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

Jessica Lahey

做白日梦，看上去是懒散，是不务正业。所以当孩子们做白日梦时，大人总会打断他们。其实白日梦是一个极为有益的神经活动过程，可以帮助缓解考试和睡眠不足带来的焦虑，也可以成为灵感的来源。这样一来，我们终于可以心安理得尽享白日梦了。

Today’s children are exhausted, and not just because one in three kids is not getting sufficient sleep.3. exhausted： 疲惫的，筋疲力尽的；sufficient： 足够的，充分的。Sleep deprivation in kids (who require at least nine hours a night, depending on age) has been found to significantly decrease academic achievement,lower standardized achievement and intelligence test scores, stunt physical growth, encourage drug and alcohol use, heighten moodiness and irritability, exacerbate symptoms of ADD, and dramatically increase the likelihood of car accidents among teens.4. 研究发现，睡眠不足（一般来说，孩子每晚需要至少九小时的睡眠，具体时间视年龄而定）会导致孩子学习成绩下降，标准测试和IQ测验的分数更低，身体发育受阻，嗑药和酗酒的几率更高，喜怒无常，心烦气躁，多动症（ADD）的症状更为严重，出车祸的概率飙升。deprivation： 剥夺，匮乏；stunt growth： 阻碍发育（或生长）；heighten： 加剧，提高；moodiness： 喜怒无常，闷闷不乐；irritability： 易怒，烦躁；exacerbate： 使……加剧，使……恶化；ADD： 即Attention Deficit Disorder，注意力缺陷障碍，最主要的症状是频繁地、不自觉地走神；likelihood： 可能性。While the argument for protecting our children’s sleep time is compelling, there is another kind of rest that is equally underestimated and equally beneficial to our children’s academic, emotional, and creative lives: daydreaming.5. compelling： 引人注目的，激发兴趣的；underestimate：低估，看轻；beneficial： 有益的，有利的。

I’ve been reading about daydreaming extensively lately, and it has caused me regret every time I roused one of my students out of their reverie so they would start working on something “more productive.”6. extensively： 广泛地；rouse： 唤醒，使……醒来；reverie： 幻想，白日梦；work on： 致力于，从事。Daydreaming has been found to be anything but counter-productive7. counter-productive： 产生相反效果的，适得其反的。. It may just be the hidden wellspring of creativity and learning in the guise of idleness.8. wellspring： 源泉；in the guise of： 假借，以……为幌子；idleness： 懒惰，闲散。

Not all mental downtime is alike, of course. Downtime spent playing a video game or zoning out9. zone out：（使）变得头昏脑胀。with a television show may have its charms, but the kind of downtime I am talking about is different. I’m talking about the kind of mind-wandering that happens when the brain is free of interruption and allowed to unhook from the runaway train of the worries of the day.10.我所讲是一种“心不在焉”，这时大脑完全不受外界干扰，并能从当天的重重心事中解脱出来。mind-wandering： 走神；unhook： 解开，从……取下；runaway： 失控的。Television, videogames, and other electronic distractions prevent this kind of mental wandering because they interrupt the flow of thoughts and memories that cement the foundation of positive, productive daydreaming.11. distraction： 分心的事物；prevent： 妨碍，阻止；cement： 巩固，加强。

Legendary cognitive psychologist Jerome L. Singer goes so far as to call daydreaming our default mental state.12. Jerome L. Singer： 杰罗姆·辛格，认知心理学家，美国耶鲁大学心理学教授，进行了大量有关儿童心理的研究，1962年与心理学家斯坦利·沙切特一起进行了一项著名的有关认知对情绪影响的实验，由此实验得出的关于情绪激励的认知学说主宰情绪研究达20年之久；default： 默认的。Singer proposed in his 1966 book,Daydreaming: an Introduction to the Experimental Study of Inner Experience, that we have two mental networks, working memory and daydreaming. The two cannot operate at the same time, so when we engage our working memory network, we shut off our daydreaming network.13. 两者不能同时运行，因此当我们启用工作记忆网络时就必须切断“白日梦”网络。 engage： 占用；shut off： 切断，关掉。

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

Scott Barry Kaufman, cognitive psychologist and author ofUngifted:Intelligence Redefined, argues that while this dreamy, reflective state might look like idleness to an outside observer, daydreaming kids are at work.15. Scott Barry Kaufman： 斯科特·巴里·考夫曼，认知科学家，性格心理学家，纽约大学心理学助理教授。Ungifted： Intelligence Redefined： 《无才：智力的重新定义》；reflective： 沉思的。“Ode to Positive Constructive Daydreaming”—an article Kaufman cowrote with Rebecca McMillan—reads:

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

These rewards include self-awareness, creative incubation, improvisation and evaluation, memory consolidation, autobiographical planning, goal driven thought,future planning, retrieval of deeply personal memories, reflective consideration of the meaning of events and experiences, simulating the perspective of another person, evaluating the implications of self and others’ emotional reactions, moral reasoning, and reflective compassion.16. 这些益处包括自我意识，培养创造性，即兴创作和评估，加强记忆，自传安排，目标导向思维，未来规划，重拾深藏的个人记忆，反思事件和经历的意义，换位思考，自我暗示评估，他人情绪反应评估和反射性同情。incubation： 酝酿，培养；improvisation： 即兴创作，即兴发挥；retrieval： 重新找回，检索；simulate： 模仿，假装。”

In other words, daydreaming only appears lazy from the outside, but viewed from the inside—or from the perspective of a psychologist, such as Kaufman,or a neuroscientist, such as Mary Helen Immordino-Yang—a complicated and extremely productive neurological process is taking place.17. view： 观察；neuroscientist： 神经系统科学家；Mary Helen Immordino-Yang： 玛丽·海伦·爱莫迪诺-杨，心理学家，美国加州大学心理学教授。Viewed from the inside, our children are exploring the only space where they truly have autonomy18. autonomy： 自主，自主权。:their own minds.

Immordino-Yang’s work on the virtue19. virtue： 优点，长处。of mental downtime includes the paper “Rest is not Idleness: Implications of the Brain’s Default Mode for Human Development and Education.” The title quotes a 19th-century British banker named John Lubbock, who wrote, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”20. murmur： 潺潺声；by no means：决不，一点也不。Lubbock, according to Immordino-Yang, was way ahead of his time in understanding the value of idleness to our essential neurological functioning.21. way： adv. 大大地，远远地；functioning： 运行，运作。What Lubbock called rest, Immordino-Yang calls “constructive internal reflection,” and she considers it is vital to learning and emotional well-being:

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

One aspect of Immordino-Yang’s paper is particularly relevant in today’s educational climate. She describes a study that shows mental downtime can alleviate23. alleviate： 减轻，缓和。the stress of standardized testing. The burden of periodic high-stakes testing is a source of stress for educators and students alike, but for students with test anxiety, these tests are particularly onerous and anxiety-provoking.24. 周期性、高风险的考试对教师与学生都是一种压力来源，而对那些有考试焦虑症的学生来说，这些考试更显得十分繁重，而且会引发焦虑。periodic： 周期性的；highstakes： 高风险；onerous： 繁重的，麻烦的。

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

“Expressive writing eliminates the relation commonly seen between test anxiety and poor test performance.25. expressive： 有表现力的，表达性的；eliminate： 消除。Moreover, it is not any writing that benefits performance, but expressing worries about an upcoming highpressure situation that accounts for enhanced exam scores under pressure.26. benefit： 有益于，对……有益，upcoming：即将来临的，account for： 解释，说明；enhanced： 提高的。”

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

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

Teach your kids how to just be. How to value silence and be at peace with nothing but their thoughts to occupy them. Make the romantic notion of laying back on the soft grass with nothing to do other than to watch the clouds pass overhead a reality. Teach them that, as Michael Pollan32. Michael Pollan： 迈克尔·波伦(1955—），美国作家、专栏作家、新闻学教授及伯克莱加州大学科学和环境新闻学奈特项目的主任。writes, “daydreaming is its own reward. For regardless of the result (if any), the very process of daydreaming is pleasurable.” To paraphrase two of my favorite dreamers,William Shakespeare and W.H. Auden, round out our children’s days with sleep and allow them to build their air castles undisturbed.33. paraphrase： 改写，改述；W.H. Auden：威斯坦·休·奥登，英裔美国诗人，被公认为艾略特之后最重要的英语诗人，以能用从古到今各种诗体写作著称，代表作有《西班牙》、《新年书信》、《忧虑的时代》等；round out： 完成；air castle：白日梦，空中楼阁。