1 . What if a simple practice could greatly enhance your happiness, promote your physical health, improve your relationships, and even help you deal with life’s toughest challenges?     1     However, countless studies and personal stories show this powerful secret: gratitude.

Gratitude is a powerful emotion and a transformative habit.     2     It’s also about acknowledging the goodness in our lives and recognizing that the source of the goodness often comes from the outside of ourselves. It’s a celebration of the positive aspects of life, both big and small.

Practicing gratitude encourages us to change our viewpoint from scarcity (缺乏) to abundance. It prevents us from focusing on what we lack or what we want, directing our attention instead to the happiness we already have.     3     By encouraging positive emotions, gratitude can help reduce feelings of anxiety and depression. Moreover, it can enhance overall mood and emotional resilience, enabling us to better cope with stress and life’s challenges.

    4     Research has suggested that individuals who regularly practice gratitude report fewer physical problems, experience less pain, and generally feel healthier than others. They’re also more likely to engage in health-promoting behavior, such as regular exercise and routine check-ups.

Gratitude plays an important role in developing strong relationships. It helps to strengthen bonds, reduce aggression (挑衅), and promote feelings of social satisfaction.     5    .

Sichuan Opera is a kind of local opera. In the mid-18th century, in Sichuan province and some parts of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, Kunqu Opera and High-pitched Opera (高腔) were     1     (common) performed together with the local operas; sometimes they were performed     2     the same stage.    3     (influence) by each other, they blended into a new opera category named as Sichuan Opera.

Sichuan Opera has     4     strong literary quality and its own unique system of stylized movement. Sichuan Opera uses stunts (特技)     5     (create) characters such as immortals who have a third eye on their forehead that can open suddenly to reveal their supernatural power. Its trademark stunts include quick changes of     6     (face) masks without changing make-up, jumping through     7     (burn) hoops, and swallowing swords. In short, the essence of Sichuan Opera is absolutely true to life,     8     has been inherited by generations of players.

The technique of “face changes” is mainly used in Sichuan Opera. The specially trained     9     (performer) can make each change just by turning their bodies quickly. This     10     (achieve) by the performers secretly tearing away a single layer of multiple layers of masks for each change of expression on the face.

4 . Our latest study has shown that eating more fermented foods (发酵食物) (such as yogurt and raw cheese) and fiber daily for just four weeks has a significant effect on lowering stress levels.

While previous research has shown stress and behavior are also linked to our microbiome (微生物组), it has been unclear until now whether changing diets (and therefore our microbiome)could have a clearly noticeable effect on stress levels. This is what our study set out to do.

We found 45 healthy people with relatively low-fiber diets, aged between 18 and 59. More than half were women. They were divided into two groups and randomly given a diet to follow for the four-week duration of the study. Around half were assigned a diet which would increase the amount of fermented foods they ate. This was known as a “psychobiotic” diet, as it included foods that have been linked to better mental health. At both the start and halfway through the study, people in this group were told they should aim to include 6-8 servings daily of fruits and vegetables high in fiber (such as onions, cabbage, apples and bananas), and 2-3 servings of fermented foods daily. Participants on the control diet only received general dietary advice.

Finally, those who followed the psychobiotic diet reported they felt less stressed compared with those who followed the control diet. There was also a direct link between how strictly participants followed the diet and their stress levels, with those who ate more psychobiotic foods during the four week period reporting greater reduction in stress levels. Interestingly, the quality of sleep improved in both groups — though those on the psychobiotic diet reported greater improvements.

Our results suggest specific diets can be used to reduce stress levels. So the next time you’re feeling particularly stressed, perhaps you’ll want to think more carefully about what you plan on eating for lunch or dinner. Including more fermented foods and fiber for a few weeks may just help you feel a little less stressed out.

5 . Summer music festivals are in full swing, which means that thousands of enthusiastic fans are camping nearby, ready to party. Big problems appear, however, when it comes time for them to leave. They just throw their things away and leave them for someone else to clean up—usually waste contractors (承包方) hired by the music festival. They collect all things and throw them unsorted into a landfill.

Music festivals are environmental disasters when it comes to the amount of trash produced, and this results mostly from festival-goers’ strange disposable (用完即弃的) mentality. An estimated 80 percent of trash produced by music festivals comes from what’s left behind by campers, such as sleeping bags, camp chairs, clothes, rubber boots and leftover food.

After the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK saw 10,000 abandoned (被丢弃的) tents in 2011, some environmentally-minded people decided to take action. An international movement called “Love Your Tent” was started. The movement took over a single campground at the festival and ensured that every person who wanted to camp there signed a conduct agreement that included promising to take their camping equipment home. Its first year in 2012 was a success.

Unfortunately, it continues to be a battle. When “Love Your Tent” did a survey of students at Buckinghamshire New University last year, the result showed that 60 percent of participants admitted to leaving tents behind in the past, even though 86 percent recognized that waste has an impact on the environment.

One major impediment to waste reduction is that camping equipment is cheap and of poor quality so that nobody sees the sense in packing up a dirty tent and taking it home to clean and reuse.

While there’s no easy solution to this trash disaster, it’s clear that music festival organizers need to take responsibility for what their event creates, and demand that campers clean up their act. Organizers could also provide tent-recycling facilities for those people who keep leaving tents behind. Camping, which is supposed to be a celebration of music, should never become a trash fest (集会).

9 . This fall marks a new beginning for the hundreds of students walking onto a small Midwest college campus, but it’s an especially memorable time for one family. It celebrates three generations starting the new school year together.

Samantha Malczewski, 19, said that when she learned her mom and her grandmother would be joining her and her younger sister Mia Carter, 18, at Carthage College this fall, her eyes were wide open.

“I was clearly already admitted, and Mia was also admitted. And then all of a sudden, they were like, ‘Oh, we’re going too,’” Samantha recalled. “I didn’t expect it.”

Mia said she had an inkling (略知) that their mom and grandmother were interested in going back to school.

“My great-grandma just passed away and I think my mom had the realization that your mom’s not always gonna be there ... and I think it’s just the fact of them simply going to the same classroom every day and just gaining another aspect of spending time together,” the freshman accounting and marketing student said.

Her mom Amy Malczewski had worked at Carthage College for the last 22 years. She said she “always” knew she wanted to enroll (注册) as a student herself though. “I have a little time now. I’m like, you know what, I should get that graduate degree I’ve always wanted. And Carthage has this amazing master’s degree in business and design and innovation, which is really in line with all the things that I love,” said Amy.

Meanwhile, when Christy Schwan heard of her daughter’s plan, she quickly realized they could set on the journey together. The 71-year-old had retired three years before. She said she was drawn to learning about change management.

Amy and Christy are now classmates, studying for master’s degrees in business, design and innovation. Both nontraditional students say they encourage their peers (同龄人) to go for it if they’re also considering going back to school. “My advice to anybody is just, life is so short and if there’s something that you’re interested in, and maybe you’re doubting yourself a little bit, put that doubt aside and just go for it,” Amy said. “Especially if you have somebody that can do it with you, I think it makes it even sweeter, right?”