英语学习：有压力时你如何保持镇静（二）

What about travel? Take a cell phone picture of your credit cards, your driver"s license, your passport, mail it to yourself so it"s in the cloud. If these things are lost or stolen, you can facilitate replacement.

关于旅行呢？用手机拍下你信用卡的照片，还有你的驾照和护照，把这些照片发到你的电子邮箱，储存在数据云端。如果一旦丢失或被盗了，你可以很方便地用电子件代替它们。

Now these are some rather obvious things. Remember, when you"re under stress, the brain releases cortisol. Cortisol is toxic, and it causes cloudy thinking. So part of the practice of the pre-mortem is to recognize that under stress you"re not going to be at your best, and you should put systems in place.

cortisol["ktsl]：n. ［生］皮质(甾)醇

toxic["tɑksk]：adj. 有毒的

这些是一些显而易见的事前剖析方法。记住，当你有压力时，大脑会释放皮质醇。皮质醇是有毒的，它会导致思维不清晰。所以，做事前剖析的练习，是要认识到在压力下，你不是在最佳状态，你还应该把事情做到井然有序。

And there"s perhaps no more stressful a situation than when you"re confronted with a medical decision to make. And at some point, all of us are going to be in that position, where we have to make a very important decision about the future of our medical care or that of a loved one, to help them with a decision.

不过也许没有什么比你要做医疗决策更紧张的情况了。有时，我们都会经历这种事情，我们必须要做出一个很重要的决策，为我们自己或自己爱的人做医疗决策。

And so I want to talk about that. And I"m going to talk about a very particular medical condition. But this stands as a proxyfor all kinds of medical decision-making, and indeed for financial decision-making, and social decision-making-any kind of decision you have to make that would benefit from a rational assessment of the facts.

proxy["prɑksi]：n. 代理人；代理权；委托书；adj. 代理的

indeed[n"did]：adv. 真正地；的确，确实；事实上；甚至

rational["rnl]：adj. 合理的；理性的；能推理的；n. 有理数

所以，我想谈谈这个话题。我要说一个非常特殊的医疗情况。但它代表了各种决策：医疗决策，当然还有财政决策和社交决策——任何你必须做的决策，可以让你从理性的事实评估中受益。

So suppose you go to your doctor and the doctor says," I just got your lab work back, your cholesterol"s a little high." Now, you all know that high cholesterolis associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke. And so you"re thinking having high cholesterol isn"t the best thing, and so the doctor says," You know, I"d like to give you a drug that will help you lower your cholesterol, a statin." And you"ve probably heard of statins, you know that they"re among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world today, you probably even know people who take them. And so you"re thinking,"Yeah! Give me the statin."

cholesterol[k"lestrl]：n. 胆固醇

cardiovascular[kɑrdio"vskjlr]：adj. 心脏血管的

statin["sttn]：抑制素

假设你去看医生，而医生说，“我刚拿到你验血结果，你的胆固醇有点高。”你们都知道，胆固醇高会增加患心血管疾病，心脏病和中风的风险。所以，你会想高胆固醇不是一件好事， 那么医生会说：“我给你开点药，帮助你降低胆固醇，他汀类药就可以。”你可能已经听说过他汀类药物，现如今是医生开的最多的处方药之一。你甚至可能认识服用这药的人。于是你想，“好吧，给我他汀类药。”

But there"s a question you should ask at this point, a statistic you should ask for that most doctors don"t like talking about, and pharmaceuticalcompanies like talking about even less. It"s for the number needed to treat. Now, what is this, the NNT? It"s the number of people that need to take a drug or undergo a surgery or any medical procedure before one person is helped. And you"re thinking, what kind of crazy statistic is that? The number should be one. My doctor wouldn"t prescribe something to me if it"s no going to help. But actually, medical practice doesn"t work that way. And it"s not the doctor"s fault, if it"s anybody"s fault, it"s the fault of scientists like me. We haven"t figured out the underlying mechanisms well enough. But GlaxoSmithKline estimates that 90 percent of the drugs work in only 30 to 50 percent of the people. So the number needed to treat for the most widely prescribed statin, what do you suppose it is? How many people have to take it before one person is helped? 300. This is according to research by research practitioners Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband, independently confirmed by Bloombery.com. I ran through the numbers myself. 300 people have to take the drug for a year before one heart attack, stroke or other adverse event is prevented.

pharmaceutical[fɑrm"sutkl]：adj. 制药的；配药的；n. 药品；成药

undergo[ndr"ɡo]：vt. 经历；经受；遭受

underlying[ndr"la]：adj. 潜在的；隐含的；在下面的；基本的；<经>优先的；动词underlie的现在分词

prescribed[pr"skrabd]：adj. 规定的

但这个时候，你必须问一个问题，一个许多医生不愿谈论，制药公司更不喜欢谈论到的一个统计数字。这个统计数字就是，治疗所需人数。这是什么意思呢，治疗所需人数（NNT）？它是指多少人服用了某种药，或接收了手术或其他任何治疗方式，才会有1人收益。你心说，这是哪门子统计数字？这数字应该是1啊，如果这药对我没有帮助，那医生就不会开给我。但实际上，医疗实践不是这样运行的。这不是医生的错，如果是某些人的错，那就是像我一样的科学家的错。我们还没有想出足够好的运作机制。但据葛兰素史克制药公司（Glaxo Smith Kline）估计，90%的药品只对30%到50%的人有用。所以，这种最广泛的处方药的治疗所需人数，你们猜是多少？多少人要服用它才会出现一个受益的人？300。这是根据研究工作者 Jerome Groopman 和Pamela Hartzband 做的研究得出的数据，这项研究由Bloomberg.com 权威网站独立证实过。我自己想了一下这个数字。必须有300人服用此药一年，才能预防一起心脏病，中风或其他疾病。

注：文章来源TED：How to stay calm when you know you"ll be stressed。作者：Daniel Levitin.