【推荐3】Stage fright, also called performance anxiety, affects actors of all ages and experience levels, from rookie kindergarteners to Broadway stars. Take Bella Merlin. She’s a professor of acting and directing at the University of California, Riverside. She has also acted for many seasons in several US theaters.Yet, she says,“For seven years, I feared the one thing I loved: acting.”

Signs of stage fright include sweating, rapid breathing, tightness in the chest and “butterflies” in the stomach. Not everyone shows all these signs or experiences them with the same intensity (强度). Yet extreme fear can make some actors escape mid-performance and bring the curtains down on promising careers.

It seems reasonable to blame stage fright entirely on bad-tempered directors or complicated lines. But psychologists have found the physical signs actually reflect deep-rooted fears of one’s own making. Such fears are instances of predicting a negative future outcome without including any other positive alternatives.

What are these fears? One is that of making mistakes. A few actors are afraid any error will ruin their own or their group’s reputation. These may include mispronouncing a word.

For those who have been performing for a while, memories of negative experiences can be an added burden. You’re remembering last year’s school play and imagining your classmates laughing at your errors.This distracts your attention, raising the chance you’ll make another error.

There’s a different worry for actors who put a lot of themselves into their characters. They fear that by not accepting their onstage personalities, the audience is labeling them as “worthless” in real life, too.

Whatever the fear, stage fright activates (激活) a stress-response system in your body. The alarm activating this system comes from an almond-shaped area in the brain called the amygdala. After it sounds the alarm, your body floods with two chemicals: adrenaline and cortisol. They make your heartbeat faster and tighten your muscles, putting you into a fight-fight-freeze mode.

Since stage fright originates in the brain, you might expect the cure exists there, too. You’d be right.

【推荐1】The Banaue Rice Terraces (梯田) in Ifugao Province in the Philippines offer a great sight. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is also rich in history and features how human creativity can produce amazing outcomes. Through hard work, the Ifugao native managed to survive by flattening the mountain’s surface layer by layer and using them as farmlands. This practice of more than two thousand years has put together a well-known wonder.

There are several rice terraces in the Ifugao region but the Banaue Rice Terraces are the most popular tourist spot. The photos of this area are often used in printed materials like textbooks magazines and postcards. After getting a good look at the rice terraces, I was reminded of the first time that I saw their pictures in our textbook during my elementary days. I already found them amusing as a kid and seeing their beauty as an adult got me more amazed.

The tourism officer told us that we were lucky to catch them in their greenest form. If you plan to visit this tourist spot as well, you should take note that we got there last June 1. You can also take into consideration that the rice planting cycle is typically 3 to 6 months.

Unlike the other terraces, the local government created a platform that makes it easy for everyone to get a closer look at the rice terraces. The platform has four stone statues that they refer to as rice protectors.

It’s sad that the younger generation of Ifugaos are slowly abandoning the rice terraces. According to tour guide Alvin, the part of the rice terraces where people can see thick bushes and trees were former rice fields. But the children who inherited (继承) those decided to give up farming and work in big cities instead. I hope that a new farming method with modern equipment will encourage the Ifugaos to continue their rice terraces farming tradition to protect this cultural treasure.

【推荐2】There was a unique restaurant in London that beat out thousands of stylish restaurants to earn the top ranking on the popular TripAdvisor, despite not existing.

The tale began with a belief that Oobah Butler had developed after a part-time job writing fake(虚假的)TripAdvisor reviews for restaurants: The site was a “false reality”, despite millions of genuine reviews. He decided to see how far he could take a fake restaurant on the site so “The Shed at Dulwich” was born. Butler created a web page with a menu based on emotions and attractive photographs of dishes. He also listed its location as the street he lived on with no address, calling it an “appointment- only restaurant”, to avoid being attacked by fact—checkers.

The Shed was unexpectedly approved by TripAdvisor to be listed in May, starting out as the 18,149th-ranked restaurant in the city: dead last. Butler began having family and friends flood the site with fake reviews. “Spent a weekend in London and heard that this place is a must-visit,” one wrote. “After a few mildly frustrating phone calls I was in.” Soon the customers started calling. “We’re fully booked,” Butler told the would-be diners. However, the restaurant’s reputation started to grow in TripAdvisor’s rankings. Some companies used an estimated location of The Shed on Google to send free samples to Butler, expecting to work with him. In November, Butler received a note from TripAdvisor saying The Shed had become the No.1 ranked restaurant in London!

Butler thought it was time to expose the trick. The story has been praised as an incredible feat(事迹). However, in an era that is increasingly being influenced by all of the disinformation that can be found online, it has also served as another reminder of the ease with which dishonest actors are able to handle online platforms to sometimes unthinkable results.

【推荐3】When Gayle Macdonald reached the summit (顶峰) in Spain’s Sierra Nevada mountain range earlier this year, she didn’t just stop and take in the moment. Instead, she did what a great many people would do—she looked for the best spot to take a selfie (自拍) for her social media accounts. Gayle even admitted that she moved dangerously close to the edge while doing so. It was after that moment that she decided to quit social media.

“I was like ‘this has got to stop,’ ” recalls Gayle. “Taking a photo used to be the first thing I thought about when I got out of the car. Thinking all the time about creating content and worrying about what to say, were taking up too much head space and getting me down.”

Social media can be addictive for many reasons, the main one being that it is a form of escapism, especially for the younger generation. It’s simply a way of connecting without connection, and it’s a 24/7 comfort blanket of company for many. For many of us, most of our time is spent on social media. One global study found that the average person spends 2 hours and 29 minutes per day on such apps and websites. While some people might think that this is a bad habit that they should cut down on, for others it’s an actual addiction that they need help to overcome.

Hilda Burke, a psychotherapist (心理治疗师), says there’s now more widespread awareness about how much time people are spending on social media. “This is now easily to figure up, as most phones show you the breakdown of how you’re spending your time online,” she says. “Seeing how it all adds up can serve as a powerful wake-up call.” She advises that people quitting social media should let all their friends know, so they don’t continue to try to contact you via the sites.

Burke welcomes the fact that more people are quitting social media. It’s likely that we’re eventually starting to realize the damage it can cause to our relationships, mental health and our experience of real-world moments.