Would you call yourself lazy? If you live in a messy house and are reluctant to lift a finger to help out, maybe you are. But laziness is a subjective thing – sloppiness to one person might be a form of relaxation to another. And if you can be bothered to read on, you'll see that opinion is divided on whether laziness is a bad thing.

你会说自己懒惰吗？如果你住在一个凌乱的房子里，不愿意伸手帮忙，也许你是。但懒惰是一种主观的东西——对一个人来说马虎可能对另一个人来说是一种放松。如果您不厌其烦地继续阅读，您会发现对于懒惰是否是一件坏事的看法存在分歧。

Generally speaking, we tend to look on our laziness as a negative thing. Inertia, slothfulness, idleness and apathy are used as criticisms and insults against individuals and groups of people. We think of lazy people as unproductive or that they don't really care about things. And when we find ourselves doing nothing, we feel guilty about it. Could this be because we are not instinctively lazy creatures? And is that why we often do things we don't need to do and which are sometimes painful – like running a marathon? Writing for BBC Future, Claudia Hammond explains that "enforced and extended rest, unless we are ill and our bodies demand it, leads not to feelings of being relaxed but of restlessness and irritability."

一般来说，我们倾向于将懒惰视为消极的事情。惰性、懒惰、闲散和冷漠被用作对个人和人群的批评和侮辱。我们认为懒惰的人效率低下，或者他们并不真正关心事情。当我们发现自己无所事事时，我们会为此感到内疚。这可能是因为我们不是本能的懒惰生物吗？这就是为什么我们经常做一些我们不需要做的事情，而这些事情有时会很痛苦——比如跑马拉松？克劳迪娅·哈蒙德 (Claudia Hammond) 为 BBC Future 撰文解释说，“除非我们生病并且我们的身体需要，否则强制和延长的休息不会导致放松的感觉，而是会让人感到不安和烦躁。”

Others may suggest we are naturally lazy, and that we can't help taking it easy, though it's hard to believe because we're constantly told to do more. But kicking back and living life in the slow lane could be better for our health. A study by psychologist Dr Robert Levine in 1999, for example, concluded that people living in cities with a fast pace of life had the highest rates of coronary heart disease.

其他人可能会说我们天生懒惰，我们情不自禁地放轻松，尽管这很难相信，因为我们经常被告知要做得更多。但是在慢车道上放松和生活可能对我们的健康更好。例如，心理学家罗伯特·莱文博士在 1999 年进行的一项研究得出结论，生活在快节奏城市中的人患冠心病的几率最高。

Laziness has also been shown to be good for our mental health, so having a nap or some downtime shouldn't be frowned upon. And there are other possible benefits too. Dr Masud Husain, Professor of Neurology at the University of Oxford, told the BBC: "We found that people who have tended to be more apathetic might in some ways be more creative, so that although they might be a couch potato, they might be coming up with one great idea that might be very interesting and useful." So, in our frenetic lives, maybe we should chill out, get into goblin mode and contemplate the benefits laziness can bring.

懒惰也被证明对我们的心理健康有好处，因此不应该不赞成小睡或休息一下。还有其他可能的好处。牛津大学神经病学教授 Masud Husain 博士告诉 BBC：“我们发现，那些往往更冷漠的人在某些方面可能更有创造力，所以尽管他们可能是沙发土豆，但他们可能想出一个可能非常有趣和有用的好主意。”所以，在我们狂热的生活中，也许我们应该冷静下来，进入妖精模式并思考懒惰可以带来的好处。