1 . Tai chi, a traditional, slow-moving form of Chinese martial art, is known to increase flexibility and improve balance. Now, new research suggests it’s better than more energetic aerobic exercises (有氧运动) for lowering blood pressure in people with prehypertension (高血压前期). Prehypertension is considered a warning sign that heart disease may be ahead, and it raises the risk of having a heart attack.

The new findings, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, add to a large body of research pointing to health benefits from tai chi.

In the study, researchers in China randomly assigned 342 adults with prehypertension to one of two interventions. The average age of participants was 49. Roughly half the people participated in aerobic exercises, including jogging, climbing stairs, brisk walking and cycling. The other half was trained to practice tai chi. Both groups got hour-long sessions four times a week.

After 12 months, those in the tai chi group saw bigger drops in their blood pressure than those in the aerobic exercise group. What’s more, nearly 22% of the people who practiced tai chi saw their blood pressure fall to within normal range, compared with nearly 16% of people in the aerobic exercise group. And fewer patients in the tai chi group went on to develop hypertension than in the aerobic exercise group.

How does tai chi help lower blood pressure? The practice tends to cause more of a response from the parasympathetic nervous system (副交感神经系统), says Ruth Taylor-Piliae, a professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Nursing, who was not involved in the study. The parasympathetic nervous system is the network of nerves that relaxes your body after periods of stress or danger.

“I think the beauty of tai chi is that you don’t have to have a special gym membership or special clothing,” Taylor-Piliae says. “Once you learn tai chi, you can do it anytime, anyplace, anywhere. And it does kind of provide that calming, relaxing effect.”

On a bright Saturday, my peaceful lunchtime was suddenly interrupted when my dad surprised me with an unplanned idea. I couldn’t hide my annoyance as what was supposed to be a relaxing Saturday turned into a day focused on football — a sport I wasn’t very excited about.

Many of my friends loved sports, while I preferred to find comfort in the pages of a good book rather than run around on a football court. My lack of interest resulted in average performance on the team, and I often felt like I was a problem for both my coach and teammates.

Things changed last week when our coach announced a coming match against the champions scheduled for a month later. The realization that this important game would have a big audience only made me more anxious. The fear of possibly letting down the team weighed on me.

Determined to make a positive impact, I decided to practice hard every day. My motivation came from wanting to help the team and to overcome the self-doubt affecting my performance.

As the match day approached, my teammates seemed unsure about including me in the lineup (阵容). I wouldn’t have minded sitting out, but the situations were different. With one player short, they reluctantly (不情愿地) included me, and The Thunder Strikers, our team, stepped onto the field to enjoy cheers from the crowd.

The pressure was intense. The game started, and within the ten minutes, I received a warning. Before long, the referee showed me a second yellow card, forcing me to leave the field. When I got back into the game, the score was tied, and the next goal would decide the winner.

As the ball came toward me, I felt a bit scared. My teammates seemed tired, and the other team really wanted to win. With great courage, I kicked the ball. The opponents (对手), maybe not expecting much from me because of my earlier struggles, were surprised when the ball went past the goalkeeper.

The Thunder Strikers won!

After this win, football became different for me.

5 . My fitness journey started when I couldn’t fit into my coats and weighed 176 pounds. This was my wake-up call. I was overweight, unhappy, and struggling to get back to health and happiness. I needed to be healthy again, so I decided to lose weight and regain control of my life.

I started working out and lost 40 pounds in two months. I was 33 with two kids. My journey started but I had much more to do. I ran marathons but grew bored of them, so I stepped up the challenge: and competed in triathlons (三项全能) for the next five years. I thought I discovered my passion. I’m a fierce competitor and enjoy racing even more. At 38, I was unable to compete and train at the level I desired. I was fearful of being lost and unhappy again.

As I was leaving the weights area one day, a girl asked if I competed in body building. I told her I didn’t and she said I should. This was the start of my new passion. I approached a bodybuilder at the gym and asked him about the sport and he convinced me to train for my first figure show.

I won every class I entered. I demanded a great deal from my body and aimed to improve before every competition, I maintained 10-11 percent body fat all year round. I have added 10 pounds: of muscle in the past four years.

Women over 40 needs to know that it’s possible to achieve our dreams. It’s about choices. Age isn’t a factor. If you want it, you have to work for it. If it were handed to you, it wouldn’t be sweet or unique.

7 . Recent studies found that smiling at London bus drivers increases happiness. However, on the Number 24 bus to Hampstead Heath, Londoners are sceptical. “Bus drivers,” says. Liz Hands. a passenger. “are generally annoying me.”

It might seem improbable that a report on London’s buses could change behaviour. But it has happened before. London’s buses have an underappreciated role in the history, of medical science. In the 1940s, a single study of London’s transport workers transformed epidemiology(流行病学), medicine and the way we live now. Every time you go on a run, check your step-count, or take the stairs instead of the lift, you are following a path pioneered by the feet of the workers on London’s buses.

In the late 1940s, doctors were worried. Britain was suffering from an “epidemic” of heart disease and no one knew why. Various hypotheses(假设), such as stress, were suggested; but one thing that was not exercising researchers was exercise. The idea that health and exercise were linked “wasn’t the accepted fact that we know today”, says Nick Wareham, a professor of epidemiology at Cambridge University. Some even felt that “too much physical activity was a bad thing for your health”. Navvies, miners and farmers who did physical exercise also suffered from various diseases and died young.

At this time a young doctor called Jerry Morris started to suspect that the excess deaths from heart disease might be linked to occupation. He began studying the medical ‘records of 31, 000 London transport workers. His findings were breathtaking: conductors, who spent their time running up and down stairs, had an approximately 30% lower possibility of disease than drivers, who sat down all day. Exercise was keeping people alive.

Morris’s research was eventually published in 1953, just three years after a study by Richard Doll proving the link between smoking and lung cancer. Morris’s work had consequences both big and small. Morris now also took up exercise, handing his jacket to his daughter and just running. “People thought I was bananas.” Slowly, the rest of the world took off its jacket and followed.

I grew up playing sports. I played softball as a child and performed excellently on my high school field hockey teams. My husband, Kenny, was playing professional basketball overseas when we met and now he works in education and coaches youth and high school basketball.

Kenny and I weren’t surprised when our daughters, Kennedi and Kassadi, showed early athletic promise, Kennedi, our older daughter won a medal by age seven. Kassadi wasn’t far behind.     

I began to think we might have a future sports star on our hands, so I talked with Kenny about it and decided to make running a duty. We didn’t ask the girls if that’s what they wanted. Of course they did! Who wouldn’t want to use a God-given gift, to the fullest? Slowly but surely, running took over our lives. By the time Kennedi started middle school, our family life was full of all kinds of trains and race. And I also became stricter with them.   

"Faster! Move those legs!" I’d shout at Kennedi if she started falling behind. If the girls lost in a game, the car ride home was no fun..."Where was the effort on that last lap, Kassadi?" I’d demand." Kennedi, you were faster in practice last week. What happened?"

I had visions of college scholarships, maybe even the Olympics I did not imagine sitting in a doctor’s office almost now, staring at the medical equipment.

“Immediate surgery(手术)might be necessary, ” the doctor said," I’ve almost never seen this kind of injury in a child. And recovery can take a long time. She might not come back to racing."

The doctor kept talking, but I had a hard time following the words. Why did it happen to my child?

My feelings were mixed.

"Yes! You are indeed too demanding," Kennedi said.

Dave had loved basketball for as long as he could remember and he had never had a day without playing it. At primary school and junior high school he joined basketball clubs, attended training programs and watched basketball games, from which he learned the moves of the star players, wishing to play in a professional team like them and shine on the court.

Now as a senior high school student, however, his dream of becoming a professional player was dimming (变暗) because he was only of average height. He had to give up the hope of joining the school team. The guys on the school team were all tall boys who played matches and won honors for the school. They were like heroes. Dave watched them play and cheered them but he knew he would never be one of them.

Dave felt it a pity not to be tall enough, but this didn’t stop him from pouring his passion into basketball. He just played for the love of the sport. He played in the school gym with other boys or by himself every day, even during holidays and weekends, when it was open for two hours in the morning. He enjoyed every minute on the court making every effort to play better.

It was one Saturday morning. Dave was playing in the gym by himself, as all the other boys were busy with other weekend affairs. Then he noticed a tall boy approaching. It was Lankas. Everybody knows him as captain of the school basketball team. “Hi, Lankas,” Dave greeted him. “My name is Dave.” “Hi, Dave,” Lankas replied as he got closer. “Nice to see you here. Do you need an opponent to play against?” Dave was shocked, frozen right there, unable to believe his ears but somehow, he answered, “Why not?”

10 . Nenad Bach, an American composer and singer who lives with Parkinson’s disease (帕金森病) is the founder of “Ping-pong Parkinson”, a movement that promotes ping-pong as a therapy (疗法) to improve the lives of Parkinson’s patients worldwide.

After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2010, Bach found that his tremors (颤抖) and other symptoms were keeping him from playing his guitar. But a friend introduced him to ping-pong, also known as table tennis, and he soon found that both his motor skills and his mood seemed to improve when he played. Bach’s doctor confirmed his improved state. And that’s when the idea for “Ping-pong Parkinson” took root.

In 2017, Bach worked with well-known New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz. Shortz also happens to be the owner of the Westchester Table Tennis Center. In October of 2019, the first Parkinson’s World Table Tennis Championship was held at the Center, attracting people with Parkinson’s disease from as far away as Sweden, Japan, Brazil, Croatia, England, and China.

Recently, a small study was conducted by scientists at Fukuoka University in Japan. People with Parkinson’s disease participated in a table tennis exercise program once a week for six months. Participants experienced significant improvements in facial expression, posture rigidity, speed of movement and hand tremors. They also experienced improvements in speech, handwriting, getting dressed, getting out of bed and walking.

Dr. Ken-ichi Inoue, the study’s author, comments, “While this study was small, with twelve participants, the results are encouraging because they show ping-pong, a relatively inexpensive form of therapy, may improve some symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.” Dr. Inoue is planning a much larger study to confirm his findings.