2012年高考英语湖北卷 - 阅读理解E

Brrriiinnng. The alarm clock announces the start of another busy weekday in the morning. You jump out of bed, rush into the shower, into your clothes and out the door with hardly a moment to think. A stressful journey to work gets your blood pressure climbing. Once at the office, you glance through the newspaper with depressing stories or reports of disasters. In that sort of mood, who can get down to work, particularly some creative, original problem-solving work?
叮铃铃...早上的闹钟声宣告又一个繁忙工作日的开始。你跳下床，冲进浴室，穿上衣服，走出门，几乎没有时间思考，紧张的工作会让你的血压升高。一到办公室，你就会浏览报纸，看到令人沮丧的故事或灾难报道。在这种心情下，谁能开始工作，尤其是一些创造性的、原创性的解决问题的工作？

The way most of us spend our mornings is exactly opposite to the conditions that promote flexible, open-minded thinking. Imaginative ideas are most likely to come to us when we’re unfocused. If you are one of those energetic morning people, your most inventive time comes in the early evening when you are relaxed. Sleepy people’s lack of focus leads to an increase in creative problem solving. By not giving yourself time to tune into your wandering mind, you’re missing out on the surprising solutions it may offer.
我们大多数人早上花费的方式与促进灵活、开放思维的条件正好相反。当我们注意力不集中时，想象力最有可能出现。如果你是一个精力充沛的早起人士，你最有创造力的时间是在傍晚放松的时候。嗜睡者缺乏注意力导致创造性解决问题的能力增加。如果不给自己时间去调整自己的思维，你就错过了它可能提供的令人惊讶的解决方案。

The trip you take to work doesn’t help, either. The stress slows down the speed with which signals travel between neurons, making inspirations less likely to occur. And while we all should read a lot about what’s going on in the world, it would not make you feel good for sure, so put that news website or newspaper aside until after the day’s work is done.
上班也没有用。压力会减慢信号在神经细胞之间的传播速度，使灵感不太可能发生。虽然我们都应该了解很多关于世界上正在发生的事情，但这并不会让你感觉良好，所以把新闻网站或报纸放在一边，直到一天的工作结束。

So what would our mornings look like if we wanted to start them with a full ability for creative problem solving? We’d set the alarm a few minutes early and lie awake in bed, following our thoughts where they lead. We’d stand a little longer under the warm water of the shower, stopping thinking about tasks in favor of a few more minutes of relaxation. We’d take some deep breaths on our way to work, instead of complaining about heavy traffic. And once in the office - after we get a cup of coffee - we’d click on links not to the news of the day but to the funniest videos the web has to offer.
那么，如果我们想以创造性解决问题的全面能力开始我们的早晨会是什么样子呢？我们提前几分钟设置闹钟，然后躺在床上醒着，跟随我们的思绪。我们在淋浴的温水下站久一点，不再思考任务，多休息几分钟。我们在上班的路上深呼吸，而不是抱怨交通拥挤。一旦我们在办公室，喝了一杯咖啡，我们就会点击链接，而不要是当天的新闻，而是网络提供的最有趣视频。