【推荐1】Success and Risk(风险) in Extreme Sports

What is it that drives some to take extreme risks,while the rest of us hurry for the safety of the sidelines?

Lester Keller, sports-psychology expert, says that not everyone has the mental makeup to do well in extreme sports. He notes that most of us hit a natural ceiling(天花板) that limits our interest for extreme risk. But others have a much greater interest for risk. Keller points to a top ski racer. He told Keller that the great risk makes you feel alive, tests what you are made of and how far you can take yourself. He said he would get nervous on some of the courses, but that this would just make him fight more.

Psychologists note that some people seem to be crazy for adrenaline(肾上腺素) rushes as a behavior looking for excited feelings. Like many extreme athletes, Emily Cook’s interest for risk appeared at a young age, “ was a gymnast,” she said. “I was one of those kids who enjoyed and did well at anything where you were upside down”.   As she started doing harder tricks, she was drawn to the challenge. “There are moments when you’re up there doing a new trick and it seems like an impossible thing. But overcoming that is just the coolest feeling in the world.”

Shane Murphy, sports professor, has worked with groups climbing Everest. “To me, that just seems like the height of risk,” he said. “But to them it was the next step in an activity that they’ve prepared for years.” Murphy said the view of extreme athletes is different from our own. “We look at a risky situation and know that if we were in that situation we would be out of control. But from the athletes’ view, they have a lot of control, and there are many things that they do to minimize(最小化) risk.”

Another understanding of risk may be something referred to as “the flow”,   a state in which many athletes become concentrated on the acts that focus the mind completely on the present. “Something that makes you try doing a tougher climb than usual, perhaps is that your adrenaline flows and you become very concentrated on what you’re doing,” Murphy says. “After it’s over, there’s great excitement.”

People of different skill levels experience the flow at different times. Some may always be driven to adventures that others consider extreme. “I can enjoy hitting a tennis ball around, because that’s my skill level,” Murphy says. “But others might need the challenge of Olympic competition.”

【推荐2】I’m sure we all know that exercise is great for our health．But sometimes finding that motivation(动力) to work out can be a little difficult．So, in this post, I’m going to share my top four reasons for working out．

    1    

Whenever I move to a new city to study or work, I look for exercise classes to do．You meet like­minded people, and you can support each other during a difficult workout．    2    

Exercise makes you feel confident(自信的)．

We all know the physical advantages of exercise on our bodies but we don’t always talk about the mental(心理的)ones．     3    This new confidence might even help in your social or work life．

Exercise helps to reduce stress(压力)．

Going for a run can help you forget the problems and worries of daily life．    4    It makes me feel less worried and it also helps me to sleep those important eight hours the night before a big exam．

Finally, exercise makes us feel strong and healthy!

Every day, the 20 minutes in the gym get easier, the weights feel lighter and you feel a great sense of achievement．    5    

So, next time you’re feeling down or stressed, put your trainers on and get some exercise．It might not be easy but I promise you’ll feel so much better once you’ve finished!

【推荐3】“Humans can develop certain abilities we aren’t born with by practicing animals’ movements,” the traditional Chinese Wushu lovers believed in the past — and still do today.

Chinese Five-Animal Exercises, also known as Wuqinxi, are the first complete set of qigong exercises following the movements of animals: monkeys, deer ( 鹿 ), birds, bears and tigers. They were created by one of the greatest doctors in Chinese history, Hua Tuo, more than 1,800 years ago.

The Five-Animal Exercises are well-designed to help blood circulation (循环), and let the energy go smoothly in the body so as to improve the health.

“ The bear movements are good for the stomach. The tiger movements can reduce the pain in the back. The deer movements help reduce the fat around the waist (腰). The bird movements can help keep our knees healthy and the monkey movements can be good for the heart.” said Hua Yi, the 59th inheritor (继承人) of Wuqinxi.

For those new learners, the first few exercises might not go well. You may find it hard to focus. Wear comfortable clothes, keep peaceful in your mind, try to move slowly... Little by little, you’ll feel more and more harmonious with nature. You may even feel you become a tiger or a deer, walking in the forest freely.

These exercises need no tools. You can search online for the videos and practice them at any time when you feel like relaxing your body and mind. Because it’s fun to practice and good for health, Five-Animal Exercises are becoming more and more popular in recent years, not only in China, but also in many other places of the world.

【推荐3】There is no denying that some people live to be older than others. Followed are the standard explanations: keeping a moderate diet, engaging in regular exercise, etc. But what effect does your personality have on your longevity (长寿）？ Are there any kinds of personalities contributing to longer lives? A new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society looked at these questions by examining the personality characteristics of 246 children of people who had lived to be at least 100.

According to the study, those who live the longest are more outgoing, more active and less neurotic(神经质的）than other people. Long-living women are also more likely to be sympathetic and cooperative than women with a normal life span. These findings are in agreement with what you I would expect from the evolutionary theory: those who like to make friends                    and help others can gather enough resources to make it through tough times.

Interestingly, however, other characteristics that you might consider advantageous had no impact on whether study participants were likely to live longer. Those who were more self-disciplined, for instance, were no more likely to live to be very old. Also, being open       to new ideas had no relationship to Jong life, which might explain all those bad-tempered old people who are fixed in their way.

Whether you can successfully change your personality as an adult is the subject of a longstanding psychological debate. But the new paper suggests that if you want long life, you should strive to be as outgoing as possible.

Unfortunately, another recent study shows that your mother's personality may also help determine your longevity. That study looked at nearly 28,000 Norwegian mothers and found that those moms who were more anxious, depressed and angry were more likely to feed their kids unhealthy diets. Patterns of childhood eating can be hard to break when we’re adults, which may mean that kids depressed moms end up dying younger.

Personality isn’t destiny, and everyone knows that individuals can learn to change. But both studies show that long life isn’t just a matter of your physical health but of your mental health.

【推荐2】Climate change has been blamed for killer hurricanes，sea level rise，and drought，but a new report suggests the effects of climate change might hit the world's coffee supply. Up to 70 percent of the world's coffee supply could be threatened over the next 66 years，according to a new study by researchers at England's Royal Botanic Gardens.

Nearly 100 percent of the world's Arabica coffee growing regions could become unsuitable for the plant by 2080，according to the study. Beans from Arabica coffee plants account for about 70 percent of the world's coffee，but the plant also has to be grown under strict weather conditions: they grow well at temperatures between 64 and 70 degrees Celsius，and are highly influenced by frost or temperatures higher than 73 degrees Celsius.

With temperatures estimated to increase by between 1.8 and 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century，the fragile plant might become increasingly expensive and difficult to grow，especially in places such as Ethiopia and Kenya. In that worst case，nearly all of the world's native Arabica coffee would die out. Under more conservative(保守的) estimates，about 65 percent of the regions used to grow the coffee would become unsuitable for it. The   evidence from coffee farmers and coffee growing regions around the world is that they are already suffering from the influences of increased warming.

Some farmers would likely be able to move their operations to other areas or would be able to overcome climate change with artificial cooling techniques，but wild Arabica is generally considered to be much more suitable for making high－quality coffee.

If Arabica becomes impossible to raise in its native areas，it could do serious damage to the economies of the mainly third－world countries in which it grows. Coffee is the world's most popular drink and is the second most traded product in the world，behind oil.