英音听力｜BBC & 经济学人等 - 节目列表

Business Bartleby 商业板块 巴托比专栏 Walking in employees' shoes 站在员工的角度想 It is hard for bosses to understand what life is like for staff. But not impossible 老板不容易理解员工的处境，但并非全不可能 Any manager worth their salt knows the value of spending time "walking in their customers' shoes". There are many ways to do it. You can observe customers in their natural habitat. Pernod Ricard's boss recently told Bloomberg, a news service, about his habit of bar-hopping in order to see what people want to drink. Such research is a lot less fun if your company makes soap dispensers for public toilets but the same principle applies. You can be a customer yourself, buying your company's products, ringing your own helplines and enduring the same teeth-grinding muzak. Or you can hear from your customers directly. Jeremy Hunt, who has just been appointed Britain's finance minister but was once its longest-serving health secretary, started each day in that job by reading a letter of complaint from a patient or their family, and writing back to each correspondent personally. If you cancel one internal meeting a week and use that time to hear from customers instead, you will come out ahead on the trade. This idea does not apply only to customers. It can also be useful inside the organisation. Walking in employees' shoes is a way for bosses to understand what impedes productivity, what saps morale and what makes workers feel valued. A sense of affinity can come from living in the same community as other members of staff. Recent research found that CEOs in Denmark who lived within 5km of their offices seemed to foster better work environments than those who lived farther away. But short of moving house, how else can managers get inside workers' heads? Even if a boss genuinely wants to hear the unvarnished truth, employees may not be comfortable delivering it. Anonymous surveys can help encourage honesty, as can exit interviews, but even in these settings, workers may temper their views. Reviews on sites like Glassdoor can be brutal, but the motives of the people posting them are not always transparent. Corporate-messaging apps like Slack can provide a partial window into how some teams are getting on, but surveillance is not a form of empathy. And none of this is the same as knowing what it is actually like to be an employee. It is very hard for managers to replicate the experiences of normal employees. Rooms will magically become available if the boss asks for one; everyone else has to roam around the building like wildebeest that have become separated from the herd. Managers do not have to remind people of their names. They are less likely to suffer some of the common feelings that undermine workers' enthusiasm for their jobs: rare is the boss who feels overlooked or underappreciated. And they are also much less likely than employees to encounter incivility from colleagues. One option is to appear on "Undercover Boss", an entertaining reality-TV show in which executives put on preposterous disguises, work in their own organisations and discover what life is really like for their workers. If you go down this route you will learn a lot, but you will have to admit to an audience of millions that you have absolutely no idea what is going on in your own organisation. (A less involved option is not to bother with the cameras and to wear your own home-made disguise in the office, though there is a risk your moustache will fall off at a pivotal moment.) Even without disguises it is good for managers to spend time doing the same work as their underlings. (It is also good for them to stop referring to people as underlings.) Airlines and retailers have run schemes that involve executives working in front-line roles in airports and on shopfloors. DoorDash, a delivery app, has a programme called WeDash that requires salaried employees to make regular drop-offs. And bosses can do things for themselves that people without assistants must navigate alone. Filling out expense forms is a chore: everyone should have to do their own, at least occasionally. By default bosses should fly in the same airline class as their colleagues do. And so on. If managers can learn a few things by walking in employees' shoes, there is also value in workers thinking about what life is like as a boss. It is not all business-class travel and people agreeing with you. Imagine getting in a lift and conversation around you always dying. Imagine being grumbled about all the time, or knowing that your absence causes a general lightening of the mood. Imagine not being able to kick a difficult decision upstairs. The boss wears much nicer shoes but they can still pinch. 🔆翻译、词汇表、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

What can we learn from silence?｜BBC Ideas In today's world, it can feel like there's no space for silence. Like we're always required to be responding to something, to be saying something new. Whether that's answering a text or an email, a tweet, a WhatsApp message, or even the phone. My name's Harriet Shawcross. I'm a filmmaker and a journalist, and I think we would all benefit from a little bit more silence in our lives. One of the reasons I'm interested in silence, and in what can and can't be said, is that when I was a teenager, there was about a year when I didn't really talk to people at school. I would answer direct questions if a teacher asked them or I would read out loud, but the kind of communication that makes us human -- spontaneous conversation, sharing jokes -- was something that I wasn't able to do. And it had a huge impact on me and was really formative in terms of how I relate to people both professionally and personally. So what's so great about silence? While in the course of researching my book, I came across several studies into the impact that silence can have on both the body and the brain. In one study involving mice, silence was shown to promote the growth of brain cells in the part of the brain responsible for memory related to the senses. Scientists played mice a selection of sounds, including baby mouse cries, white noise, and silence, and observed that during silence there was cell growth in the hippocampus. Another study looked at the impact of listening to music on the body and the researchers found that if silence was inserted into a track of music, the blood pressure dropped, the heart rate reduced and the subject relaxed much more than when listening to a relaxing piece of music. This only happened when the silence was inserted in the middle of the tune itself. It didn't work for silence at the beginning or end of the experiment. So there's something about silence that comes in the middle of noise that's particularly beneficial. So silence can also enable people to actually say things that they've never been able to say before. I looked into the formation of the Samaritans, a support service for people that are feeling despairing or suicidal. The service was set up in the 50s by a vicar, and he started it because he had to conduct the funeral of a young girl who had taken her own life. The reason she took her own life is that she'd started her periods and thought she'd contracted some terrible disease and was dying. She was deeply ashamed of what was happening to her and had no one to talk to about it. It was this that inspired the vicar, Chad Varah, to set up the Samaritans as he didn't want people to feel that there were things that they couldn't talk about, particularly things that they were ashamed of. They believed that you should be able to sit with someone, no matter what they're going through, without feeling the need to answer back or offer solutions or problem solve. And a really central way of doing that is through using silence and giving them space to explain what's going on for them. And frankly, if normal conversations could involve a little bit more silence like that, I think the world would be a much happier place. So silence is also at the heart of most major world religions. In Buddhism silence is really highly valued and conversation can be seen as something that gets in the way of our experiences. And if you strip away all of that language, you're left with a deeper understanding of your own experiences in the world and your connection to other people. But can too much silence be a bad thing? There's a condition known as Assidy, which was experienced by monks who spent prolonged periods in silence, and it's basically distinguished by a feeling of torpor, of not being able to do anything, and that's specifically associated with spending long periods of time without speaking to anybody. I also spoke to people who had spent more time than probably most of us would want to in silence. One of them was a Buddhist who spent nine months on a silent and solitary retreat, and the silence had a really profound effect on him. After a certain amount of time, he felt like he was losing control of both his mind and his body. He actually felt like he was having a heart attack. He knew logically he'd just pulled a muscle in his chest, but without anyone to say, "I've pulled a muscle in my chest" to, the pain that he was feeling, the sensations of panic meant that he actually really thought that he was dying, and the only way that he could snap out of that was by calling a friend of his. And it was only once he had words and language to attach to what was happening to him that he was able to make sense of it and eventually feel better. 💡 完整文本、翻译、视频版和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

A new hobby for a new year It's the end of one year and the start of another. You've probably been considering New Year's resolutions and you may have decided to take up something new for the year ahead. Perhaps, like Debbie Gustig, you could start ballet classes. At the age of 53, Debbie stepped into the dance studio, where, for a while, it feels like 'the outside world is on pause'. Hobbies are a way for us to keep busy and take our minds off the realities of work and life. People crave time to pursue interests that are valuable and satisfying. Humans have indulged in pastimes since the beginning of time, from drawing on cave walls to playing video games. Some hobbies involve collecting things. That means acquiring, possibly cataloguing, and then displaying or storing something precious, whether that be stamps, antiques or comic books. Linda de Ruiter turned her hobby into a job. She is a yarn maker and now the owner of a small business. After helping out a friend with a stand at a craft market, she realised she wanted a stand for herself. She told the BBC she always thought yarn making would just be 'a glorified hobby' for her, but she's glad to have been proven wrong and says she is "having a ball". People often pursue hobbies as a way of de-stressing. In Canada, axe throwing is on the rise. In fact, there is even an axe-throwing league with branches across the country and more than 1,500 members. League founder Matt Wilson told the BBC that it's "a zen sort of experience because it's really not about power, but there is definitely something cathartic about the activity". So, ballet, collecting stamps, yarn making, axe throwing? What will you pursue in the new year? 词汇表 New Year's resolutions [ˌrezəˈluːʃ(ə)n] 新年计划，新年决心 take up 开始从事，着手做 ballet [ˈbæleɪ] 芭蕾舞 dance studio [ˈstjuːdiəʊ] 舞蹈室，练舞房 be on pause [pɔːz] 暂停，处于停顿状态 take one's mind off 转移某人的注意力，让某人暂时忘记忧虑之事 crave [kreɪv] 渴望，热望 pursue [pə(r)ˈsjuː] 追求，追逐，从事 indulge in [ɪn'dʌldʒ] 沉溺于，尽情享受 pastime [ˈpɑːsˌtaɪm] 消遣，休闲活动 cave walls [keɪv] 洞穴壁 catalogue [ˈkætəlɒɡ] 将…编入目录，记录，分类 stamp [stæmp] 邮票，印记 antique [ænˈtiːk] 古董，古物 comic books [ˈkɒmɪk] 漫画书，连环画 yarn [jɑː(r)n] 纱，纱线 stand （零售）摊位，货摊 craft market [krɑːft] 手工艺品集市 glorified [ˈɡlɔːrɪfaɪd] 美化的，吹捧的，吹嘘的 have a ball 极为享受，玩得开心 de-stress [ˌdi: 'stres] 放松，减压 axe throwing [æks] 扔斧头，掷斧运动 be on the rise 在兴起，呈上升趋势 branch [brɑːntʃ] 分支机构，分部，分行 zen [zen] 令人放松的；禅 cathartic [kəˈθɑː(r)tɪk] 宣泄情绪的；导泻的 📖 翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Paper-saving 'de-printer' Making paper takes lots of energy, and the pulp and paper industry is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases. So, welcome to the de-printer, a machine that allows you to re-use a sheet of A4 ten times over. The secret's in a special, ultra-thin coating that's applied to the paper to stop the ink sinking in. To return the sheet to pristine white, you zap it with a high-powered laser and vaporise the ink, which can be trapped and used again. It's said to use a fraction of the energy taken to make new paper, but there's no guarantee it will be commercially viable. 词汇表 pulp [pʌlp] 纸浆，浆状物 emitter [ɪ'mɪtə] 排放源，发出者；发射体 greenhouse gase [ˈɡriːnˌhaʊs] 温室气体（尤指二氧化碳） de-printer [ˈprɪntə(r)] 去墨打印机 a sheet of [ʃiːt] 一张，一片（纸、布等） ultra-thin coating ['ʌltrəθɪn] [ˈkəʊtɪŋ] 超薄涂层 apply to 涂，敷，抹 sink in [sɪŋk] 渗入，渗透 pristine [ˈprɪstiːn] 纯洁的，质朴的，崭新的 zap [zæp] （用激光等）快速照射 high-powered laser [ˈleɪzə(r)] 高功率激光 vaporise ['veɪpəraɪz] 使汽化，蒸发 a fraction of ['frækʃ(ə)n] 一小部分 guarantee [ˌɡærənˈtiː] 保证，担保 commercially viable [kəˈmɜː(r)ʃ(ə)li]['vaɪəb(ə)l] 商业上可行的 🗒️翻译和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

How to avoid 'burnout' Whether it's studying for exams, working on a project or struggling with a dissertation, we've all been under immense stress at some point. When it gets a bit overwhelming, we can reach a level of exhaustion that is unprecedented – the dreaded burnout. However, that feeling of exhaustion is not just physical; it can be mental as well. According to 'Psychology Today', burnout isn't just caused by working long hours; it is more about prolonged or repeated exposure to a stressful situation. The result can be feelings of cynicism, depression and lethargy. A feeling of loss of control in a work scenario can create a conflict with the sense of self – which can lead to burnout. Suffering from burnout can stifle our creativity and productivity. Ironically, this means that striving to be more efficient can result in a reduction in our productivity. But what can we do to avoid the evils of burnout? Well, there are some tips that may help you. Psychologist Albert Bandura's idea of self-efficacy – which is the theory that you should believe in your ability to complete a task at hand - may assist you. A feeling that the task is achievable and that you are capable of succeeding means that a difficult task might be less gruelling. Finding ways to express your creative side may help. Not everyone has creative aspects to their jobs, and, therefore, they need to find other outlets. They could paint, write or take part in local theatre. All of this may help to detach them from the overwhelming stress that may exist in their working life. Looking after yourself and your surroundings can also be beneficial. The consequence is that you are surrounded by a cleaner and more positive environment. This, in turn, leads to another tip, which is to have healthy and positive thoughts. Being negative can be incredibly draining. Having a positive mental attitude towards everything you do means that you may feel more capable as well. Burnout is a common condition associated with the pressures of the modern world. It's not just a physical condition; it has psychological effects that can impact heavily on your work and life in general. Taking steps to avoid burning out can benefit not just us, but our bosses and families. 词汇表 dissertation [ˌdɪsə(r)ˈteɪʃ(ə)n] 专题论文， (学位) 论文 immense [ɪ'mens] 巨大的，大量的 overwhelming [ˌəʊvə(r)ˈwelmɪŋ] 难以抵挡的，难以承受的 exhaustion [ɪɡˈzɔːstʃ(ə)n] 精疲力尽，疲惫不堪 unprecedented [ʌnˈpresɪˌdentɪd] 空前的，前所未有的 dreaded [ˈdredɪd] 令人畏惧的，可怕的， burnout [ˈbɜː(r)naʊt] 过度疲劳，精疲力竭，职业倦怠 prolonged [prəˈlɒŋd] 长期的，持久的 exposure [ɪkˈspəʊʒə(r)] 接触，暴露，面临 cynicism [ˈsɪnɪˌsɪz(ə)m] 愤世嫉俗，冷嘲热讽 depression [dɪ'preʃ(ə)n] 抑郁，沮丧，消沉 lethargy [ˈleθə(r)dʒi] 无精打采。无生气，懒散 work scenario [səˈnɑːrioʊ] 工作场景 sense of self 自我感知，自我意识 stifle ['staɪf(ə)l] 扼杀，抑制，（使）窒息 ironically [aɪˈrɒnɪkli] 具有讽刺意味地，出乎意料的是，意想不到的是 strive [straɪv] 奋斗，努力 self-efficacy [ˌselfˈefɪkəsi]自我效能 achievable [ə'tʃi:vəbl] 可完成的，可实现的，可达到的 be capable of ['keɪpəb(ə)l] 有能力做某事 gruelling ['ɡruːəlɪŋ] 折磨人的，使人精疲力尽的 outlet [ˈaʊtˌlet] 施展的机会，发泄途径；出口，出路 detach from [dɪ'tætʃ] 脱离，摆脱。分离 draining [ˈdreɪnɪŋ] 使人心力交瘁的，耗尽的 positive mental attitude 积极心态 📖 翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Are you a hedgehog or a fox in predicting the future?｜BBC Ideas Are you a hedgehog or a fox? Are you able to deeply focus on one specific activity, such as rolling up in a spiky ball and sleeping through the winter? Or are you alert to changing circumstances and keep your eyes and ears open to new threats and opportunities? My name's David Spiegelhalter, and I'm a statistician and fascinated by the problems of risk and prediction. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a famous essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, after a famous poem by the Greek poet, Archilochus, who said, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Think of the people you know, either privately or public figures. Are they hedgehogs, with one overarching way of looking at the world, through which they interpret all around them? Or are they foxes, with no big principles of philosophy, who muddle along adapting to what turns up and changing their minds along the way? Politicians, of course, tend to be hedgehogs. But some are more pragmatic and foxy than others. Now, who would you trust most to make predictions about the future? A confident hedgehog or an uncertain and vacillating fox? This was put to the test in a long series of experiments by political scientist, Philip Tetlock, who studied 284 experts, making 28,000 predictions about long term events. Tetlock was looking at who predicted best. And mainly it made no difference whether the forecaster was an optimist or a pessimist, conservative or liberal. The only consistent pattern was how they thought, not what they thought. He found that foxes were much better at predicting than were hedgehogs. And hedgehogs were particularly poor at subjects at which they were experts. They were just too confident in their forecasts. A classic hedgehog was the historian Arnold Toynbee, who in 1947 was declared TIME magazine's Man of the Year. Others wrote that he was the most renowned scholar in the world or a universal sage, largely because his great work, A Study of History, spoke to the biggest fear of the time that nuclear weapons were going to end civilization. Toynbee made the confident and comforting prediction that this wouldn't happen. Because it was an opposition to his self-proclaimed scientific theory of history. Toynbee thought that Western civilization wasn't nearly done yet, because it hadn't reached the stage of universal government and a religious renaissance. All 23 civilizations he had studied had done so before they collapsed, and so would the West. He thought the golden age of universal government and religious observance would start around the year 2000. His peers were skeptical and they were right. Today Toynbee is hardly remembered, except perhaps as a classic hedgehog. In his book, Future Babble, Dan Gardner identifies three characteristics of good forecasters. Number one: aggregation. They use multiple sources of information, are open to new knowledge and are happy to work in teams. Number two: metacognition. They have an insight into how they think and the biases they might have, such as seeking evidence that simply confirms pre-set ideas. Number three: humility. They have a willingness to acknowledge uncertainty, admit errors and change their minds. Rather than saying categorically what is going to happen, they are only prepared to give probabilities for future events. Acknowledging, in the words of that great sage, Donald Rumsfeld, both the known unknowns and unknown unknowns. So when someone is telling you what is in store for you, the country, the world, just ask yourself, are they a hedgehog or a fox? 词汇表 hedgehog [ˈhedʒˌhɒɡ] 刺猬 roll up in a spiky ball ['spaɪki] 蜷缩成一个刺球（指刺猬） be alert to / keep your eyes and ears open to [əˈlɜː(r)t] 对……保持警觉，保持警惕 statistician [ˌstætɪˈstɪʃ(ə)n] 统计学家，统计员 be fascinated by [ˈfæsɪneɪt] 着迷于，对…极感兴趣 overarching [ˌəʊvərˈɑː(r)tʃɪŋ] 支配一切的，包罗万象的，首要的 interpret [ɪnˈtɜː(r)prɪt] 解释，说明，理解 muddle along ['mʌd(ə)l] 漫无目的地行动；混日子，得过且过 pragmatic [præɡ'mætɪk] 务实的，实用主义的 foxy [ˈfɒksi] 狐狸似的，狡猾的 vacillating ['væsɪleɪtɪŋ] 犹豫的，摇摆不定的 put to the test 使经受考验，试验 forecaster [ˈfɔː(r)ˌkɑːstə(r)] 预测者；天气预报员 optimist [ˈɒptɪmɪst] 乐观主义者 pessimist ['pesəmɪst] 悲观主义者 conservative [kənˈsɜː(r)vətɪv] 保守的，守旧的；保守派 liberal ['lɪb(ə)rəl] 自由的，开明的；自由主义者 consistent pattern [kən'sɪstənt] 一致的模式 renowned [rɪ'naʊnd] 著名的，有声望的 universal sage [ˌjuːnɪˈvɜː(r)s(ə)l][seɪdʒ] 普世智者 nuclear weapon [ˈnjuːkliə(r)] 核武器 self-proclaimed [ˌself prəˈkleɪmd] 自称的，自命的，自封的 religious renaissance [rɪˈneɪs(ə)ns] 宗教复兴 collapse [kə'læps] 瓦解，崩溃，倒塌 religious observance [əbˈzɜː(r)v(ə)ns] 宗教仪式 peer [pɪə(r)] 同辈，同行，同等地位的人 skeptical [ˈskeptɪk(ə)l] 怀疑的，持怀疑态度的 babble ['bæb(ə)l] 胡言乱语，嘈杂的人声，含混不清的话 aggregation [ˌæɡrɪ'ɡeɪʃ(ə)n] 聚合，聚集 metacognition [me'tækɔ:gnɪʃən] 元认知（指对自身认知活动的认知） have an insight into [ˈɪnsaɪt] 洞悉，深入了解 bias ['baɪəs] 偏见，成见 pre-set ideas 预设想法 humility [hjuːˈmɪləti] 谦逊，谦虚 categorically [ˌkætəˈɡɒrɪkli] 明确地，直截了当地 💡 翻译、视频版和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

The rise of performative work Business Bartleby 商业板块 巴特比专栏 Office theatrics 办公室表演 It's not what you do. It's how ostentatiously you do it 做什么不重要。做得招摇才重要 In an episode of "Seinfeld", a vintage TV sitcom, the character of George Costanza reveals the secret of pretending to work: act irritated. He shakes his head, frowns and sighs to demonstrate the technique. "When you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy. "In comments posted below this clip on YouTube, visitors report with delight that the tactic really does work and offer a few tips of their own: walk around the office carrying manila envelopes, advises one. Before the pandemic turned everyone into remote employees, managers worried that working from home would be a paradise for slackers like George. People would be out of sight and out of mind: starting late, clocking off early and doing nothing in between. The reality of remote working has turned out to be different. Days have become longer and employees are demonstratively visible. Work has become more performative. The simple act of logging on is now public. Green dots by your name on messaging channels are the virtual equivalents of jackets left on chairs and monitors turned on. Calendars are now frequently shared: empty ones look lazy; full ones appear virtuous. Communication is more likely to happen on open messaging channels, where everyone can see who is contributing and who is not. Emails can be performative, too—scheduled for the early morning or the weekend, or the early morning on the weekend, to convey Stakhanovite effort. Repeated noises like Slack's knock-brush provide a soundtrack of busyness. Meetings, the office's answer to the theatre, have proliferated. They are harder to avoid now that invitations must be responded to and diaries are public. Even if you don't say anything, cameras make meetings into a miming performance: an attentive expression and occasional nodding now count as a form of work. The chat function is a new way to project yourself. Satya Nadella, the boss of Microsoft, says that comments in chat help him to meet colleagues he would not otherwise hear from. Maybe so, but that is an irresistible incentive to pose questions that do not need answering and offer observations that are not worth making. Shared documents and messaging channels are also playgrounds of performativity. Colleagues can leave public comments in documents, and in the process notify their authors that something approximating work has been done. They can start new channels and invite anyone in; when no one uses them, they can archive them again and appear efficient. By assigning tasks to people or tagging them in a conversation, they can cast long shadows of faux-industriousness. It is telling that one recent research study found that members of high-performing teams are more likely to speak to each other on the phone, the very opposite of public communication. Performative celebration is another hallmark of the pandemic. Once one person has reacted to a message with a clapping emoji, others are likely to join in until a virtual ovation is under way. At least emojis are fun. The arrival of a round-robin email announcing a promotion is as welcome as a rifle shot in an avalanche zone. Someone responds with congratulations, and then another recipient adds their own well wishes. As more people pile in, pressure builds on the non-responders to reply as well. Within minutes colleagues are telling someone they have never met in person how richly they deserve their new job. Theatre has always been an important part of the workplace. Open communication is a prerequisite of successful remote working. But the prevalence of performative work is bad news—not just for the George Costanzas of the world, who can no longer truly tune out, but also for employees who have to catch up on actual tasks once the show is over. By extension it is also bad for productivity. Why, then, does it persist? One answer lies in the natural desire of employees to demonstrate how hard they are working, like bowerbirds with a keyboard. Another lies in managers' need to see what everyone is up to. And a third is hinted at in recent research, from academics at two French business schools, which found that white-collar professionals are drawn to a level of "optimal busyness", which neither overwhelms them nor leaves them with much time to think. Rushing from meeting to meeting, triaging emails and hitting a succession of small deadlines can deliver a buzz, even if nothing much is actually being achieved. The performance is what counts. 🔆翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Is breakfast really so important? Have you ever heard someone say, "breakfast is the most important meal of the day", or give you advice about why it's vital to start the day with a healthy breakfast? It seems that this feast, for many of us, is necessary for our day to start well, but is it really that important? The word 'breakfast' comes from 'breaking the fast' – the idea of ending the period in which we didn't eat during the night. The regeneration process that takes place while we sleep consumes some of our natural food reserves to heal our bodies. Breakfast gives us an opportunity to replenish those depleted stores of things like protein and calcium. So, in that way, a healthy breakfast makes sense. There are also many often-quoted studies which seem to correlate a state of obesity with skipping breakfast. In fact, it leads many health experts to advise a healthy breakfast to not only regulate but also lose weight. In a US study, 50,000 people were monitored over seven years, and those who ate a healthy breakfast were found to have a lower BMI, which seems to suggest that breakfast may indeed help people maintain a healthy weight. But it might not be as simple as that. Some experts, like Alexandra Johnstone, professor of appetite research at the University of Aberdeen, suggest those who skip breakfast might be less aware of healthy diets and nutrition, and people who eat breakfast might have a healthier lifestyle overall – exercising and not smoking, for example. And with the rise in popularity of intermittent fasting to lose weight – there may also be some benefits to skipping breakfast. Intermittent fasting can improve blood sugar control, insulin sensitivity, and lower blood pressure. So, while breakfast has its benefits, it might not be the most important meal. It seems that a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet might be more important for many of us than just one single meal. 词汇表 vital ['vaɪt(ə)l] 至关重要的，必不可少的 feast [fiːst] 大餐，盛宴（精心准备且非常享受的一餐） break the fast 打破禁食（结束一夜未进食的时间） regeneration [rɪˌdʒenə'reɪʃ(ə)n] 再生；改造，重生 consume [kənˈsjuːm] 消耗；消费；吃 food reserves [rɪˈzɜː(r)v] 食物储备 replenish [rɪ'plenɪʃ] 补充，补足，重新装满 depleted [dɪˈpliːt] 耗尽的，枯竭的 protein [ˈprəʊtiːn] 蛋白质 calcium ['kælsiəm] 钙 often-quoted [kwəʊt] 经常被引用的 correlate ['kɒrəleɪt] 和…相关，使相互关联 obesity [əʊˈbiːsəti] 肥胖 skip breakfast [skɪp] 不吃早餐 regulate [ˈreɡjʊleɪt] 控制，调节 monitor [ˈmɒnitə] 监测；监视，密切关注 BMI 体重指数，身体质量指数(body mass index) appetite [ˈæpətaɪt] 食欲，胃口 intermittent fasting [ˌɪntə(r)ˈmɪt(ə)nt] 间歇性禁食，断食疗法 blood sugar control 血糖控制 insulin sensitivity [ˈɪnsjʊlɪn][ˌsensəˈtɪvəti] 胰岛素敏感性 blood pressure 血压 📖 翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Brain stimulation boosts memory Our brain works by firing off electrical impulses. The team at Boston University used this in order to boost memory. They asked volunteers to wear a cap filled with electrodes, then used precise electrical currents to alter their brainwaves in 20-minute sessions of brain stimulation. These took place every day for four days, and the group's ability to remember a list of words was tested. The results, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed improvements in memory lasted at least a month. The researchers were able to boost two types of memory. They improved the volunteers' long-term memory, which is how we can remember our first day at school, and also working memory, which is for the here and now, such as remembering what platform your train's on. The researchers are now investigating whether this technology can be used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, when brain cells have already started dying, as well as in schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. 词汇表 fire off 发射，发送 electrical impulses [ɪ'lektrɪk(ə)l][ˈɪmpʌls] 电脉冲（神经系统中传递信息的电信号） boost [buːst] 提高，改善 electrode [ɪˈlektrəʊd] 电极 precise electrical currents [prɪ'saɪs] ['kʌrənt] 精确的电流 brainwave [ˈbreɪnˌweɪv] 脑电波；灵感 brain stimulation [ˌstɪmjəˈleɪʃən] 脑电刺激 journal Nature Neuroscience [ˈdʒɜː(r)n(ə)l][ˈnjʊərəʊˌsaɪəns] 《自然-神经科学》期刊 the here and now 此时此刻，当前 brain cells [sel] 脑细胞 Alzheimer's disease [ˈæltshaɪməz] 阿尔茨海默病，老年痴呆 schizophrenia [ˌskɪtsəʊˈfriːniə] 精神分裂症 obsessive-compulsive disorder [əbˌsesɪv][kəmˈpʌlsɪv][dɪˌsɔːdər] 强迫症 🗒️翻译和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

Fake or real: What's the best tree to have at Christmas? Hello and happy Christmas! This is 6 Minute English with me, Neil. And joining me today is Sam. Hello. So, Sam, are you feeling excited about Christmas? --Of course! Time with friends and family, eating lots, partying, presents-and generally indulging-what's not to like? --Indulging-allowing yourself to have perhaps too much of something you enjoy. Well, it only happens once a year, Sam. But for those of us who do celebrate Christmas, it comes at a price. --Yes, well, buying all those presents can be expensive. Not just that, Sam. I mean it comes at a cost to the environment, as we'll explain shortly. But let's start off with a quiz question for you to answer. In 2010, a Christmas tree in Belgium was awarded the world record for having the most lights on it-but do you know how many? Were there a) 19,672, b) 94,672, or c) 194,672? What do you think, Sam? --Well, I don't think you could fit 194,673 lights on a Christmas tree, so I'll say a) 19,672. --OK. Well, we'll find out how 'bright' you are at the end of the programme! Of course, Christmas trees are the ultimate Christmas decoration. It's part of the Christmas tradition and millions are bought around the world each year. But what impact do Christmas trees-real and artificial-have on the environment? Well, before we answer that, let's hear from some of the BBC Learning English team who chose to have a real Christmas tree in their home and find out why. Well, you've got the smell of it. You've got the look of it. But more importantly, it's Christmas trees are supposed to be symbolic, aren't they? So the idea of something that stays green all year, so bringing that into your house it, it means something. --I just think a real Christmas tree is more festive and more Christmassy. And it's just the tradition to get a real Christmas tree, that's all. --There's something more beautiful about the nature, the smell, the feel, the look of the tree and I like it to be sustainable. So, as long as I get my tree from a person that promises to grow two or three in its place, then I'm really, really happy. Yes, I agree-you can't beat having a real Christmas tree. And as Phil said, it's symbolic-it represents something important-and here a Christmas tree is the symbol of Christmas. And as Jiaying mentioned, it's a tradition-something that's done regularly and has become the expected thing to do-and I do agree it makes things more festive-a word to describe the joyful feeling you get when celebrating something like Christmas. But of course all these trees are often thrown away, which is wasteful. That's why Roy mentioned his tree being sustainable-which means they can continue to be grown and cut down over a longer period so it's less harmful to the environment. Well, an alternative to a real Christmas tree is a fake or artificial one, which is what Feifei from our team has in her house. What are the reasons, why? We have a plastic Christmas tree, which we've had for about nine years. So it's plastic so you can re-use it every year and it's more economical, and we don't have to keep buying new trees. So Feifei's fake tree is made of plastic-so that's not great for recycling-but the good thing is she uses it year after year, which makes it economical-which means it doesn't cost a lot of money, it's good value. --Ah, but even Feifei admits it doesn't have the smell and feel of a real tree. It's a dilemma, isn't it, Neil? --Yes, what's best for us and what's best for the environment. The BBC's Reality Check programme found that real trees take about 12 years to grow and as they do, they absorb carbon from the atmosphere and nitrogen from the soil-so a good thing. But when it's chopped down it starts to release emissions back into the atmosphere-especially if you have to transport it to your home. And when Christmas is over, if it ends up in landfill, the tree's carbon footprint will be higher. But its carbon footprint will be lowered, if it's recycled or composted-that's the process of allowing it to decay and then adding it to the ground to improve soil quality. A fake tree on the other hand is usually imported, and can't usually be recycled but, as Feifei mentioned, it can be re-used. But without any type of Christmas tree, where would we put all those lights I mentioned earlier, Sam? I asked you: In 2010, a Christmas tree in Belgium was awarded the world record for having the most lights on it-but do you know how many? What did you say, Sam? --I think I said 19,672. --Ooo,dear, not very bright I'm afraid! There were in fact 194,672! Wow, think of the electricity that must have used! --Indeed. 📝字数限制，完整文本、翻译及pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

Why Criticism Can Hurt So Much? To be criticised is never pleasant. It is rarely a good day when we have to read an unflattering social media post about ourselves, when we are given harsh feedback on a project, or hear that we are being gossiped about by strangers. However, the question of how much criticism needs to hurt depends on something which has nothing to do with the specific attack we happen to face: how much we happen to like ourselves. The degree to which we buckle in the wake of negative comments reflects how we, deep down, feel about ourselves. When we carry within us a sufficient ballast of love, criticism need never be very much more than niggling. We can overcome it by dinner time – or at least the end of the week. We can take on board with relative good humour that we are not necessarily loved by everyone, that not everything we do is perfect, and that there may be one or two outright enemies, who would prefer us dead – even while most people tolerate us easily enough. There need be nothing surprising or terrifying in being doubted by a few others. But for the more vulnerable ones among us, there is no option but to experience criticism as an assault on our very right to exist. We don't hear that we are being mildly upbraided for an aspect of our work; we at once feel that we are being told to disappear. It isn't just one or two people who are mocking us; the whole world is apparently thinking only of how ridiculous we are. We will never get past this moment of negative assessment; the hatred will never end. It's a catastrophe. If criticism from outside proves devastating, it is because it so readily joins forces with an infinitely more strident and more aggressive form of criticism that has long existed inside of us. We are already struggling so hard to tolerate ourselves against inner voices that confidently assert how undeserving, ugly and devious we are, that there is no room left for us to take on further reminders of our awfulness. The key of present criticism has inserted itself into a lock of historic hatred – and let loose an unmasterable surge of self-loathing. When we are suffering, we should remember that we aren't exceptionally weak; we almost certainly had a far worse childhood than the average person. Once upon a time, we were probably humiliated and shamed without being soothed, held or reassured, and this is why we now take current criticism so much to heart. We don't know how to defend ourselves against our enemies because we have never been deeply appreciated. We already hate ourselves so much more than our worst enemies ever will. A part of us is responding to adult challenges with the vulnerability of a child who faced disdain on a scale they couldn't master. The present challenge feels like a catastrophe because catastrophe is precisely what was once endured. We may not easily be able to stop feeling unhappy about criticism, but at least we can change what we feel unhappy about. Our vulnerability need not be – as we initially and instinctively think – a sign that we are actively awful. It is evidence that we were, long ago, denied the sort of love that we would have needed in order to remain more steadily and generously on our own side at moments of difficulty. 词汇表 unflattering [ʌn'flæt(ə)rɪŋ] 贬损的，有损形象的，负面的 harsh [hɑː(r)ʃ] 严厉的，苛刻的，刺耳的 gossip [ˈɡɒsɪp] 闲聊，说闲话，传播流言蜚语 buckle ['bʌk(ə)l] 压垮；屈服；弯曲 in the wake of 在……之后；随着……发生 a sufficient ballast of love ['bæləst] 足够平稳的爱 ballast ['bæləst]（船的）压舱物；（气球的）镇重物 niggling [ˈnɪɡlɪŋ] 无关紧要的事，过于琐碎的工作 take on board 理解，接受，考虑 outright [aʊtˈraɪt] 完全的，彻底的；直率的 (have) no option but to 别无选择，只能 assault [əˈsɔːlt] 攻击，袭击，突击 mildly ['maɪldli] 轻微地，适度地，温和地 upbraid [ʌp'breɪd] 责备，训斥 mock [mɒk] 嘲笑，嘲弄，模仿 get past 度过困难时期（克服悲伤，走出困境） negative assessment [ə'sesmənt] 负面评价 hatred [ˈheɪtrɪd] 仇恨，憎恨，厌恶 catastrophe [kə'tæstrəfi] 灾难，灾祸，不幸事件 devastating [ˈdevəˌsteɪtɪŋ] 毁灭性的，极具破坏力的 readily ['redɪli] 容易地，迅速地；乐意地 join forces with 联合，联手，合作 infinitely [ˈɪnfɪnətli] 无限地；非常，极其 strident ['straɪd(ə)nt] 刺耳的，尖锐的，咄咄逼人的 aggressive [ə'ɡresɪv] 侵略的，攻击性的，咄咄逼人的 assert [əˈsɜː(r)t] 断言，声称，主张 undeserving [ˌʌndɪ'zɜ:vɪŋ] 不值得的，不配受到的 devious [ˈdiːviəs] 狡诈的，不正直的 insert into [ɪnˈsɜː(r)t] 插入，嵌入 let loose 释放，放任，放出 unmasterable [ʌnmɑːstərəbəl] 无法掌握的，难以驾驭的 surge [sɜː(r)dʒ]（强烈感情的）突发，爆发，翻涌 self-loathing [ˌselfˈləʊðɪŋ] 自我厌恶 exceptionally [ɪkˈsepʃ(ə)nəli] 格外地，特别地，异常地 humiliate / shame [hjuːˈmɪlieɪt][ʃeɪm] 使羞愧，使蒙辱，使丢脸 soothe [suːð] 安慰，安抚，使平静，缓和 reassure [ˌriːəˈʃʊə(r)] 安慰，使安心，使消除疑虑 take to heart 十分在意，耿耿于怀 vulnerability [ˌvʌlnərə'bɪlətɪ] 脆弱性；弱点 disdain [dɪs'deɪn] 蔑视，鄙视 endure [ɪnˈdjʊə(r)] 经受，忍受，持续存在 instinctively [ɪn'stɪŋktɪvlɪ] 本能地，凭直觉地 deny [dɪ'naɪ] 不允许，剥夺，拒绝给予 steadily ['stedɪlɪ] 坚定地，镇定地 🏫翻译、视频版和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进入【打卡交流群】

How to manage your emotions TED-Ed • Feb 2023 You and your friend need to ace Friday's exam to avoid summer classes, and after a week of studying, you both feel confident that you pulled it off. But when you get your grades back, they're much lower than the two of you expected. You're devastated. However, your friend doesn't seem too bothered, and it's making you wonder why you can't shake this off like they can. But should you really be trying to look on the bright side? And is controlling our emotions even possible in the first place? The answer to the last question is a definitive "yes." There are numerous strategies for regulating our emotions, and one framework to understand these techniques is called the Process Model. Psychologists use this tool to identify where and how to intervene in the process that forms our emotions. That process has four steps: first, we enter a situation, real or imagined, and that draws our attention. Then we evaluate, or appraise, the situation and whether it helps or hinders our goals. Finally, this appraisal leads to a set of changes in how we feel, think, and behave, known as an emotional response. Each step of this process offers an opportunity to consciously intervene and change our emotions, and the Process Model outlines what strategies we might try at each phase. To see this in action, let's imagine you've been invited to the same party as your least-favorite ex and their new partner. Your first strategy could be avoiding the situation altogether by skipping the party. But if you do attend, you could also try modifying the situation by choosing not to interact with your ex. If that's proving difficult, you might want to shift your attention, maybe by playing a game with your friends rather than focusing on your ex's new partner. Another option would be to re-evaluate how you think about the situation. After seriously reappraising things, you might realize that you don't care who your ex dates. If none of these strategies work, you can always try tempering your emotional response after the fact. But this can be tricky. Many of the easiest ways to do this, like hiding your emotions or trying to change them with recreational drugs, generally lead to more negative feelings and health concerns in the long term. More sustainable strategies here include going for a long walk, taking slow, deep breaths, or talking with someone in your support system. While using all these strategies well takes practice, learning to notice your emotions and reflect on where they're coming from is half the battle. And once you've truly internalized that you can regulate your emotions, doing so becomes much easier. But should you use these techniques to constantly maintain a good mood? That answer depends on how you define what makes a mood "good." It's tempting to think we should always try to avoid sadness and frustration, but no emotion is inherently good or bad— they're either helpful or unhelpful depending on the situation. For example, if a friend is telling you about the loss of a loved one, feeling and expressing sadness isn't just appropriate, it can help you empathize and support them. Conversely, while it's unhealthy to regularly ignore your emotions, forcing a smile to get through a one-time annoyance is perfectly reasonable. We hear a lot of mixed messages about emotions. Some pressure us to stay upbeat while others tell us to simply take our emotions as they come. But in reality, each person has to find their own balance. So if the question is: "should you always try to be happy?" The answer is no. Studies suggest that people fixated on happiness often experience secondary negative emotions, like guilt, or frustration over being upset, and disappointment that they don't feel happier. This doesn't mean you should let sadness or anger take over. But strategies like reappraisal can help you re-evaluate your thoughts about a situation, allowing you to accept that you feel sad and cultivate hope that things will get better. 🎬翻译、视频和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1" 可加入【打卡交流群】