Are you sick of going to bed late and waking up tired? Then grab your hiking boots and a tent. A new study suggests that camping in the great outdoors for a couple of days can reset your body clock and help you get more sleep.
The body clock is an internal system that tells our bodies when it’s time to go to sleep and when it's time to wake up. Scientists track this clock by measuring the amount of melatonin (褪黑激素) circulating in a person’s blood at any given time.
In a healthy sleeper, melatonin levels rise a few hours before bedtime, stay high through the night, and then settle back down when it’s time to wake up.
In our modern society, however, most of us stay up many hours past sunset and would probably sleep in many hours after sunrise if we could. And the trouble is, your melatonin levels may still be high when your alarm clock goes off in the morning, which leads to fatigue. It may also have other health consequences as well, such as diabetes (糖尿病), overweight and heart disease.
Professor Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado in the US wanted to see if our body clocks can be reset by a short stay in nature. His team recruited (招募) fourteen physically active volunteers in their 20s and 30s. Nine went on a weekend camping trip, while the other five stayed home. At the end of the weekend, the researchers reported that in just two days, the campers’ body clocks had shifted so that their melatonin levels began to rise more than an hour earlier than they did before they left on the trip. By contrast, the body clocks of the group that stayed home shifted even later over the course of the weekend.
“This tells us we can reset our clocks fast,” Wright said.
Therefore, if you want to change your sleep patterns you could try to increase your exposure to natural light during the day and decrease the amount of artificial light you see at night. And if that doesn’t work，there’s always camping.
1. The underlined word “fatigue” in Paragraph 4 probably means ________.| A．excitement |
| B．tiredness |
| C．relief |
| D．disappointment |
| A．Those staying outdoors reset the clock inside their bodies over a short period. |
| B．The body clocks of the two groups didn’t show much difference. |
| C．The body clocks of those who stayed at home remained the same. |
| D．Changes to the body clock don't necessarily affect melatonin levels in our bodies. |
| A．stay home to reset our body clock and get more sleep |
| B．stay up late long past sunset and sleep long after sunrise |
| C．get exposed to more natural light but less artificial light |
| D．try to reduce melatonin levels as much as possible at night |
| A．To inform us of a possible way to adjust the body clock. |
| B．To explain how a lack of sleep is bad for our health. |
| C．To analyze how the body clock influences our sleeping habits. |
| D．To explore how the body clock is connected with melatonin levels. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Fishing is a popular activity and every fisherman knows the rule: Keep the big ones, throw the smaller ones back. The idea behind it is simple —the larger fish are probably older. If you keep the smaller ones, they won’t be able to reproduce, and the fish population is in danger.
But fishing out the largest fish from a population has an unwanted effect: Over time, fewer adult fish get really big. If only the smaller fish reproduce（繁殖）, then future generations become smaller. This is an example of evolution（进化）in action.
One scientist, Dr. David Conover, has spent the last decade studying the effects of the “keep the big ones” rule and if they can be reversed（颠倒）.
To set up his experiment, Conover and his team caught hundreds of silverside fish and divided them into six groups. For two groups, Conover followed the “keep the large ones” rule and took out the biggest fish.
For two other groups, he removed only the small fish. For the last two groups, he removed fish at random (随意的).
After five years, he measured the fish in each group. In the two groups where the largest fish were regularly removed, the average(平均) fish size was smaller than the average size in the other groups. Here was evolution in action: If only small fish survive(生存) to reproduce, then future generations of fish will also tend(倾向) to be small.
For the second five years of his experiment, Conover changed the rules and took fish randomly(随意) from each group. At the end of the experiment, he found that the fish that were in the “keep the large ones” group for the first five years had started to get larger again, although he calculated(计算) it would take at least
12 years for the fish in that group to return to their original(原始的) size.
In other words, it takes less time to shrink(变小) than it does to recover(恢复).
1. The underlined word “it” (Line 2) refers to “_____”| A．the activity |
| B．the fish |
| C．the rule |
| D．the fisherman |
| A．It helps to protect fish numbers. |
| B．It helps to protect fish size. |
| C．It is the custom in most countries. |
| D．They will be punished if they don’t. |
| A．The “keep the big ones” rule made no difference to fish size. |
| B．The “keep the big ones” rule made fish smaller on average. |
| C．The “keep the big ones” rule made the fish bigger on average. |
| D．The “keep the big ones” rule affected all fish populations in the same way. |
| A．If small fish reproduce, the future generations will be smaller. |
| B．There was no largest fish in “keep the large ones” group for the first five years. |
| C．it would take 10 years for the fish to return to their original size. |
| D．It takes less time to become bigger than it does to recover |
| A．To encourage people to fish more carefully. |
| B．To urge governments to change the rules of fishing. |
| C．To describe the results of a scientific experiment. |
| D．To introduce the rules of fishing to readers. |
【推荐2】How Plants Branch Out to Access Water
New research has discovered how plant roots sense the availability of water in soil and then adapt (适应)their shape to acquire water. The discovery could enable crops to be raised which are more adaptive to changes in climate conditions, such as the absence of water, and help ensure food safety in the future.
These findings, published in the journal Science, describe a new mechanism(机制) discovered by cooperating teams at the universities of Nottingham and Durham.
Roots are very important for plants to acquire water and nutrients(营养)from the soil. Water is necessary to plant growth , yet changing climatic conditions makes acquiring water from soil even more challenging. Plants are able to adapt to different soil moisture(湿润)conditions by changing their roots.
The researchers discovered that plant roots lacking a branching master gene were no longer able to branch out. They found that when roots have access to moisture, the certain gene remains active and promotes root branching, but when put in air, the gene is in activated, preventing root branching. The research has identified the certain protein which can inactivate root branching.
Professor Sadanandom explained: "This is hugely exciting as it opens up the possibility for us to help develop plants that could continue to branch roots even in challenging conditions such as the absence of water.''
Professor Bennett concluded: "Water is the key to plant growth, development and their survival. By studying how plant roots change their branching in response(回应)to water availability, we have uncovered a new mechanism. This opens the way to develop new crops better adapted to climate change and to help deliver global food safety."
It is absolutely imperative to ensure food safety worldwide. Crop production must double by 2050 to keep pace with global population growth. This target is even more challenging considering the effect of climate change on water availability. In this case, developing crops with better ability to acquire water would provide a solution.
1. The findings of the research may have a positive effect on several global issues EXCEPT| A．ensuring food safety | B．preserving the agriculture |
| C．solving the absence of water | D．increasing crop production |
| A．take in more nutrients | B．change inactivated roots |
| C．grow in challenging conditions | D．branch out without a special gene. |
| A．effective. | B．hopeful. |
| C．impractical. | D．urgent. |
| A．How a branching master gene responds to a particular nutrient. |
| B．How plant roots change their shape according to the soil moisture. |
| C．Why plants have different abilities to adapt to soil moisture conditions. |
| D．How the certain protein in activates root branching when accessible to water. |
【推荐3】Is future you? It might seem like a strange philosophical question. But the answer to how you think about your future self could make the difference between decisions you ultimately find satisfying and ones you might eventually regret.
The brain patterns that emerge on an MRI (核磁共振成像) when people think about their future selves most like the brain patterns that arise when they think about strangers. This finding suggests that, in the mind’s eye, our future selves look like other people. If you see future you as a different person, why should you save money, eat healthier or exercise more regularly to benefit that stranger?
However, if you see the interests of your distant self as more like those of your present self, you are considerably more likely to do things today that benefit you tomorrow. A paper in the journal PLoS One revealed that college students who experienced a greater sense of connection and similarity to their future selves were more likely to achieve academic success. Relationships with our future selves also matter for general psychological well-being. In a project led by Joseph Reiff, which includes 5, 000 adults aged 20 to 75, he found that those who perceived a great overlap (重叠) in qualities between their current and future selves ended up being more satisfied with their lives 10 years after filling out the initial survey.
So how can we better befriend our future selves and feel more connected to their fates? The psychological mindset with what we call ”vividness interventions“ works. We have found, for instance, that showing people images of their older, grayer selves increases intentions to save for the long term. Besides, you might try writing a letter to-and then from-your future self. As demonstrated by Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson in their 2020 study in the journal Self and Identity, when high-school students engaged in this type of ”send-and-reply“ exercise, they experienced elevated (升高的) levels of feelings of similarity with their future selves.
Letter-writing and visualization exercises are just a couple of ways we can connect with our future selves and beyond, but the larger lesson here is clear: If we can treat our distant selves as if they are people we love, care about and want to support, we can start making choices for them that improve our lives-both today and tomorrow.
1. What’s the function of paragraph 2?| A．Generating further discussion. | B．Introducing a research result. |
| C．Showing the effect of the finding. | D．Concluding various viewpoints. |
| A．By offering relevant statistics. | B．By using quotations. |
| C．By referring to previous findings. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Benefits of befriending our future selves. |
| B．Ways of connecting with our future selves. |
| C．Methods of changing psychological mindsets. |
| D．Possibilities of us becoming our future selves. |
| A．Making future plans makes a difference. |
| B．Our future selves look like other people. |
| C．Getting to know your future self benefits. |
| D．Your choice affects the fates of strangers. |
