外刊阅读 | livescience | 你为什么会拖延？

Who will be the next athlete to grace the Century Box Series? Wheaties isn’t saying, but rest assured it will be someone who definitely deserves the prized spot.

谁将是下一个为世纪盒子系列增光添彩的运动员?Wheaties没有说，但请放心，肯定会有人配得上这个珍贵的位置。

Why do we procrastinate?

我们为什么会拖延？

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The dawn of a new year marks a fresh start and motivates many people to break bad habits. Some are easier to shake than others, however, and the tendency to procrastinate is among the stickiest.Whether it's finishing a piece of work, sending an email or going for a run, some tasks can feel insurmountable. The easiest way to avoid these tasks is to put them off until later or to never complete them at all. But why do people procrastinate, and is there anything we can do to reduce this tendency? 

"At its heart, procrastination is about avoidance," Fuschia Sirois, a professor of psychology at the University of Durham in the U.K., told Live Science. Rather than the task itself, however, it's often the emotions attached to an activity that cause people to recoil, she said. Tackling the first lines of a college essay may bring up feelings of self-doubt, for example. When you're faced with a broad question or topic to write about, the lack of clear instructions can trigger a fear of not getting it right or of what might happen if you get it wrong, Sirois said.

Procrastination is a specific form of delay that is both unnecessary and voluntary, meaning it isn't caused by the person's need to prioritize other tasks or by an unforeseen emergency, Sirois said. The person procrastinating usually does so despite knowing that the task is important or valuable to them or others, and that putting it off could be detrimental to them or others, she added.Chronic procrastinators typically struggle to manage and regulate their emotions, Sirois said. In a 2021 brain imaging study, Sirois and her colleagues found that college students with a higher volume of gray matter in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — a region of the brain associated with self-control — were less prone to procrastination than their peers were. The more neural connections there were between this part of the brain and the frontal regions, the better the students were at regulating negative emotions, focusing on long-term benefits and sticking with tasks. Those with fewer connections between those areas were more likely to procrastinate at the cost of future rewards, the researchers concluded.

"Like any personality trait, there are some biological underpinnings," Sirois said. Research suggests that procrastination is linked to impulsivity on a genetic level and may be a heritable trait. Sirois agreed that "there can be some genetic underpinnings, but that doesn't mean you're stuck and that's who you are."

"Procrastination becomes a quick, easy and 'dirty' way of coping with something, albeit in an avoidant way, when your coping resources are maxed out," Sirois said. But procrastination can pile on more stress by leaving a task hanging over a person's head, thus triggering a vicious cycle that can damage mental health, lower academic performance and lead to financial distress. 

At its heart, procrastination is about avoidance.

拖延的本质就是逃避。

In the case of a college essay or work assignment, it may help to clarify any uncertainties about what the task actually is or to break it down into smaller tasks, Sirois said. Finding something meaningful about the task and rewarding yourself for finishing it might also be helpful, she added.

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