【推荐2】Healthy Habits, Healthy Body

Feeling tired lately?Has a doctor said he can’t find anything wrong with you?Perhaps he sent you to a hospital, but all the advanced equipment there shows that there is nothing wrong with you.

Then, consider this: You might be in a state of sub­health(亚健康).

Sub­health, also called the third state or gray state, is explained as a borderline state between health and disease.

According to the investigation by the National Health Organization, over 45 percent of sub­healthy people are middle­aged or elderly.The percentage is even higher among people who work in management positions as well as students around exam time.

Symptoms include a lack of energy, depression, slow reactions, insomnia(失眠), agitation(焦虑),and poor memory. Other symptoms include shortness of breath, sweating and aching in the waist and legs.

The key to preventing and recovering from sub­health, according to some medical experts, is to form good living habits, alternate work and rest, exercise regularly, and take part in open­air activities.

As for meals, people are advised to eat less salt and sugar.They should eat more fresh vegetables, fruit and fish because they are rich in nutritional elements—vitamins and trace elements(微量元素)—that are important to the body.

Nutrition experts point out that it is not good to eat too much at one meal because it may cause unhealthy changes in the digestive tract(消化道). They also say that a balanced diet is very helpful in avoiding sub­health.

【推荐3】It's no secret that as the colder months roll in, the chances of getting sick start to increase. Winter is the worst time to get sick.     1    Luckily, there's plenty that we can do to prepare ourselves for the cold season.

Keep a packet of tissue in your bag, so that you can sneeze on a tissue instead of your hands.     2     It's also always nice if you can be the person that your friends can count on when they need a tissue-that's always appreciated even in random events such as going to a public bathroom that ran out of toilet paper.

You may consider it wise to avoid walking in the cold weather, or after dark since the sun goes down so early. Actually this is probably the worst thing you can do because the main way to stay healthy is to eat healthy foods and work out.

    3    

You're probably not getting as much sleep as you should. Sleeping six hours every night? Sleep twice as much as you usually do. Even if you can't fall asleep, try to lie down and rest in silence.     4    It's hard to believe,but mental health and physical health are a lot more connected than you might think.

    5    What we eat has a dramatic impact on our overall ability to defend against viruses and infections. Ensure that you maintain a diet that's high in fruits and vegetable, which can help support your immune system.

【推荐1】Are you fed up with staring at a computer screen for hours straight just to review your classes? It’s a problem that many of us encounter(遭遇).So why not pick your headset and learn via a podcast?

Podcast, or boke, refers to a range of audio programs on different audio platforms. According to China Daily, podcasts have become popular among young Chinese people who would like to enjoy the peace and power of learning through sound.

Established in 2012, China’s largest online audio platform, Ximalaya saw its subscribers pass 600 million by December 2019.Among these users over 46 percent were born between 1990s and 2000s.On average, active users listen to podcasts for nearly three hours per day.

The emergence of domestic(国内的)online radio platforms and the convenience brought about by smart devices are certainly two reasons for the popularity of the format.Its flexible nature also makes it a winner among the young audience.

“Audio is a good medium for content that can break the limit of time and space,” Jiang Feng, vice-president of Ximalaya, told China Daily. He added that podcasts have become an important channel for people to acquire information and knowledge .It also can accompany listeners in many different circumstances including working ,studying, exercising, traveling and just before going to bed.

Apart from providing company, the new media form also gives people a platform to speak out about important issues.

A senior high school student who wanted to be admitted to the Central Academy of Drama failed his national college entrance examination twice. He talked about the pressure he faced on an audio program called Please Listen, launched by Mango TV on Feb 19,2020.The program was designed to relieve audiences’ worries by sharing their own stories.

Podcasts tend to be a discussion, and just like real life conversations, they follow a flexible structure and usually last for at least an hour. More often than not, you can’t summarize two or three important points from those conversations, like you could from articles. They often do not have conclusions, either. It’s a very freeform medium that is very friendly to listeners,” Pan Aijuan,a podcast listener and book editor at a publishing house, told China Daily.

At the same time, the use of podcasts trains people to first listen to others before offering one’s own opinions. It helps build up our patience and listening skills. Cheng Yanliang, a co-founder of the podcast Left and Right, stated that“ audio programs can filter（减缓）those bad-tempered people who would lose patience after reading several paragraphs and start writing awful comments to insult others”.

With such advantages,“ podcasts are entering the mainstream(主流)in China”, noted China Daily.

【推荐3】Every time we get on a plane, we’re asked to either turn off our phones or change them to flight mode—it’s for “security reasons”.But according to The Conversation website, having to turn our phones off on a plane is “a service issue, not a safety one”.When we speak on our phones in the air, they can cause interference to the aircraft’s radios and pilots can hear this interference in their headphones.“It’s the same noise you’ll be familiar with, if you put your mobile too close to a speaker,” the Mirror noted.“It is not safety-critical, but is annoying for sure.” Though speaking on a phone during a flight isn’t dangerous, from the viewpoint of service, it isn’t still a good idea.

When we make or receive a call on the ground, we connect to a cell tower that deals with all calls within an 80-kilometer radius (半径).As we move from place to place we are “handed on” to different cell towers.As US scientist Sven Bilen explains, for this system to work, there are “built-in” expectations:There shouldn’t be too many “handoffs” and people shouldn’t be traveling faster than car speeds.“Of course, phone users should be close to the ground.” he added.If we were to make phone calls while we flew, however, none of these expectations would be met.And even worse, our cellphones would stop working.

But now things are beginning to change.If we still can’t speak during a flight, we can use other phone functions.For example, Airbus A330 of Emirates Airlines has inflight WiFi to make passengers send and receive short messages in the air.In the future, as Bilen points out, it may be possible for air travelers to make and receive calls freely.The breakthrough could be “pico cells”, which are small cell towers on the plane itself.There would no longer be connections made between phones and the ground and therefore there would be no danger of disruption to phone service.

One day, perhaps, we will be chatting in the air as much as we chat on the ground.

【推荐2】Soon after Savannah Phillips got fastened into her window seat on a United Airlines flight this past May, she glanced over at her seatmate. He was in his 60s and was busy texting. The letters were unusually large and the screen was bright, making it easy for Phillips to read what he was typing out: “Hey Babe, I’m sitting next to a smelly fatty.”

“It was like confirmation of the negative things I think about myself on a daily basis,” the 33-year-old mother wrote in a Facebook post after the flight. Soon tears streamed down her cheeks.

Sitting a row behind them was Chase Irwin, a 35-year-old bar manager. He could see the man’s texts, too. And he could see Phillips. “I noticed her looking at his phone. I was sick to my stomach. I could not have this guy sit next to her this whole flight and her thinking he’s making fun of her.” he told Nashville’s News Channel 5.

Instantly, Irwin had unfastened his seat belt and was overlooking the texter. “Hey, I need to talk to you,” he continued, “We are switching seats, now.” When asked why, Irwin said, “You’re texting about her, and I’m not putting up with that.”

The texter agreed. Irwin took his place next to Phillips and was soon cheering up his new seatmate.

“He encouraged me not to let that guy get to me and that everything was going to be fine.” Phillips wrote.

And he was right. She and Irwin spent the rest of the flight chatting like old friends.

With her faith in humanity restored, Philips wrote on Facebook, “The flight attendant told him that he was her hero. He wasn’t her hero—he was mine.”