感冒了该回家休息还是带病工作，读了就知道

It's just a cold. But even though I know I'm not  horribly ill, I feel this overwhelming need to skip work, ignore my family and retreat to the far corner of the sofa.

就是个感冒而已。但尽管我知道自己病得不重，我还是急迫地想要暂停工作，不理家人，独自蜷缩在沙发一角。

I'm not being a wimp, it turns out.

结果证明，并不是说我是个胆小鬼。

Those feelings are a real thing called "sickness behavior," which is sparked by the body's response to infection.

这种感觉是真实存在的被称为“患病行为”，这是由机体对炎症的反应引发的。

The same chemicals that tell the immune system to rush in and fend off invading viruses also tell us to slow down; skip the eating, drinking ; shun social interactions; and rest.

这种让免疫系统冲锋陷阵对抗病毒的化学物质同时也会让我们慢下来，不想吃饭喝水，避免社交互动，然后好好休息一下。

（▼此处配孤寡老人背影图一张）

"Those messages are so powerful they can't be ignored," says Philip Chen, a rhinologist at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

“这种信号如此强烈以至于我们无法忽视它，”菲利普.陈说，他是圣安东尼市德克萨斯州立大学的一名鼻科医生。

But that doesn't mean we don't try.

但这并不意味着我们不想对抗它。

Symptoms like a stuffy nose are obvious, Chen notes, but we're less aware that changes in mood and behavior are also part of our bodies' natural response to infection.

像鼻腔堵塞这种症状会很明显，陈注意到，但我们却往往没有意识到情绪和行为也是我们的机体对抗炎症的自然反应。

It might behoove us to pay attention.

我们讲有必要注意这一点。

There is plenty of evidence that having a cold impairs mood, alertness and working memory and that brain performance falls off with even minor symptoms.

有很充分的证据显示感冒会影响我们的心情，警戒心，工作记忆，哪怕是很轻微的症状也会让我们的大脑表现下降。

But for most people, having a cold does not equal "take the week off."

但对绝大部分人来说，感冒了并不等同于“请一个星期假”。

And that means many people work sick, even when it can put others in danger.

也就是说很多人会带病工作，哪怕这可能会让他人陷入危险。

A 2015 survey of food workers found that half "always" or "frequently" went to work while sick.

2015年一份对食品工人的调查显示，大半都会在他们生病的时候“一直”或“经常”去工作。
And a survey of doctors and other health care providers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found that even though 95 percent of them thought showing up to work sick puts patients at risk, 83 percent of them did it anyway.

而一份对费城儿童医院的医生和其他卫生保健工作人员的调查显示，尽管他们中95%都认为带病去工作会对病人造成风险，他们中83%的人还还是会这样做。

Colds were the most common cause of working sick.

感冒是造成工作不力的最常见原因。

The vast majority of health care providers said they were worried about letting down colleagues or patients if they stayed home.

大部分的卫生保健人员说他们担心如果他们在家休息会让同事和病人们感到不安。

Other reasons included fear of being ostracized by their peers or because other people showed up to work sick.

其他原因包括害怕被同事排挤又或者因为其他人也带病工作。

"We all feel pressured to deny our own needs (often giving up meals, bathroom breaks, and yes, caring for our own illnesses) in order to meet the high pressure/high demand/productivity of the health care system," one doctor wrote.

“我们都感到非常有压力而不得不无视我们自己的需要（经常不吃饭，不休息洗澡，还有，是的，不去看好我们自己的病）来迎合医疗保健系统的高压/高需求/高产的要求。”

And this is despite the fact that numerous outbreaks in health care facilities have been caused by infected workers.

尽管如此，很多医疗机构的突破发现都是由干扰了的工人们做出的。

More than half of the people in the Children's Hospital survey, which was published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2015, said they didn't know how sick is too sick to go to work.

参与了调查的儿童医院的大部分人，在2015年美国医学会杂志上发表的文章里，都说他们不知道要病得多重才能不去上班。

I share that confusion.

我也为此感到困惑。

Am I just grossing out my co-workers with my hacking and wheezing, or am I endangering their health?

我的大惊小怪会让同事们反感吗，又或者我真的威胁到了他们的健康？

Schools and day care centers are also all over the map on this question, though pediatricians point out that most germs are spread before someone starts exhibiting symptoms and that the key question should be whether a child feels well enough to participate and learn.

学校和托儿所也是这个问题的重灾区，尽管儿科医生们指出大部分病菌在有人出现症状之前就已经传播了，还有最重要的问题应该是一个孩子是否足够健康去参与到学习中去。

Animals also exhibit sickness behavior; a pet that stops eating and becomes lethargic is almost certainly a sick pet.

动物也有患病行为；一只不吃东西，昏昏欲睡的宠物多半就是病了。

Scientists have come to think of this as not just an annoying side effect of illness but a well-evolved survival strategy: hide out, avoid predators and direct energy to fighting off infection.

科学家们已经从以前的认为这是疾病的副作用转而认为这是进化出来的生存策略：藏起来，躲避天敌，然后积蓄能量对抗感染。

But it's also a strategy that animals will abandon when there is a more pressing need.

但还有一条策略是当有更紧急的需要时他们会放弃这条策略。

One study found that sick rodent moms would neglect their pups until the temperature dropped to the point that the pups were  imperiled, at which point they went back into mom mode.

一项研究发现生病的啮齿动物妈妈会暂时不管它们的幼崽直到幼崽有危险了，它们又会回到母亲模式。

"That makes evolutionary sense," says Eric Shattuck, a lecturer in evolutionary medicine and anthropology at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

“这具有进化意义，”艾瑞克.沙特克说，他是圣安东尼市德克萨斯州立大学进化医学与人类学的讲师。

"Being sick is a temporary state. If you can afford to  lose the opportunity to take care of your infants or  lose a mating opportunity, then you can act on the sickness behavior cues without too much of a loss."

“生病只是暂时的。如果失去一次照顾幼崽或者交配的机会关系不大时，你就可以按照患病行为模式来行动而不用蒙受太多损失。”

Shattuck has been trying to figure out how people interpret the signals of sickness behavior and how we choose to act on them.

沙特克正在研究人们如何识别患病行为信号以及如何对它做出反映的选择。

It looks like the answer will be: not very well.

看起来结果是：并不理想。

When he asked students how they respond to feeling sick, "Some people are super-hypochondriac; the minute they're feeling a little under the weather, they're bundled up."

当他问学生们他们生病了会有什么反应时，“有些人超级疑心病重；一旦感觉到受了点风寒，他们马上就把自己裹起来了。

”But by and large, he says, people try to ignore the cues of sickness behavior unless they are so sick they can't get out of bed. '

“但大部分人，他说，都会尽量忽视疾病行为直到病得下不来床为止。”

"There's what I suspect is a very cultural pressure to perform and to perform well, especially for what we consider minor illnesses."

Even when our bodies are saying, "Hey listen, it would be really great if you would take a rest."

“我怀疑我们的文化氛围会让我们尽可能表现正常良好，尤其是对于那些我们认为是小病的情况。就算我们的身体已经在说，“嘿，听着，你还是赶紧休息一下比较好。””

最后祝朋友们2018少感冒，如果真的感冒了，要好好休息，照顾好自己哦！

觉得不错