看恐怖電影好不好

The heart-pounding thrills of a scary movie may come with some health-related benefits, including a calorie burn and a happier mood. But how much you stand to gain from a scary movie seems to depend on how scary you find the film you're watching.

恐怖電影中令人心驚膽戰的鏡頭或能帶來一些健康益處，包括燃燒卡路里和更愉悅的心情。但獲得的益處得取決於你看的這部電影有多恐怖。

In a 2012 study, funded by the former video subscription service Lovefilm, researchers from the University of Westminster in the UK asked 10 people to watch 10 different scary movies as they monitored heart rate, oxygen intake and output of carbon dioxide. The 1980's film The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson, topped the list of the calorie-scorching horror films. The person who viewed it jumped and shrieked themselves rid of 184 calories: roughly the number of calories a 140-pound adult would burn after 40 minutes of walking, according to the American Council on Exercise's physical activity calorie counter. Jaws and The Exorcist took the second and third spots on the list, burning 161 and 158 calories, respectively.

在2012年的一項研究中（由視頻訂閱前服務公司Lovefilm資助開展），英國威斯敏斯特大學的研究人員要求10個人看10部不同的恐怖電影，並監測他們的心率、氧氣攝入量和二氧化碳呼出量。1980年由傑克·尼克爾森主演的《閃靈》位列最消耗卡路里的恐怖電影的榜首。美國運動協會的運動熱量計算器顯示，看這部電影的人跳了起來，燃燒了184卡：差不多是一個重140磅的成年人走40分鐘所消耗的熱量。《大白鯊》和《驅魔人》分別位居第二、第三名，觀者分別燃燒了161卡和158卡。

A stressful stimulus-in this case, a scary movie-causes the release of the hormone adrenaline, which cranks up the nervous system's fight-or-flight response, says Richard Mackenzie, author of the study, who is now at the University of Roehampton in London. Along with getting your heart racing, this response also draws energy from your body's reserves so that you're ready to fight or flee as the need arises.

倫敦羅漢普頓大學的研究作者理查德·麥肯齊說，在這種情況下，恐怖電影帶來的緊張刺激感會釋放腎上腺素、激起神經系統的'戰或逃'反應。除了心臟加速跳動之外，該反應還會釋放身體儲存的能量，以便你隨時戰鬥或逃跑。

The study was very small, and the findings were not published in a peer-reviewed journal. But there is other research that frightening flicks may proffer benefits. A 2003 study from Coventry University in the UK, published in the journal Stress, found that watching a horror film significantly increased people's circulating levels of disease- and infection-fighting white blood cells. Again, the study team credits the movie's ability to fire up the viewer's fight-or-flight response, which includes a short-term increase in immune function.

該項研究是小型研究，研究結果並未在同行評審的期刊上發表。但其它研究也表明：看恐怖電影可能會帶來益處。2003年，英國考文垂大學的一項研究發表在Stress雜誌上，研究發現：看恐怖電影會顯著提高人們的抗疾病和抗感染白血球的循環水平。此外，研究團隊再次認爲恐怖電影能激發觀衆的'戰或逃'反應，包括短期的免疫功能增強。

It might be simpler to think of horror movies as a form of "good stress." While stress gets a bad rap-and long-term stress is associated with everything from depression to heart attacks-brief bouts of stress have often been linked to improved immune function, says Firdaus Dhabhar.

也許這樣想會簡單一點：恐怖電影是一種'良性壓力。'雖然有關壓力的負面評價很多--長期壓力與抑鬱、心臟病發作等相關--但短期壓力卻能增強免疫功能，Firdaus Dhabhar說道。