1 . Over the past century, the average lifespan (平均寿命) in developed countries has increased by 30 years, from roughly age 50 to 80.
While lifespan is certainly an important measure of health and well-being, it is not the only one.
By a study based on the World Health Organization, an American who expects to live to 79 might first face serious disease at 63.
Lengthening healthspan starts with thinking about aging well overall, meaning putting physical health, mental health, and daily lifestyle all in one.
For now, there are some familiar steps to extend healthspan: common-sense nutrition, sleep, exercise and social connection are the four main factors.
| A．Some disease is less linked with lifestyle habits. |
| B．It also means taking ways to feel joy and connection. |
| C．It is important to remember that aging is a natural process. |
| D．Longer lifespans overall have been a public health success. |
| E．That could mean he will live in sickness for at least 15 years. |
| F．Healthspan is increasingly being known as an important idea. |
| G．The reason those things work is that they improve the biology of aging. |
2 . We often take sleep for granted, but not getting enough shut-eye can increase our risk for many serious health issues such as poor mental health, heart problems or even early death.
The ideal bedroom temperature for people to fall asleep is relatively cold — between 17 to 20℃. A drop in our core body temperature is essential for us falling and staying asleep because it stimulates sleepiness.
Obradovich and his colleagues found unusually warm temperatures had the largest effect on people’s bedtime duration by delaying falling asleep. Short sleep durations were the worst during the summertime and among the elderly, probably because they have more difficulty regulating their body temperature. The team also found warmer locations experienced the most sleep loss, suggesting people’s bodies haven’t adapted to their geographic location. Lower income countries are also heavily affected, which Obradovich supposes could be because of a lack of air-conditioning. But he plans to investigate further. Data show global warming also will have the biggest sleep loss in the Middle East, southeast Asia and Australia. By the end of the 21st century, people in the warmest regions are expected to lose another three nights of sleep per year due to higher nighttime temperatures.
Obradovich said his team’s findings could help communities or policymakers better improve the sleep environment for people, such as helping to cool bedrooms more effectively. On an individual level, Robbins, a physician at Harvard Medical School, said people also need to practice generally good sleep behavior. For instance, reducing screen time 15 to 20 minutes before falling asleep as the blue lights from cellphones or computers can work like the sun and throw off our body clock. She suggested meditation (冥想) before bed can significantly help people relax, making it easier for people to fall asleep.
“There’s still belief that ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’ kind of attitude towards sleep,” Robbins said. “There’s so much work to be done to improve our collective view of sleep.”
1. What is the main idea of the passage?| A．Temperature affects sleep duration. |
| B．Global warming improves sleep quality. |
| C．Sleep loss leads to serious health problems. |
| D．Sleep quality influences attitude towards life. |
| A．those in the warmer regions can well adapt to the temperature |
| B．the elderly suffer from sleep loss due to their sickness |
| C．it is harder to fall asleep in warmer temperature |
| D．unusual warmth contributes to earlier wake-up |
| A．People should pay more attention to sleep. |
| B．People have different attitudes towards sleep. |
| C．Scientists will solve the problem of sleep loss. |
| D．Scientists should help to improve humans’ sleep quality. |
In some
World Health Day is celebrated every year on April 7, the founding day of the WHO.
5 . What you do after studying could have a big effect on how well you learn and remember. Today on Education Tips, we will explore two no-cost ways that can help you improve your learning: wakeful rest and sleep.
When many students finish studying, they often go straight to another activity. Perhaps they look at their phone or computer. They might even play a video game or watch television. But research suggests that resting after your study may help you remember what you have studied.
The basic idea is this: by stopping your activity after the study, your brain gets a chance to rest. Resting is difficult when you are playing computer games.
While this might sound unusual to you, many studies have explored the benefits of resting after learning—what is called “wakeful rest”.
A 2019 study found that both young and older adults were able to better remember information they learned after doing wakeful rest.
If you want to give “wakeful rest” a try, here are a few simple things to do. Rest quietly for five to ten minutes. Do not look at your phone, read stories or play games. It is really that easy!
Besides wakeful rest, sleep is also important for learning. The Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) notes that sleep helps people to learn in two ways. A report on the school’s website explains that “a sleep-deprived person cannot focus attention well and therefore cannot learn well”. It also says, “Sleep itself helps us to memorize and that memorizing is very important for learning new information.”
The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) suggests that adults between the ages of 20 and 64 get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per day. Teenagers may need a little bit more, and people over the age of 65 may need a little less.
Try to get some “wakeful rest” after a study. Then try to get a good night’s sleep. That’s it—a simple, no-cost way to help you remember what you learn.
1. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?| A．The importance of sleep. | B．The good ways to get a rest. |
| C．The reason for having a rest. | D．The types of resting activities. |
| A．Reading a newspaper. | B．Playing a video game. |
| C．Sitting there doing nothing. | D．Having a nice sleep at night. |
| A．Less than 7 hours. | B．Just 7 hours. |
| C．No more than 9 hours. | D．Around 9 hours. |
| A．Low-cost Tips on Working | B．Good Things to Do After Your Study |
| C．Why Do We Need to Have a Good Sleep? | D．How Long Should We Rest After Learning? |
6 . Using a Mobile Phone to Improve Mother and Child Health
People around the world are working to expand the uses for mobile technology in health care.
In the world, there are six billion mobile phone users in a population of seven billion people.
During the first week of December, 2012, more than 4,000 people from 50 countries met for the fourth annual mHealth Summit. It brought together experts from what the organizers call the mHealth ecosystem.
In 2011 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton started a public/private partnership called the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action, or MAMA. There are about 800 women a day and about three million babies a year die from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes.
Simple text messages can be important sources of information to people without Internet access.
| A．They have no access to the relevant information. |
| B．A lot of work has been done to use mobile technology for health. |
| C．Millions of messages about baby care are received every day. |
| D．That way they too can understand what needs to be done. |
| E．The program sends messages to women to educate them about their health. |
| F．And the most rapidly growing markets are those in developing countries. |
| G．Besides, online users may sometimes not understand all the information available. |
7 . You’d think the human race would have understood sleeping very well by now, but many of us are still sleeping poorly. Part of the problem is that we have wrong information and beliefs about this important health need. Let’s set the facts straight.
1. More sleep is better for you.
There could be such a thing as too much sleep. The amount of sleep we need varies by person and also changes as we age. Harvard researchers found that a lot of sleep (9 hours or more) is linked with poor sleep quality.
2.
Alcohol can help most people fall asleep. However, it also can cause you to wake up more during the night, decreasing your sleep quality. Consider drinking non-alcoholic drink before bed instead.
3. If you wake up in the middle of the night, lie in bed until you eventually fall back asleep.
4. You can catch up on sleep on weekends.
When we lose sleep during the week, we accumulate a kind of sleep ＂debt＂.
| A．Alcohol helps you sleep. |
| B．Here are some things you might have been told about sleeping but aren’t completely true. |
| C．Everyone should get 7—8 hours of sleep per night. |
| D．So don’t aim for more sleep — even on the weekends. |
| E．Waking up in the middle of the night is the pits (烦心事), but it happens to all of us. |
| F．You’ll have a better day and perhaps sleep better at night. |
| G．Can you pay that debt back by sleeping on Saturday or Sunday? |
