【推荐1】The secrets of successful listening

“When people talk, listen completely.” Those words of Ernest Hemingway might be a pretty good guiding principle for many managers, as might the saying by Zeno of Citium, a Greek philosopher, “We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”     1    

Some firms use a technique known as a “listening circle”.     2     In such a circle, only one person can talk about the issues they face at a time and there is no interruption. A study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that employees who had taken part in a listening circle then suffered less social anxiety and had fewer worries about work-related matters than those who did not.

Listening has been critical to the career of Richard Mullender, who was a hostage (人质) negotiator, dealing with everything from suicide (自杀) prevention to international crimes. He defines listening as “the identification, selection and comprehension of the key words”.     3     Plenty of people think that good listening is about nodding your head or keeping eye contact. But that is not really listening, Mr Mullender argues.

A good listener is always looking for facts, emotions and indications of the speaker’s values. Another important point to bear in mind is that, when you talk, you are not listening. The listener’s focus should be on analysis.

    4     One approach is to make an assessment of what the other person is telling you and then check it with them (“It seems to me that what you want is X”).     5     The fundamental aim is to build up a relationship so the other person likes you and trusts you, Mr Mullender says.

【推荐2】Moving abroad, whether you are teaching, studying, volunteering or just traveling for a long period of time, is complicated.     1     Before you start working abroad, consider the following homesickness reduction techniques, so that you’ll be able to enjoy your adventure.

Make Your New Home a Home

You can’t bring your entire room from home abroad with you, but you can find ways to make your new space feel more like home. Spend a little time and money making your home a place you’re excited to come back to every day.     2    

Host a Cooking Class or Exchange

Food is one of the biggest causes of homesickness for almost everyone living abroad. Combine a taste of home with a social exchange by teaching your host family how to cook a dish you especially like. It’s two for-one.     3    .

Send Gifts Back Home

Staying connected to your family and friends back home is important. Consider giving gifts from your new country and sending them back home.     4     Also you can share your experiences abroad with your friends and family back home.

Schedule Some “Me” Time

It’s not a good idea to hide from your problems, but 30 minutes of pure alone time in a calming environment can be very helpful. Try to find an empty room—even if you’re living in student housing or with a family—diam the lights, close your eyes, and just breathe deeply and relax.     5    

【推荐3】What's that one thing you really should do, but keep putting off? We all have them: time-consuming, or difficult chores we're afraid of and drag out until the last minute — if we complete them at all.

But what if we could drive ourselves into those boring tasks by pairing them with something we really enjoy? Research suggests that combining the things we want to do, with the thing we should do, could be a nice trick to reach our goals. The method is known as "temptation bundling" and it allows you to combine two differing, but complementary activities at the same time.

"I only let myself get a footbath when I'm doing some work," says Katherine Milkman, a professor of behavioral economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Another example? Going to your favorite restaurant but with a difficult colleague, or someone you're supposed to spend time with, such as a relative.

In short, it's pairing something you like with something you don't like, offering you incentive to do something you might be putting off.

Exercise is one activity routinely treated as a boring task — so Milkman used it in an experiment to know how temptation bundling works in reality.

In her experiment. Milkman encouraged students to exercise while listening to addictive, page-turning audiobooks. One group, which could only access the audiobooks while at the gym, were 51% more likely to exercise than the control group, which were able to listen when they liked. Another group, whose access to the audiobooks was not restricted but who were merely encouraged to bundle the activities, were 29% more likely to exercise than the control group.

The benefit of "temptation bundling" comes from doing two things at once that go well together, says Milkman. "The secret is to bundle tasks that require different effort. For instance, if one task requires focus or concentration, you want the other not to be too distracting — reading while listening to a podcast is very difficult, for example, while cooking and listening is more realistic." Milkman adds.

【推荐2】Sooner or later, many families will face the situation of moving. The experience can be very bad for kids, who may not be a part of the decision to move and may not understand it. You can take steps to make the entire process (过程) easier for everyone.

Many kids like to stay in familiar places. So as you consider a move, weigh the benefits (好处) of that change against the comfort that neighborhood, school, and social life give your kids. If your family has recently dealt with a big life change, such as death, you may want to put off a move to give your children time to accept the fact.

The decision to move may be out of your hands, perhaps because of a new job or money problems. Even if you’re not happy about the move, try to keep a positive (积极的) attitude to it. During the move, a parent’s attitude can greatly influence kids.

No matter what the results are, the most important way to prepare kids to move is to talk about it. Try to give your children as much information about the move as possible. You can ask kids to join in the planning such as house-hunting or the search for a new school. This can make the change feel less like it’s being forced on them. If you’re moving across town, try to take your children to visit the new house and the new neighborhood.

A move can have many problems, but good things also come from this kind of change. Your family might grow closer and you may learn more about each other by going through it together.

【推荐3】Filled with much housework, meals and childcare at home, many people feel that being at work sounds more like having a picnic. Even for those who have a happy family life, they feel actually more stressed at home than at work.

Recently, a study carried out by the researchers at a university in the USA found lower levels of hormone (荷尔蒙) released in response to stress in a majority of subjects when they were at work compared to when they were at home. This was true for both men and women, and parents and people without children.

Both men and women showed less stress at work. But women are more likely to report feeling happier there. Men were more likely to feel happier at home. Experts say there are other reasons why work is less stressful than home for many. “Paid work is more valued in society,” said Sarah Damaske, the lead researcher on the study, “Household work is boring and not particularly rewarding.”

We get better at our job with time and the increased competence means less stress and more rewards. Yet none of us, no matter how long we’ve been doing it, ever truly feels like an expert at parenting or even at marriage.

The support and friendship of co-workers also offer stress relief. At home, meanwhile, stress spreads and increases quickly. “That’s the reason why most housewives wish they were the bread earners,” Dr. Damaske says.

Much of the advice to families and couples includes the warning to “leave work stress at office” and even to change our mind-set from work to home, for example, a walk around the block. The recent findings, though, suggest our home life, not our attitude, might be due for some change.

【推荐2】Rather than rolling your eyes when it’s your turn to bow your head and give thanks, try being grateful. The result just might be good for you, from improving your feeling to your relationships. If you don’t want to voice your gratitude, writing a letter may work, according to various studies by Steve Toepfer of Kent State University and his colleagues.

Toepfer and his colleagues had 219 students with an average age of 25 fill out questionnaires（问卷）to measure their happiness. They returned to the lab to fill out the survey three more times, with each visit about a week apart. Some of the students wrote a letter of gratitude each time they returned to the lab, while the control group didn’t write about being thankful.

“The letter writers were instructed to write a letter of gratitude to anyone they wanted, however, the letter couldn’t be a‘thank you’note for a gift,” Toepfer said. “The participants had to write about something that was important to them.”

The results showed that their levels of happiness and life satisfaction improved after each letter they wrote. In addition, depressive symptoms decreased over time with the letter writing.

Gratitude doesn’t just cheer you up—it can improve your health and energy levels as well. A 2007 study conducted by researchers found that organ-transplant(器官移植) receivers who kept “gratitude journals” listing five things or people that they were grateful for each day scored better on measures of general health, and mental health than those who only made routine notes about their days.

A successful relationship may depend on your gratitude. Research reported in 2011 looking at more than 65 couples who were in satisfying relationships showed that each couple’s relationship quality corresponded with one partner’s feelings of gratitude. Researchers show that one partner expressed feelings of gratitude; both partners experienced a positive emotional response.

【推荐3】A device called a TreeTalker is providing information about trees to people who oversee forests and woodlands. The device aims to measure the growth and general health of trees.

Scientists say forests are important because they absorb, or take in, carbon dioxide, one of the gases released by burning oil and other fossil fuels. It is a heat-trapping gas and has been linked to a general warming in the Earth's atmosphere.

The world is at a historic period for climate change because the scientific world is on guard. Many scientists say “Be careful, the ecosystem of the forests is not able anymore, as it was before, to absorb all this carbon dioxide.” Rising temperatures are placing forests under increased stress. Harmful insects and diseases are becoming more of a threat to trees. This is bad for the environment.

The TreeTalker devices serve as an early warning system for people overseeing forests. TreeTalker turns eco-physiological signals, such as growth, absorption of carbon dioxide, liquid flow from roots to leaves, into scientific information. This can help show if a tree is under attack from insects or other organisms. The TreeTalker sends its information to forest managers.

The TreeTalker device transmits data via radio and it can transmit data actually a very long distance, up to one kilometer. The information lets forestry officials take action immediately to control threats. The TreeTalker is able to measure the width of the bottom of a tree. Timber industry workers can use this information to know how much wood they are growing compared to how much they are harvesting. Another goal is to give scientists the information they need to understand how climate affects forests and the part trees play in a healthy environment.

About 300 TreeTalker devices are being tested in Italy and other countries, such as China and Russia. Another 1,700 devices are expected to be tested worldwide this year.

【推荐1】Technology is constantly evolving, and it's essential to stay up to date with the top trends(趋势) in senior living, one of which is wearables that can be worn on or around some part of our body, such as a smart watch. It is technology that individuals can feel, touch, and use everyday. Wearables can provide a great health benefit for seniors, with the ability to monitor their vital signs(生命特征) or help predict when a fall or other adverse health incident may occur. Research conducted by the National Institute of Health has shown an increase in the risk of falling when seniors don't get adequate amounts of sleep. Being able to monitor specific risk factors in residents(住户) can help reduce accidents and maintain safety.

The second top technology trend in senior living is devices and applications. Often when older adults move into a senior living community, they may feel as if control over their own life is being taken away. Devices that are put in the resident's care can improve their quality of life by giving them some power back and can also help monitor their health levels. Some examples of such devices are tablets, smartphones, and lighting systems. Specific applications that work with devices can help residents, even those with Alzheimer's and other types of dementia(痴呆)accomplish daily tasks and play games. A new app named Timeless will enable(使能够) residents to test memory with images of loved ones.

The third top technology trend is telemedicine, which can help improve old people's health. Telemedicine gives healthcare professionals the opportunity to educate multiple seniors through video conferences. With physicians available through video conferences, seniors can be saved from making the effort of physically going to a doctor's office, and thus reduce the risk of getting certain illnesses caused by exposure to bad weather.

The fourth top technology trend is voice activation(激活) . Many different types of technology are more commonly activated by voice commands. These can be very beneficial and create case of use for any resident using it. Senior scan conserve their energy when they are sick or just tired with lights that can be activated with certain commands. With voice-activated devices such as Amazon Alexa, a resident can control TV volume, music volume, and countless other in-home devices. This also gives residents a sense of control when they move to an assisted living community.

Finally, technology integration(集成) is also a top trend in technology for senior living. Each of the previous categories can improve lives, but when they are combined, the greatest benefits can be obtained. With a resident’s wristband(腕带) monitoring vital signs and sleep patterns combined with devices that monitor movement, such as room sensors, it can provide much needed data for providers to help prevent accidents and ensure quick response during emergencies

【推荐2】During the summer holidays there will be a revised（修改过的）schedule（时刻表）of services for the students . Changes for dining-room and library service hours and for bus schedules will be posted on the wall outside of the dining hall . Weekly film and concert schedules which are being arranged will be posted each Wednesday outside of the student club .

In the summer holidays , buses going to the town center will leave the main hall every hour on the half hour during the day . The dining room will serve three meals a day from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. during the week and two meals from noon to 7:00 p.m. on weekends the library will continue its usual hours during the week but have shorter hours on Saturday and Sundays . The weekend hours are from noon to 5:00 p.m.

All students who want to use the library borrowing services must have a new summer card . This announcement will also appear in the next week’s student newspaper .

【推荐3】In the desert, there is very little rain and it is very hot in the day and so cold at night. If you walk or drive through the desert, it might be wise to know what you should do in order to survive in the desert.

Drink a little water every hour. But how can you get water in the desert? If you find a small piece of land where the earth is wet, dig inside to look for water. Another method of getting water is to cover a green plant with a plastic bag. As it breathes, the water vapor (水蒸气) will collect inside the bag. Little by little, you can collect enough water to drink.

Plan to travel at night and sleep during the day, if you find you have to survive in the desert for a period of time. If you can find something that makes you cool in the desert, use it as a shelter (遮蔽物) to protect you from the strong sunlight.

Wear clothing in light color. It may seem like you’ll be cooler if you wear that kind of clothes, which actually helps your body to become cool and helps protect you from being sunburnt.

Prepare to signal planes passing overhead if you are caught in the desert. During the day keep a smoky fire burning and at night, a bright, clean burning one. In this way, you are more likely to be saved.