天都跑，也不是經常跑，他們不會站

So when people become physically inactive as they get older, they're no longer turning on those mechanisms that we evolved to use, right, that help us age better and makes us more vulnerable to disease and we age faster. So we evolved to live long in order to be physically active. And that physical activity helps us to live longer and stay healthy because there's an important distinction between healthspan and lifespan, right? We often think about the effects of physical activity on lifespan, how long you live. But really, before the invention of modern medicine, what determined how long you lived was actually how long you were healthy, your healthspan.

是以，當人們隨著年齡的增長而變得不愛運動時，他們就不再開啟那些我們進化過程中使用的機制，對吧，這些機制可以幫助我們更好地衰老，使我們更容易受到疾病的侵襲，我們也會衰老得更快。是以，我們進化得長壽，就是為了保持身體的活躍。體育鍛煉有助於我們活得更長，保持健康，因為健康壽命和壽命之間有一個重要的區別，對嗎？我們經常會想到體育鍛煉對壽命的影響，即你能活多久。但實際上，在現代醫學發明之前，決定你活多久的實際上是你健康的時間，也就是你的健康壽命。

And so healthspan is really the key thing. And what physical activity does is it increases your healthspan and your healthspan therefore increases your lifespan. And until recently, that was what it was all about. And so as we get older, let's not cut back on the physical activity. Let's maintain it. You do some strength, do some endurance. And the evidence is incontrovertible.

是以，健康壽命才是真正的關鍵。體育鍛煉能延長人的健康壽命，而健康壽命又能延長人的壽命。直到最近，人們才意識到這一點。是以，隨著年齡的增長，我們不要減少體育鍛煉。讓我們保持運動。做一些力量運動，做一些耐力運動。證據確鑿

There's tons of data which show that as we get older, the more we age, the more physical activity is really beneficial. The most famous study that kind of started all this was actually done at Harvard University. It's called the Harvard Alumni Health Study. And they did it because universities are really good at keeping track of their alums. They constantly ask you for money, right? And so they never lose track of alumni. And so a fellow named Ralph Paffenbarger was at the medical school at Harvard, got the Harvard alumni office to let him find out from alumni what kind of physical activity they were doing. And he asked them health questions and find out how healthy they were and also find out when they died. And what he showed was that younger alums, so one of the advantages of the study is that it kind of controls for socioeconomic status, right? Because these are all Harvard alums back from the old days when they're all basically rich white people, right? So the younger alums who were physically active, they had like 20% lower death rates. So that's good, right? By the time they got to their 70s, the alums who were more active had like 50% lower death rates. And other studies have found the same thing, that physical activity as you get older is more important, not less important for preserving your health. Well, I think there's two issues about the medicalization of exercise. So look, exercise is very medicalized. It's also very commodified, right? And there's nothing wrong with either, right? There's nothing wrong with having fun sports clothes and gyms. And there's nothing wrong with doctors telling people to exercise and all that. But the problem is that it doesn't really work too well. It doesn't get a lot of people motivated. And the proof of that is that 80% of Americans don't get minimum levels of physical activity. And the other problem is that exercise doesn't really fit a medical prescription in a very simple way. There's like no optimal dose, right? People want to know how much to do it and exactly, and there is no answer to that question, right? And then finally, in a way, it's not so much that exercise is medicine, which is what we often say. It's really that the absence of exercise or the absence of physical activity is harmful. And so you're kind of just basically restoring to the body what it kind of essentially needs. And although that sounds like a kind of a trivial distinction, actually, I think it's really profound because it helps us understand on a deep level, you know, the kinds of dosages of physical activity and their effects and how they affect our vulnerability and susceptibility to various kinds of diseases and why it's not really a magic bullet. I mean, people can look at, there are lots of people we can think of, like the last president of the United States, who doesn't exercise, right? And he's in his 70s and looks like he's doing just fine, right? So you don't have to exercise to live a long life. And that makes people kind of, I think, suspicious about the medicalization of exercise. We like to be told what to do. We like to think, you know, you should take X milligrams of this medicine, etc. So you should exercise this many hours a week, right?

有大量數據表明，隨著年齡的增長，年齡越大，體育鍛煉就越有益。最有名的一項研究是由哈佛大學發起的。這項研究名為 "哈佛校友健康研究"。他們之所以做這項研究，是因為大學非常善於追蹤校友。他們經常向你要錢，對吧？所以他們從來不會失去校友的資訊於是一位名叫拉爾夫-帕芬巴格的研究員 在哈佛大學醫學院的時候 讓哈佛校友辦公室 讓他從校友那裡瞭解到 他們都在做哪些體育鍛煉他還向校友們詢問健康問題，瞭解他們的健康狀況，以及他們的死亡時間。結果顯示，年輕的校友，所以這項研究的優勢之一是，它控制了社會經濟地位，對嗎？因為這些

We want to know what the optimal dose is. But there is no optimal dose, right? Because first of all, we're all experiments of one, right? You might be young, you might be old, you might be male, you might be female, you might be fit, you might be unfit, you might be living in a suburb, you might be living in a city, you know, you might be previously injured, you might be worried about heart disease, you might be worried about Alzheimer's. There's no one outcome and there's no one nature. It's impossible to prescribe one dose for everybody. So that's one thing.

我們想知道最佳劑量是多少。但並不存在最佳劑量，對嗎？因為首先，我們都是一個人的實驗品，對吧？你可能年輕，你可能年老，你可能是男性，你可能是女性，你可能健康，你可能不健康，你可能住在郊區，你可能住在城市，你可能以前受過傷，你可能擔心心臟病，你可能擔心老年痴呆症。沒有統一的結果，也沒有統一的本質。不可能給每個人開一種劑量的藥。所以這是一方面。

And then the other thing is that everything involves trade-offs, right? Exercise is no exception, right? If you exercise more, that's great for some things, but you also could have some negative effects on other things, the most common one being injury, right? You're more likely to hurt yourself, right? So for the vast majority of people, what they're trying to figure out is how to just get enough exercise, right? And I think the important message that often is missed is that if you're physically inactive and you're struggling to be more active, anything is better than nothing. And you don't need to run marathons, you don't need to do a couch to 5k, you don't need to even do necessarily 150 minutes a week, right? Even an hour a week will be better than nothing, right? It can actually lower, on average, somebody's rate of mortality by 30%. If you can get up to 150 minutes a week, on average, it will lower somebody's mortality rate by about 50%. More is better, but eventually it kind of tails off. And so there's no one perfect dose, there's no one perfect type, and I think helping people understand that, I think, relieves them of some of the stress. There's a big debate about whether you can exercise too much, and the answer is that most people think it's true, but we actually don't have a lot of evidence for that. So there was a study that actually just came out from the UK Biobank, huge study of just about everybody in England, right? Large numbers of people in England, along with genetic data, by the way. And of course, there's very, very few people who are doing a huge amount of exercise.

還有一點就是，任何事情都要有所取捨，對吧？運動也不例外，對吧？如果你鍛鍊得更多，對某些事情來說是件好事，但你也可能對其他事情產生一些負面影響，最常見的就是受傷，對嗎？你更有可能傷害自己，對嗎？是以，對於絕大多數人來說，他們想知道的是如何獲得足夠的運動量，對嗎？我認為，人們經常忽略的一個重要資訊是，如果你缺乏運動，你正在努力變得更加活躍，那麼做任何事情都比什麼都不做強。你不需要跑馬拉松，你不需要在沙發上跑 5 公里，你甚至不需要每週做 150 分鐘的運動，對嗎？一週一小時也比什麼都不做強，對吧？實際上，平均

It's a tiny, tiny number of individuals at the end of the curve there, but there's no evidence from that study that the people doing ridiculous amounts of exercise, 30 hours a week or so, had actually any negative effects. And the same is true of some studies that were done in the

這只是曲線末端的極少數人，但這項研究沒有證據表明，那些每週運動 30 小時左右、運動量大得離譜的人有任何負面影響。同樣的情況也出現在一些研究中。

United States. So yes, it's possible, but there's not a lot of evidence. But I'm not really worried about those folks. There's still a few of them. The vast majority of people we're worried about are on the other end of the extreme, who are not getting enough, and let's worry about that.

美國。所以，是有可能，但證據不多。但我真的不擔心那些人。他們還是少數。我們擔心的絕大多數人都是極端的另一端，他們沒有得到足夠的食物，讓我們擔心這個問題吧。

We've medicalized, and this sounds like a strange way of speaking, but we've medicalized disease, right? We've medicalized health, right? For a lot of people, health is the absence of disease.

我們已經將疾病醫療化，這聽起來像是一種奇怪的說法，但我們已經將疾病醫療化，對嗎？我們把健康醫療化了，對嗎？對很多人來說，健康就是沒有疾病。

And it is true to a large extent, but health can also be just vigor, vitality, the ability to do what you want. Somebody can have a disability and still be healthy, for example. So what's really important about physical activity and exercise is that it reduces our vulnerability to a wide range of diseases. So you can not exercise and still live a long and healthy life. You can exercise and still get cancer and heart disease and all kinds of other diseases. It's just that physical activity lowers your risk of most of those diseases. And we know that both epidemiologically, we know in terms of the probability that you'll get those diseases if you exercise a certain amount, but we also know how that works based on a wide range of mechanisms. And the most important benefit of exercise is that it decreases inflammation. So inflammation is when your immune system essentially starts to attack you, yourself, right? So if you get a bacterial infection or a viral infection, your immune system kicks into high gear and you attack those invaders. But your immune system can also go on the offensive at such a very low level, that's called chronic inflammation, that you can't really detect it, but it's still there. And it's still kind of attacking things. And it can start attacking your own body. And that leads to heart disease. It leads to diabetes. It leads to Alzheimer's. It leads to osteoarthritis.

這在很大程度上是對的，但健康也可以是活力、生命力以及做自己想做的事情的能力。例如，有人可能身患殘疾，但仍然很健康。是以，體力活動和鍛鍊的真正重要性在於，它能降低我們對各種疾病的易感性。是以，你可以不鍛鍊，但仍然可以健康長壽。你可以鍛鍊身體，但仍然會得癌症、心臟病和其他各種疾病。只是體育鍛煉會降低你罹患大多數疾病的風險。我們從流行病學的角度知道，我們知道如果你做一定量的運動，就有可能患上這些疾病，但我們也知道這是如何在廣泛的機制基礎上發揮作用的。運動最重要的益處在於它能減少發炎。發炎就是你的免疫系統開始攻擊

It leads to a wide range of diseases. And one of the huge benefits of exercise is that it lowers those levels of inflammation. It does so through a number of mechanisms. One is by getting your muscles active, those muscles actually turn down the inflammation with various molecules. The other way is that it reduces the fat around your belly, visceral fat, belly fat, which is very pro-inflammatory. And so the combination of these various consequences of exercise have enormous implications for just lowering people's chances of getting a wide range of chronic diseases that are very debilitating. We spend so much time thinking about how exercise, physical activity is so good for physical health, for diseases that range from heart disease to cancer, et cetera. And that's all true. Not in any way want to minimize that. But I think we often undervalue just how important physical activity is for mental health.

它會導致多種疾病。而運動的巨大好處之一就是能降低發炎水準。它是通過多種機制實現的。其一是讓你的肌肉活躍起來，這些肌肉實際上通過各種分子來降低發炎。另一種方式是，它可以減少腹部周圍的脂肪，內臟脂肪，腹部脂肪，這是非常有利於發炎的。是以，運動的這些不同後果的結合對於降低人們罹患各種慢性疾病的機率有著巨大的影響，而這些疾病都會使人衰弱不堪。我們花了那麼多時間思考運動、體育鍛煉是如何有益於身體健康，有益於從心臟病到癌症等各種疾病。這些都是事實。我們絕不想貶低這一點。但我認為，我們往往低估了體育鍛煉對心理健康的重要

When you're physically active, your brain turns on a whole cocktail of chemicals that are really good for you. It turns on dopamine and serotonin, which are important for anxiety and depression and mood. You produce opioids, which of course can make you happy. And even in extreme cases, endocannabinoids, which can make you high and make you feel really good.

當你進行體育鍛煉時，你的大腦會開啟一整套對你有益的化學物質。多巴胺和血清素對焦慮、抑鬱和情緒很重要。你會產生阿片類物質，這當然會讓你快樂。甚至在極端情況下，內源性大麻素也會讓你興奮，讓你感覺非常好。

And study after study after study shows that physical activity has important immediate benefits on people's mental health. And so one of the crises I think of the pandemic has been as people's physical activity levels down, I think it's partly responsible for some of the stress and the anxiety and the depression that's on the rise recently today. And one way to help, simple way to help folks. I mean, it's not a magic bullet. It's not going to cure it overnight. But it's certainly a potent part of our tool to help people is to help people be more physically active. It has enormous effects on people's mood and mental health. We think so much about exercise in terms of elite athletics. The fastest, the highest jumping, the strongest, et cetera. Because you turn on the TV and that's where we see amazing athletes do amazing things. And it's wonderful. It's great entertainment. But that's actually kind of what it is. It's actually entertainment. I mean, what the world's fastest runners are able to do or the world's best basketball players are able to do have almost nothing to do with what most of us do. I mean, I can run. I'm a pretty good runner.

一項又一項的研究表明，體育鍛煉對人們的心理健康有著立竿見影的效果。是以，我認為大流行病的危機之一就是人們的體育鍛煉水準下降，我認為這在一定程度上造成了壓力、焦慮和抑鬱，而這些症狀最近正在上升。幫助人們的方法很簡單。我的意思是，這不是靈丹妙藥。它不會在一夜之間治癒它。但它肯定是我們幫助人們的工具中有效的一部分，那就是幫助人們更加積極地參加體育鍛煉。它對人們的情緒和心理健康有著巨大的影響。我們常常從精英競技的角度來看待運動。最快、跳得最高、最強壯等等。因為打開電視，我們就能看到令人驚歎的運動員做出驚人的成績。

And I struggle to run like a six minute mile. And the world's best marathoners are running 440 miles for 26 miles. I mean, I can't even dream of that. I can't run one mile that fast. I can't even run a half a mile that fast. And so we get this kind of, I think, sometimes a perverted idea about what's normal from elite athletics. Because we're looking at the extremes, the best of the best of the best of the best of the best. And while that's amazing and impressive, these are people who've spent years of their lives training to do just one thing and one thing really well.

而我卻努力跑出 6 分鐘一英里的成績。而世界上最棒的馬拉松選手 卻在26英里內跑了440英里我連做夢都不敢想我連一英里都跑不快我連半英里都跑不快是以，我認為，我們有時會對精英競技產生一種變態的想法，認為什麼才是正常的。因為我們看到的是極端，是精英中的精英，精英中的精英。這固然令人驚歎和印象深刻，但這些人多年來一直在訓練，只為做好一件事。

That's not what most of us do. And they've gotten lucky in the genetic lottery. They've got a lot of genes, which I don't have, which give them certain kinds of capabilities. And I do worry that sometimes our focus on elite athletics can actually be off-putting rather than inspiring.

我們大多數人可不是這麼做的。他們的基因很幸運他們有很多我沒有的基因，這些基因賦予了他們某種能力。我確實擔心，有時我們對精英競技體育的關注實際上會令人反感，而不是鼓舞人心。

I think that one of the things that people really struggle with when I talk to them about the research that I do is that they struggle to understand both the nature of research in general, but also evolutionary research in particular. Because research is a process. You never know the truth. And so when I pick up a paper written by somebody else or my own work, or when I do an experiment, I'm not trying to think, oh, can I prove this? What I'm trying to actually do is say, can I disprove this? And I'm trying to be really critical about it.

我認為，當我向人們介紹我所做的研究時，他們真正感到困惑的是，他們很難理解研究的本質，尤其是進化研究。因為研究是一個過程。你永遠不會知道真相。是以，當我拿起一篇別人寫的論文或我自己的工作，或者當我做一個實驗時，我並不是在想，哦，我能證明這一點嗎？我想做的實際上是說，我能反駁這個嗎？我試圖對其進行真正的批判。

So when we think about, for example, the effects of physical activity and exercise on the body,

是以，舉例來說，當我們思考體育活動和鍛鍊對身體的影響時、