The National Institutes of Health defines the disorder as “a medical condition characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite harmful social, occupational or health consequences.” Yet despite how popular it is, most people who have the disorder do not receive treatment for it, even when they reveal their drinking problem to their primary care doctor or another health care professional.
Alcohol abuse can be driven by a complex variety of factors, including stress, depression and anxiety, as well as a person’s genetics, family history and socioeconomic circumstances. Many people kick their heavy drinking habit on their own or through self-help programs like Alcoholics Anonymous or SMART Recovery. But relapse (复发) rates are very high. Research suggests that among all the people with alcohol use disorder who try to quit drinking every year, just 25 percent are able to successfully reduce their alcohol intake long-term.
Alcohol is one of the most common forms of substance (物质) abuse and a leading cause of preventable deaths and disease, killing almost 100,000 Americans annually and contributing to millions of cancers, car accidents, heart attacks and other ailments. It is also a significant cause of workplace accidents and lost work productivity, as well as a driver of tense family and personal relationships. Yet for a variety of reasons, people who need treatment rarely get it from their physicians.
Studies suggest that a major barrier to people seeking treatment is that they believe that quitting drinking is their only option. That view is driven by the popularity and long history of 12-step programs like A. A. that consider quitting drinking as the only solution to alcoholism. For some people with severe drinking problems, that may be necessary. But studies show that people who have milder forms of alcohol use disorder can improve their mental health and quality of life, as well as their blood pressure, liver health and other aspects of their physical health, by lowering their alcohol intake without quitting alcohol entirely. Yet the idea that the only option is to quit suddenly can prevent people from seeking treatment.
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1. “世界睡眠日”的时间和目的；
2. 睡眠不良的危害；
3. 提高睡眠质量的策略；
4. 呼吁大家提高睡眠质量。
注意：
1. 词数：80左右；
2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
The Importance of Good Sleep
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . Mathew White, an environmental psychologist, is on a mission to give Mother Nature the respect he thinks she deserves when it comes to human health. For decades, scientists and health-care professionals have recognized that exposure to green spaces, such as public parks or forests, is linked with lower risks of all sorts of illnesses common in the world. Experimental work has demonstrated various physiological responses that occur when people spend time in natural environments: blood pressure drops, heart rate decreases, immune function improves, and the nervous system directs the body to rest and digest.
As humans increasingly populate urbanized areas, they are spending less and less time in natural environments. But before doctors can start advising their patients to head to the nearest park, there is an important outstanding question, says White: How much time in nature do you need to generate these apparent benefits? Most of the research that has linked health outcomes with exposure to the natural world didn’t use frequency or duration of park visits, but rather the amount of green space within a certain distance of a person’s home, White says. But “it’s not so much where you live; it’s whether you use it or not.”
So he collected data to estimate what dose（剂量） of nature was needed to show benefits to a person’s health. White’s group found the answer he was after: Spending at least two hours in nature per week was strongly correlated with self-reports of being in good health or having high wellbeing. “I was very surprised, to be honest,” says White, who had been expecting a much longer time. “We had no idea that such a clear threshold of time per week would emerge from the data.”
He was further surprised to learn that it didn’t seem to matter how many trips to a park people took, so long as they got in their two hours per week. It could be a long visit one day, a couple of hour-long trips, three visits of 40 minutes, or four half-hour excursions. He and his colleagues speculate that, if nature’s apparent health benefits are a result of being able to de-stress, then whatever pattern of green space exposure fits one’s schedule is probably the best way to achieve that goal.
Health-care recommendations for people to spend time in nature are probably years away, but the movement has begun. Several organizations around the world are working to promote awareness of nature’s contribution to health. Some researchers have used the term “a dose of nature” to evaluate the amount of exposure needed to gain benefits. “That was kind of the deliberate medicalization of the language around nature and health,” says White.
1. White’s research focused on_______.| A．required amount of green space |
| B．benefits from the exposure to nature |
| C．necessary time length of nature visits |
| D．physical responses to outdoor activities |
| A．Maximum time. | B．Minimum time. |
| C．Adequate time. | D．Average time. |
| A．is confident about his mission |
| B．is willing to cooperate with others |
| C．has persuaded others to accept his idea |
| D．has adopted the term for his research result |
| A．Respect for Nature | B．Nature as Medicine |
| C．Present from Nature | D．Mission in Nature |
