If you’ve ever felt a rush of intense emotion, then you’ve probably also experienced the crash that comes when those emotions gradually become less strong. Although we usually think of exhaustion (精疲力竭) in physical terms, it can also be mental. One of the contributors to mental exhaustion is high-intensity emotions. Too many of these high-intensity emotions, whether they are positive or negative, can lead to burnout.
Psychologists divide emotions into two dimensions, which includes high and low intensity, as well as positive and negative. High-intensity positive emotions include excitement or elation, while low-intensity positive emotions include calmness, or contentment. When it comes to negative emotions, high-intensity emotions include anger, anxiety, and fear, while low-intensity emotions include sadness, boredom, and tiredness.
It’s easy to see how high-intensity negative emotions like anger can be exhausting. What we don’t think about as much is the fact that high intensity positive emotions are also exhausting, although in a way that feels very different.
Excitement, even when it is fun, involves what psychologists call “physiological arousal”-- activation of our sympathetic system. High-intensity positive emotions involve the same physiological arousal as high-intensity negative emotions. Our heart rate increases, and our sweat glands (腺) activate. Because it activates the body’s stress response, excitement can deplete our system when sustained over longer periods. In other words, high intensity -- whether it’s from negative states or positive states- exhausts the body.
About 15-20% of people are thought to be highly sensitive. As they cycle through the highs and lows of life, the increased amount of intensity leaves them more exhausted than others.
This isn’t to say that we should never feel intense emotions. Emotional variety is an essential aspect of life, one that adds a depth and richness that we need. However, what we need to be mindful of is balance. There will be the exciting days, as well as the days when stress and anxiety are what push you through the tough times, but there are other, lower-intensity emotions that will serve us well in many other situations.
1. What’s the main idea of Paragraph 2?| A．The functions of emotions. |
| B．The definition of emotions. |
| C．The categories of emotions. |
| D．The expression of emotions. |
| A．Set off. | B．Build up. | C．Stand for. | D．Burn out. |
| A．Enrich our daily lives. |
| B．Avoid intense emotions. |
| C．Create emotional balance. |
| D．Detect the cause of anxiety. |
| A．Why psychologists are more exhausted |
| B．How high-intensity emotions wear us out |
| C．Why high-intensity negative emotions are tiring |
| D．How psychologists explain the effects of emotions |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Math is a necessary skill that people use throughout their lives. Unfortunately, many children and adults feel stressed and anxious when they have to do math. They may be experiencing what is called “math anxiety”. Because of this, many people believe that they are bad at math and don’t like math.
A recent research has shown that some children as young as 6 years old may feel anxious about math. A team of researchers asked 154 children in grades 1 and 2 questions like “How do you feel when taking a big test in your math class?” The children expressed how nervous they felt by pointing to a position on a scale (刻度), where there were different faces from a very nervous face on the left to a calm face on the right. After answering these questions, the children took a math test. These researchers found that almost half of the children who participated in the study said that they were at least somewhat nervous about doing math. Also, children with higher math anxiety got worse scores on the math test.
Scientists have also found that math anxiety develops in children who experience certain kinds of social situations that influence their thoughts or feelings. This means that the child’s emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected by things that other people say or do. For example, teachers with high math anxiety were more likely to have students with poorer math achievements at the end of the school year.
Good news is that researchers have found tools to help people with math anxiety. These tools are called interventions (干预). For example, researchers did an intervention where they asked children with math anxiety to write about their math-related worries. Then they found that children’s math test scores improved. Therefore, it is advised to talk to classmates and teachers about math anxiety. This is the first step toward helping to reduce the possibly harmful effects of math anxiety.
1. What does the underlined word “this” refer to in Paragraph 1?| A．Math ability. | B．Stressful life. |
| C．Math anxiety. | D．Painful memory. |
| A．By making a math project. |
| B．By recording math scores. |
| C．By asking kids questions. |
| D．By showing teaching problems. |
| A．Anxiety determines math ability. |
| B．One’s math anxiety can affect others. |
| C．Students are born with math anxiety. |
| D．Children should avoid social situations. |
| A．Talking about it. | B．Working harder. |
| C．Using math tools. | D．Attending lectures. |
【推荐2】Recent studies have found that good things really do come to those who wait. Some, of these science-backed benefits are detailed below, along with three ways to develop more patience in your life.
Patient people are better friends and neighbors.
Patience helps us achieve our goals. The road to achievement is a long one, and those without patience may not be willing to walk it. Patient people make more effort and progress toward their goals.
Patience is linked to good health. Patient people are less likely to report health problems like headaches and pneumonia.
And how to develop patience? Reframe the situation. Patience is linked to self-control, and consciously trying to regulate our emotions can help us train our self-control muscles.
Practice mindfulness. Taking a deep breath and noticing your feelings of anger or overload can help your respond with more patience.
| A．Practice gratefulness |
| B．Patience is a form of kindness |
| C．Patience can be achieved through training |
| D．As virtues go, patience is a quiet one |
| E．Patient people enjoy better mental health |
| F．They are also more satisfied when they realize them |
| G．But impatient people have more health complaints and worse sleep |
【推荐3】When Breath Becomes Air gives an autobiography about Paul Kalanithi’s experiences as a doctor and as a terminally ill patient. The book discusses Kalanithi’s longtime fascination with questions of human biology, mortality (死亡率), and meaning. It then examines how these questions are heightened by the author’s own confrontation (冲突) with lung cancer, sickness, and death.
Kalanithi’s father was a doctor from New York City. The family moved to Kingman, Arizona, so that his father could pursue his medical career when Paul was young. His father worked long hours and was rarely home, which convinced young Paul that the last thing he wanted to do was to become a doctor himself. Paul’s mother was concerned about the weak school system in Kingman, and so gave a long list of literary classics which she made Paul and his brothers read. As a result, Paul became fascinated by literature. He attended Stanford University, from which he graduated in 2000 with a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in Human Biology. He earned an M. Phil in History Philosophy of Science and Medicine from the University of Cambridge. In 2007, Paul graduated from the Yale School of Medicine with the highest honors. He returned to Stanford for residency training (住院医生实习) in Neurological Surgery. As he neared the end of his 7-year residency he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. The hopes and dreams he and Lucy, his wife, have held to are dramatically changed.
When Breath Becomes Air gives an account of Kalanithi’s transformation from an innocent medical student troubled by the question of “what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a young neurosurgeon (神经外科医生) at Stanford, guiding patients toward a deeper understanding of death and illness, and finally into a patient and a new father to a baby girl, confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a continuous present? What does it mean to have a child, to care for a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this deeply moving, delicately observed autobiography.
Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-confirming reflection on the challenge of facing mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?| A．What led to the diagnosis of Kalanithi’s lung cancer. |
| B．Why Kalanithi changed his mind to become a doctor. |
| C．When Kalanithi decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. |
| D．How Kalanithi developed his interest in English literature. |
| A．Discouraging. | B．Reflective. |
| C．Delightful. | D．Controversial. |
| A．when he was a medical student |
| B．when he became a neurosurgeon |
| C．when he studied English literature |
| D．when he was diagnosed with cancer |
Maybe your mum or dad has told you, "Turn that down before you go deaf!" Well, they are quite right. Loud noise might cause hearing loss for a short time or even forever. Think that earphones are a good way to escape from tour parents’ eyes? Well. It may not be as good a way as you expect. American doctors have studied a group of 44,000 people who used earphones more than 15 hours per week. The doctors found that 37,000 of them were getting hearing problems.
If you use earphones for too long a time, your ears might feel painful. You could also lose your hearing for the rest of your life. So don’t wear your earphones too long. Use them less than one hour a day. Want sharp hearing? Don’t forget to do the following: Try to stay away from places where there is too much noise, like a disco. If you have to go, wear earplugs. When swimming, remember to put earplugs into your ears to stop water from getting in. Never put anything sharp into your ears. If you think you have too much earwax, ask your mum or dad to help you clean it out.
Keep these things in mind! Then you won't be saying "WHAT???" when you are older.
1. Using earphones "may not be as good a way as you expect" because _______.
| A．your parents know what you're doing |
| B．it can cause hearing problems |
| C．it makes your parents angry |
| D．most of you use them improperly |
| A．have your ears specially trained |
| B．often wear earplugs and clean out the earwax |
| C．take good care of your ears |
| D．choose what you listen to carefully |
| A．has become impatient |
| B．speaks in a loud voice |
| C．is slow in understanding |
| D．asks for a lot of repetition |
【推荐2】If you think that running marathons will help you live a long and healthy life, new research may come as a shock. According to a recent scientific study, people who do a very strenuous workout are as likely to die as people who do no exercise at all.
Scientists in Denmark have been studying over 1,000 joggers and non-joggers for 12 years. The death rates from the sample group suggest that people who jog at a moderate pace two or three times a week for less than two and a half hours in total are least likely to die.
The best speed to jog at was found to be about 5 miles per hour. The research suggests that people who jog more than three times a week or at higher speeds of over 7 mph die at the same rate as non-joggers. The scientists think that this is because strenuous exercise causes structural changes to the heart and arteries. Over time, this can cause serious injuries.
Peter Schnohr, a researcher in Copenhagen, said, “If your goal is to decrease risk of death and improve life expectancy, jogging a few times a week at a moderate pace is a good strategy. Anything more is not just unnecessary, and it may be harmful.”
The implications of this are that moderate forms of exercise such as tai chi, yoga and brisk walking may be better for us than “iron man” events, triathlons and long-distance running and cycling. According to Jacob Louis Marott, another researcher in the study, “You don’t actually have to do that much to have a good impact on your health. And perhaps you shouldn’t actually do too much”.
1. The underlined word “strenuous” in Paragraph l is closest in meaning to“___________”.| A．hard | B．regular | C．practical | D．flexible |
| A．suggest giving up jogging | B．show risks of doing sports |
| C．provide supportive evidence | D．introduce the research process |
| A．It may injure the heart and arteries. | B．It can make the body tired out. |
| C．It will bring much pressure. | D．It consumes too much energy. |
| A．No exercise at all is the best choice. | B．More exercise means a healthier life. |
| C．Marathons runners are least likely to die. | D．Proper exercise contributes to good health. |
【推荐3】Many people think that listening is a passive business. It is just the opposite. Listening well is an active exercise of our attention and hard work. It is because they do not realize this, or because they are not willing to do the work, that most people do not listen well.
Listening well also requires total concentration upon someone else. An essential part of listening well is the rule known as ‘bracketing’. Bracketing includes the temporary giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices and desires, to experience as far as possible someone else’s world from the inside, stepping into his or her shoes. Moreover, since listening well involves bracketing, it also involves a temporary acceptance of the other person. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will seem quite willing to open up the inner part of his or her mind to the listener. True communication is under way and the energy required for listening well is so great that it can be accomplished only by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth.
Most of the time we lack this energy. Even though we may feel in our business dealings or social relationships that we are listening well, what we are usually doing is listening selectively. Often we have a prepared list in mind and wonder, as we listen, how we can achieve certain desired results to get the conversation over as quickly as possible or redirected in ways more satisfactory to us. Many of us are far more interested in talking than in listening, or we simply refuse to listen to what we don’t want to hear.
It wasn’t until toward the end of my doctor career that I have found the knowledge that one is being truly listened to is frequently therapeutic (有疗效的). In about a quarter of the patients I saw, surprising improvement was shown during the first few months of psychotherapy (心理疗法), before any of the roots of problems had been uncovered or explained. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them, I believe, was the patient’s sense that he or she was being truly listened to, often for the first time in years, and for some, perhaps for the first time ever.
1. What is mainly discussed in Paragraph 2?| A．How to listen well. | B．What to listen to. |
| C．Benefits of listening. | D．Problems in listening. |
| A．listen actively | B．listen purposefully |
| C．set aside their prejudices | D．open up their inner mind |
| A．they were taken good care of. | B．they knew they were truly listened to. |
| C．they had partners to talk to. | D．they knew the roots of problems. |
| A．Science fiction | B．A news report. |
| C．A medical report. | D．Popular science |
【推荐1】Getting around in Canada is fairly easy. Most cities have urban transportation systems, including buses, streetcars, and trains, and some of the larger cities also have subways.
You can board these systems at regular stops along their routes. Some let you pay with cash while others require tickets. If you don't have a ticket for the bus, you must pay with the correct amount of money. This is because the driver does not carry any change. If you plan to stay in a city for a long time, you may want to buy a monthly pass or a package of tickets to save money. You can buy subway tickets at any subway station.
If you have to take several buses or subways for a single trip, you do not need to pay money each time. Simply ask the driver for a transfer ticket, or take one from the machines on the subways platform.
If you are not sure where to board the bus or the streetcar, just ask someone or follow the crowd People can usually only board at the front of the bus where you show your pass to the driver. When using public transportation, Canadians line up. First come, first serve, is a common approach to many activities in Canada, and it is considered to be extremely rude to cut in any line.
Maps of routes and schedules are usually available from the public transit company in your area, and there is also a telephone information line. You may ask someone for the name of the transit company in your area, and then look it up in the telephone book.
1. What is this passage mainly about?| A．How to use public transportation in Canada. |
| B．How to save money when traveling. |
| C．Where to find subways in larger cities |
| D．How public transit companies work. |
| A．you may be given some change |
| B．you had better have the exact amount of money |
| C．it might cost you a little more |
| D．you can exchange money with the driver |
| A．you have to pay each time |
| B．you should buy another ticket from the machine |
| C．you must ask for the driver's permission |
| D．you just need to pay once |
【推荐2】Chinese scientists say they have developed a robotic fish that can remove microplastic particles from water environments. Researchers working on the project say the robots could help to clean up plastic pollution in oceans around the world.
The robotic swimmers are about 1.3 centimeters long. They are made of a soft chemical Compound. The robots are designed to absorb microplastics while moving through the water. The project was launched by a team at Sichuan University in southwestern China. The researchers said the robots have already performed well in shallow water and they plan to carry out more tests in deeper waters. The scientists reported their findings in a new study in Nano Letters. The publication comes from the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit organization supported by the U.S. Congress. The robotic fish were built to target microplastic particles, which are smaller than five millimeters. Studies have confirmed that microplastic pollution has been discovered in many natural environments. The material comes from the breakdown of manufactured plastic products and industrial waste.
The team said the robots can be controlled by light. Turning “a near-infrared light laser” on and off causes the fish’s tail to move back and forth, the American Chemical Society said. The robotic fish can swim up to 2.76 body lengths per second. The researchers said this is faster than most similar soft robots. Wang Yuyan was a member of Sichuan University’s research team. She told Reuters news agency that the small, lightweight robot is currently being used to collect microplastics for research purposes. But Wang added that the team plans to expand that use so the robot fish can remove larger amounts of microplastic waste from deep ocean areas. The fish can take in different kinds of microplastics and even repair itself when damaged, the researchers said. And if a robot fish is accidentally eaten by a real fish, it could safely digest the material, the team added. Wang said similar robots could be developed to be placed inside the human body to remove unwanted materials or disease.
1. Why has a robotic fish been created?| A．To remove disease in people. | B．To clean up pollution in oceans. |
| C．To remove unwanted materials in body. | D．To remove microplastic particles in water. |
| A．It will be harmless. | B．It will repair itself. |
| C．It will take in microplastics. | D．It will collect microplastics. |
| A．The purpose of the robotic fish. |
| B．The function of the robotic fish. |
| C．A further introduction of the robotic fish. |
| D．Potential application of the robotic fish. |
| A．Pessimistic. | B．Positive. | C．Unclear. | D．Suspicious. |
【推荐3】Dreaming of summer picnics filled with family and fun? We’ve come up with 4 of the top picnic areas across the US.
Cumberland Islands, Georgia
A few hours south of Savannah, this national seashore is a picnic paradise. It’s an unspoiled place in the Deep South with over 50 miles of hiking trail. Covered in Spanish moss (苔藓), the trails are lined with trees and since it’s still a rural area, the stars line up for a spectacular show at night and creates the perfect evening starlit picnic opportunity.
Giant Park, Chicago
If you are looking for delicious food in Chicago, go for a taste of a 20-day, lake-front, foodie festival that happens in October each year. Grab a spot near the fountain to enjoy your picnic, appreciate the city scenery and lake views and relax with family and friends. If you are there on July 4th, be sure to plan the day to include the fireworks display at the Navy Pier.
Cranberry Islands, Maine
Here, you’ll enjoy natural picnics with island views. The islands are a delightful group of islands about 20 minutes offshore from Acadia National Park. You can visit the islands by private boat or ferry service. Bring a picnic basket along for the ride as it’s a romantic picnic area to take your special someone or go for a family outing to visit the islands.
Big Sur, California
The Point Lobos State Reserve is a small gem. Besides the coastal wildlife there are rare plant communities, and unique geological (地质的) formations. It’s good to have a picnic there. We recommend bringing a telescope, because much of the wildlife can be seen only at a distance.
1. What do we know about Cumberland Islands?| A．They are just next to Savannah. |
| B．They haven’t lost their naturalness. |
| C．They are almost covered in Spanish moss. |
| D．They have an impressive show every night. |
| A．There is a great trail to hike along. |
| B．They have unique geological formations. |
| C．You can find a quiet place to enjoy fireworks. |
| D．You can enjoy a romantic atmosphere there. |
| A．At the Navy Pier. | B．In the Deep South. |
| C．At the Point Lobos State Reserve. | D．At Acadia National Park. |
