Scientists and spiritual teachers alike agree that the simple act of smiling can transform you and the world around you. It can make us appear more attractive to others.
How Smiling Affects Your Brain
The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits your health and happiness. For starters, smiling activates the release of neuropeptides (神经肽) that work toward fighting off stress. The feel-good neurotransmitters (神经介质) are all released when a smile flashes across your face as well.
How Smiling Affects Your Body
You’re actually better-looking when you smile. A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia reported that seeing an attractive, smiling face activates the region in your brain that processes sensory rewards.
Did you know that your smile is actually contagious (传染性的)? In a Swedish study, subjects were shown pictures of several emotions: joy, anger and surprise. When the picture of someone smiling was presented, the researchers asked the subjects to frown. Instead, they found that the facial expressions went directly to what subjects saw.
A.How Smiling Affects Those Around You |
B.Each time you smile, you throw a little feel-good party in your brain. |
C.So if you’re smiling at someone, it’s likely they can’t help but smile back. |
D.And it can even lengthen our lives. |
E.How Smiling Affects Your Facial Expressions |
F.They not only relax your body, but also lower your heart rate and blood pressure. |
G.This suggests that when you view a person smiling, you actually feel rewarded. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Get Better at Saying No
“No” is a short, simple word that can cause anxiety for the person trying to say it. The following strategies can help you get better at saying no.
Be intentional about what you communicate.Not every situation, of course, calls for such a thoughtful approach. Think through times when you’ve gotten stressed over delivering a quick “no”, and then brainstorm phrases you could use in the future. Bohns, for example, is often asked to donate to some cause or another as she checks out at the grocery store.
There’s always that one guy who won’t take no for an answer. If someone is applying undue pressure, adopt what psychologist Ellen Hendriksen describes as the broken-record technique.
A.She says no directly. |
B.It’s sticking to your answer. |
C.Adopt the broken-record technique. |
D.Repeat your request again and again. |
E.She now has a go-to response: “I already donated this year.” |
F.One way to do that is by thanking people for thinking of you. |
G.You might have heard the tip that “no” is a complete sentence. |
Is it a tree? Is it a bear? If you’re looking at a tree in the shape of a bear, it’s a topiary. A topiary is a tree or bush that is trained into a shape. Topiaries are a kind of sculpture. Growing topiary garden takes both time and skill.
The first thing a topiary gardener does is make a drawing. The drawing shows the form the gardener would like a tree or bush to take. The gardener then chooses the bush for the topiary. It may be one that has just been planted or one that is already in place. Special bushes are used for topiaries. These bushes are yew, privet, or boxwood.
In June of the plant’s first year, the gardener looks for new leaves. When the leaves grow, it is time to shape the bottom of the bush. The gardener shapes the bottom of the bush for about five years. The top is not trimmed during this time.
In the fifth year, the bush grows tall enough for shaping. That’s when the gardener begins to shape the whole bush. Sometimes branches are bent (使弯曲) to form a shape. The gardener ties the branches in place.
Once a topiary has been started, it needs care all year. In summer it must be clipped many times to keep its shape. This cutting also helps the bush grow. In winter the bushes don’t grow. The gardeners have to brush snow off the plants. Snow can hurt the flat parts of the plants.
Topiary gardening is a very old art. The Romans did it in the first century. In the sixteenth century, people in Europe liked topiaries too. The Dutch and French grew very pretty topiaries in their neat gardens. In the late 1600s, topiaries were also grown in America. Today, there is a topiary garden in Williamsburg, Virginia. It’s much like a garden that grew there hundreds of years ago.
1. What is a topiary? (不多于13个单词)2. When does the gardener begin to shape the whole bush? (不多于4个单词)
3. What care does a topiary need in summer? (不多于12个单词)
4. What do you think of topiary gardening? Please explain why. (单词数不限)
【推荐3】Bananas and apples continue to ripen after being picked. Cherries and grapes do not. The difference between climacteric (后熟的) and non-climacteric fruits matters to fruit growers and greengrocers, who must ensures their products are in excellent condition when arriving at the marketplace. But how those differences originally came about remains unclear.
In a paper in Biology Letters, Fukano Yuya and Tachiki Yuuya of the University of Tokyo offer a suggestion. Fruits, they observe, exist to solve a problem faced by all plants - how best to spread their progeny around. Wrapping their seeds in a sugary flesh, to provide a tasty meal, serves as a way to got animals to do this for them. They do, however, need to ensure their fruits favour the animals most likely to do the distributing. They propose that climacterism or non-climacterism is a way to achieve this. If ground-living animals are the main distributors, then the continuing ripening of fallen fruit is beneficial. If, by contrast, those distributors are tree-living or flying animals, which can feed on unfallen fruit, then non-climacteric fruits will do well.
To test their idea, the two researchers combed through 276 papers about 80 sorts of fruits. They discovered 35 of these fruits were eaten by both groups of animals. But of those where one group or the other were the dominant consumers, 15 of the 19 eaten mainly by ground-living animals were climacteric.
Their assumption is strengthened by other evidence. They point out non-climacteric fruits tend to have vivid colors which may help them stand out amid the leaves, advertising their presence. Climacteric fruits are generally better hidden, making them harder to spot until they have fallen to the ground.
1. What did the two researchers try to find out through their study?A.What enables fruits to stay in perfect condition. |
B.How some fruits stand out in the trees, but others fail. |
C.How many animals play the role of distributors for fruits. |
D.Why some fruits stop ripening when picked, and others don't. |
A.Later generations. | B.Hidden qualities. |
C.Fresh fragrance. | D.Unknown disease. |
A.Bananas definitely fall into the category. |
B.They may appeal to flying birds. |
C.They tend to remain hidden among leaves. |
D.Ground-living animals generally feed on them. |
A.The Condition of Products: What Greengrocers Care. |
B.The Reproduction of Plants: Depending on Themselves. |
C.The Evolution of Fruit: Finding the Right Distributors. |
D.The Choice of Animals: Looking for bright-colored fruits. |