The Health Benefits of Gardening
Gardening is popular in many parts of the world. This outdoor activity gives us beautiful plants, pleasant smelling flowers and fresh fruits and vegetables.
Reduces loneliness
Gardening connects people. When you are gardening, you are outdoors.
Gardening is a great activity to do with children. Children can learn about nature and wildlife. Gardening can teach a child about where food comes from and healthy eating. It can also help them to understand the limits of natural resources and the importance of using them carefully.
Vitamin D
Exercise
When you garden you must move around. All the different movements needed for gardening — bending, twisting, stretching and lifting — work small muscles in the body. And you can easily get a good work out when you are digging holes or pulling weeds.
Brain health
Gardening may help your brain stay young. Activities such as gardening use many repeated actions, such as weeding or dead-heading (removing dying flowers from a plant).
| A．Gardening can be a great teacher. |
| B．But it also gives us many health benefits. |
| C．Harvests from gardening are organic food. |
| D．These actions have a calming effect on the brain. |
| E．So it is a perfect time to socialize with your neighbors. |
| F．When you are in your garden, you might feel the sunshine on your skin. |
| G．Gardening can also give you the feeling that you have done something good. |
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【推荐1】Loving your own body is often easier said than done. Do you know that 70% of women between the ages of 18-30 dislike their bodies?
Think healthier, not skinnier
When you’re making meals, or when you’re hitting the gym, don’t set your fitness goals according to a number you’d like to see on the scale. Exercise and a healthy diet shouldn’t be a punishment.
Surround yourself with positivity
Negative messages about body image are all around us. According to one study, participants who spent more time on social media were more likely to develop a negative body image and eating disorders.
Focus on the things you like about yourself
Every time a negative thought about your body pops into your mind, counter it with something positive. Try making lists of the things you like about your body. And not just how it looks, but the things it allows you to do.
Stop comparing yourself to others
| A．List it all out. |
| B．Pick up a new hobby. |
| C．And men aren’t much better off. |
| D．People come in all shapes and sizes. |
| E．So, try to cut out the negativity that you can. |
| F．Often we project our own insecurities onto others. |
| G．It is one way we show respect and appreciation for our bodies. |
【推荐2】We get it. Students are busy. Among a challenging curriculum, exciting social life and personal commitments, sometimes it can be difficult to remember to take care of yourself.
Eat Right. This can seem difficult, but, when broken down, is a bit more attainable. The principles you should follow are very simple.
Exercise. Keeping your body healthy and in shape is important.
Get Enough Sleep. It can be difficult to ensure you’ re getting enough sleep when you’ve got a huge load of class work or other commitments. But getting enough sleep can really improve your overall health and wellness. Try to stick to a sleep schedule so that you can stay well-rested throughout the day.
Drink Lots of Water. Staying hydrated will give you more energy throughout the day, refresh your body, stop you from overeating and aid in concentration. It also helps prevent those headaches, so fill up your water bottle daily.
| A．It doesn’t have to be extreme either! |
| B．Joining a gym is essential for every high-school student. |
| C．Remember to use a refillable bottle for the environment. |
| D．Of course, when you’ re really busy, you may turn to fast food. |
| E．But, without your health, none of your other activities are possible. |
| F．Always eat breakfast, never skip meals and snack often to avoid hunger. |
| G．So don’t pull all-nighters, and turn off all of your electronic devices on time. |
【推荐3】How do you relax after a stressful day in the office? There are many ways to help you relax. But the best way lies in the great outdoors.
Forest bathing is about taking time to wander through woodland with no fixed plan or route and just expose yourself to the forest atmosphere. Having this exposure to nature seems to promote well-being.
Another study carried out a few years ago by Stanford University in the US, found similar benefits. Brain scans showed reduced activity in an area of the brain linked to the risk of mental illness in participants who took a 90-minute walk among oaks, birds and squirrels. One of the researchers, Gregory Bratman, said, "There's an increasing body of evidence showing that natural areas benefit us at least emotionally with our mood and our physical development too." The evidence seems clear that forest bathing is a shot in the arm for stressed-out workers. So now is the time to get out and lose yourself in the natural environment,
| A．You could even hug a tree as it could be your new best friend! |
| B．The Japanese concept of forest bathing dates back to the 1980s. |
| C．Connecting with nature has never been more urgent. |
| D．Forest bathing is rising in popularity around the world. |
| E．It also found forest bathing can decrease stress, anxiety, and depression. |
| F．That's particularly good for people with mental health issues. |
| G．It takes a little effort to get there but the benefits are great for our stressed-out lives. |
【推荐1】It’s most people’s nightmare: surviving a plane crash only to be trapped in a jungle with no way of contacting the outside world. But this was reality for four Colombian children, and in an incredible story, they survived.
The children, aged 13, 9 and 4, as well as an 11-month-old baby, were flying with their mother from their village in the Amazon to visit their father in San José del Guaviare. The single-engine plane on which they were flying experienced engine problems and disappeared on May 1, 2023. Bad weather prevented the army from finding the crash site for two weeks. where they then found the dead bodies of three adults, including the children’s mother.
How did these children survive conditions that would be an unimaginable struggle for most adults? They are members of the Huitoto Indigenous group and were raised in the jungle. As such, they have a better understanding of the rainforest. They know which fruits are safe to eat and which plants should be avoided. Working with, rather than against, the Amazon. they survived off of juan soco (a fruit similar to passion fruit) and seeds, while feeding the baby water mixed with yucca flour that they found on the plane.
While the children got on with the business of surviving, the Colombian army worked with Indigenous volunteers to find them. After 40 days of searching, the children were found and taken to recover at a military hospital in Bogota.
While many around the world have taken this survival story of resilience to be a miracle, others point out that it is the result of an ancient knowledge of the rainforest that has been passed down through Indigenous communities over the generations. Indigenous tribes have a close relationship to the Amazon, marked by a deep respect for the forest that provides them with shelter and sustenance. It is their close connection to and understanding of the rainforest that undoubtedly helped the children to survive.
1. What can we learn about the crash in the first two paragraphs?| A．The plane knocked into another one. |
| B．The rescue failed to arrive immediately. |
| C．The mother managed to survive at last. |
| D．The kids shared a jungle with adults. |
| A．They kept calm in the plane crash. |
| B．Enough food was found on the plane. |
| C．They were familiar with the rainforest. |
| D．Native volunteers offered food and water. |
| A．Toughness. | B．Competition. | C．Evolution. | D．Creation. |
| A．Emergency help should be improved. |
| B．One who is knowledgeable lives long. |
| C．We should sharpen children’s living skills. |
| D．It is worthwhile to be in harmony with nature. |
【推荐2】When man and nature try to co-exist, man usually wins out. But that wasn’t the case in a small town in southern India when a native Robin recently chose to build her nest in an extremely inconvenient location.
The village of Potthakudi contains only 120 homes and has a total of 35 streetlights. Unfortunately ,the misguided mama bird had decided to set up housekeeping in the town’s main lighting switchboard (配电板).
The nest and its inhabitants were first discovered by Karuppu Raja, the man tasked with turning on the streetlights each evening. A lifelong bird lover, Raja posted his find to local social media to warn the citizens of his discovery and ask for their cooperation in taking a hands-off approach to the unexpected guests.
“Switching off the lights is the only solution because the bird will fly once it realizes there is a human touch or contact near its nest,” Raja wrote on WhatsApp. “We should save the bird and its babies at any cost.”
While some initially voiced concerns that lack of nighttime illumination (照明) would be inconvenient ,Raja was eventually able to persuade his fellow villagers that any sacrifice would be worth it in the long run. “I explained that so many birds have died out and we should not let Indian Robin go the same way,” Raja recalled.
So, rather than ousted the bird, the villagers agreed to observe a blackout (断电) until the baby birds were old enough to fly away. The town spent a total of 45 days and nights in the dark, even disconnecting the switchboard from the power source to keep the mom and her chicks safe.
After mama Robin and her babies finally took off, the blackout was lifted, but the village’s extraordinary protection efforts for the sake of one lone bird and her babies didn’t go unnoticed.
A bird in the hand may be worth two in the bush, but a bird in the switchboard has earned Potthakudi a reputation for kindness that’s likely to light up smiles for quite some time to come.
1. What can we know about Karuppu Raja?| A．He does his job carelessly. | B．He loves birds all the time. |
| C．He argues with his villagers. | D．He is the leader of the village. |
| A．Protected. | B．Set free. | C．Killed. | D．Drove away. |
| A．The reasons why many birds have died out. |
| B．The kind villagers in Potthakudi. |
| C．What villagers do to help the birds. |
| D．How to protect Indian Robins. |
| A．Man will conquer nature. |
| B．Man and animals can live in harmony. |
| C．A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. |
| D．A bird is known by its note and a man by his talk. |
【推荐3】The two rescuers knew they were in trouble when they found that they had to stay at the airport on the night before Thanksgiving with a grounded plane and 30 turtles（海龟）. Regnante and her husband, Tingley, were part of a volunteer effort to save hundreds of sea turtles that were washed up close to death on the beaches of Massachusetts.
The couple urgently needed to find temperature-controlled accommodation for the endangered sea turtles. They were in the rescuer race to save the smallest sea turtles in the world, at a little over 2 feet long, and they had been found with very low temperatures. Every year, hundreds of the turtles follow warm ocean currents north from their hatching sites in the Gulf of Mexico, become trapped in the cold Atlantic and are then rescued from Cape Cod by volunteers, who take them to wildlife centres along warmer coastlines.
Regnante is a volunteer with Turtles Fly Too, a charity that provides air transport for the stricken turtles. On Wednesday, she took off with the turtles from near Boston in a plane piloted by her husband. They were bound for New Orleans but storms forced them to change course and refuel twice. Then, at Chattanooga, Tennessee, a stone damaged the propeller. "It was just one thing after another," Regnante told The New York Times. "I just kind of wanted to say, "Guys, it's going to be OK'."
For turtles, being out of the water and in transit for a long period was stressful. Luckily, A happy ending was delivered. Two heated trucks were sent nearby, where the turtles spent the night. On Thanksgiving morning, Regnante and Tingley drove them to a handover point in Alabama from where the turtles were taken to their new home.
"Turtles Fly Too does whatever it takes to make the mission happen," Leslie, president of the charity, said. "When challenges arise, we'll be quick to make adjustments."
1. What can be inferred about the sea turtles?| A．They were hatching babies. |
| B．They were dying from hunger. |
| C．They were to be brought to cold areas. |
| D．They were in danger of poor condition. |
| A．The fund issue. | B．The bad weather. |
| C．The lack of fuel of the plane. | D．The physical condition of his wife. |
| A．Every coin has two sides. |
| B．God helps those who help themselves. |
| C．Saving turtles sometimes depends on luck. |
| D．The charity will spare no effort to save the turtles. |
| A．A Race to Save Turtles | B．Endangered Sea Turtles |
| C．New Shelters for Sea Turtles | D．An Introduction to Turtles Fly Too |
