Try this: For an entire day, forget about the clock. Eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired. What do you think will happen?

    You may be surprised to find that your day is much like most other days. You'll probably get hungry when you normally eat and tired when you normally sleep. Even though you don't know what time it is, your body does.

    These patterns of daily life are called circadian rhythms, and they are more than just habits. Inside our bodies are several clocklike systems that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle. Throughout the day and night, our internal clocks direct changes in temperature, body chemicals, hunger, sleepiness and more.

    Everyone's rhythms are unique, which is why you might like to stay up late while your sister always wants to go to bed early. But overall, everyone is programmed to feel tired at night and energetic during the day.

    Scientists have known for a long time that the light of day and the dark of night play important roles in setting our internal（内部的） clocks. Now, new discoveries are giving scientists insights into how these clocks work.

    Learning about our body clocks may help scientists understand why problems arise when we act out of step with our circadian rhythms. For example, traveling across time zones can make people wake up in the middle of the night. Regularly staying up late can make kids do worse on tests and quizzes. And working shifts at night leads to higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

    “There is a growing sense that when we eat and when we sleep are important parts of how healthy we are,” says Steven Shea, Director of the Sleep Disorders Research Program at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

    Scientists still aren't sure why the timing of sleep matters so much, Shea says. But research findings suggest that our circadian rhythms are more important than we give them credit for.

    “During the night, we are prepared to sleep,” Shea says. “During the day, we are prepared to eat and move around. If you reverse (颠倒)what you are doing, everything is out of phase. That can have unfavorable consequences.”

    It is difficult for parents of nearly every family to teach their children to be responsible for housework, but with one of the following suggestions, you really can get your children to help at home.

    If you give your children the impression that they can never do anything quite right, then they will regard themselves as unfit or unable persons. Unless children believe they can succeed, they will never become totally independent.

    My daughter Carla's fifth-grade teacher made every child in her class feel special. When students received less than a prefect test score, she would point out what they had mastered and declared firmly they could learn what they had missed.

     You can use the same technique when you evaluate (评价) your child's work at home.

    Don't always scold and give lots of praise instead. Talk about what he has done right, not about what he hasn't done. If your child completes a difficult task, promise him a Sunday trip or a ball game with Dad.

    Learning is a process of trying and failing and trying and succeeding. If you teach your children not to fear a mistake of failure, they will learn faster and achieve success at last.

    If you think you have two left feet but would love to be a good dancer then why not try your hand at dancing?

    That's exactly what I did five years ago and I immediately fell in love with dancing. To me, dancing is a magical experience: I've become fitter, look younger and feel more confident. I enjoy it so much that I will never give up this healthy pastime.

    It's very sociable as well. You meet people and make new friends while dancing the night away. Haven't you heard stories about how dancing inspired new romances or rekindled (重燃) old ones? My friends Joe and Rena just had their big day a few weeks ago after they met each other at a Ceroc workshop some three years before.

    The word “Ceroc” comes from the French language. Without the complicated footwork, it is easier to pick up by beginners. Another good thing about Ceroc is that while it is a partner dance, you don't have to bring a dancing partner.

    Other popular styles of dancing in the UK include ballroom, belly dancing, lindy hop, salsa, tango and tap dancing, just to name a few.

    No matter what types of dancing you do, one thing is for sure: you will become fitter. For office workers like me, dancing is good cardio exercise after a long day sitting in front of the computer screen. It also strengthens your muscles, improves your coordination(协调) and increases your physical confidence.

    Few people will end up being queens of the dance floor. The aim is not to win a competition but to enjoy the interaction(交流). As long as you do the right moves, keep the rhythm and most importantly keep an encouraging smile to your dancing partners, you will always be a winner!

    It takes a special person to travel with kids—a parent. Children have their own needs. Their idea of a vacation is more “adventurous” than a parent's. They need constant inspiration and they can get as tired as they are tiring.

    Make sure you have plenty of room while traveling

    If you are driving, get a mini-van. Sure, you might be more of a “car” type, and you might have resisted buying a mini—van so far. But pick up a rental van for the vacation just to give the kids a little more room for fighting.

    Accommodations along the way can be tricky. Usually it involves a crowded motel for just long enough to sleep, then back in the crowded car. This is not anybody's idea of a home away from home. An accommodation alternative is to camp, but not everyone enjoys a good early morning wake-up wrestle with a bear as much as I do, so a motel might be required.

    Make sure you have plenty of room when you “get there”

    Assuming you are actually heading for a destination, make sure to have lots of room when you get there. This part is easy. But it requires thinking outside the box. Forget hotels, motels, and inns. Look for private rental homes.

    Probably the biggest destination for families is Walt Disney World in Florida. Good news—Orlando, Kissimmee and the surrounding area is full of private vacation homes for rent. In Florida they call them vacation villas, and they offer all the space of home.

    Be prepared for “children being children” events

    Sometimes, stress hits you from behind when the unexpected happens. Like a cut or a scrape…or a child getting sick. Sharon Baillie told me that is why she tells all her villa rental guests where the first-aid case can be found, and exactly where to go for medical attention. This is particularly helpful for her many guests from abroad, who are unfamiliar with the US healthcare system.

    Booking tickets to theme parks and making reservations for just about everything in advance makes the trip less stressful. Try having your children baby-sat. Hire a local baby-sitter once or twice. Vacation Home owners can set this up for you, and some hotels might be willing to, too.

    Most people know something about the greenhouse effect. Factories send gasses such as carbon dioxide, or CO₂, into the atmosphere, the air around the earth. In the past, this wasn't a problem because trees absorbed the CO₂. But now people in many countries are cutting down billions of trees all around the world. At the same time, factories are sending more CO₂ into the atmosphere. It's difficult to believe, but factories put billions of tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere every year. One ton is over 2000 pounds, so it is a lot of pollution. There is too much CO₂ and there aren't enough trees, so the world is getting warmer. In other words, we have a greenhouse effect. This is terrible for the environment.

    What can we do about this? Firsts we can stop using so much coal and oil. We can learn to use different kinds of energy: the sun, wind, steam from volcanoes, and heat from inside the earth. Second, instead of cutting down trees, we should plant more trees. One tree can absorb ten pounds of carbon dioxide every year.

    The trees are good for the earth's atmosphere and for Guatemala (拉丁美洲国家危地马拉).In small towns and villages in Guatemala, most women are poor and have hard lives. Trees help them in three ways. First, the Connecticut factories pay them to plant the trees. Their pay is com, not money. The com is good for their children. Second, these women know a lot about their environment. They know where to plant when to plant, and what kinds of trees to plant. For example, they plant many fruit trees. The fruit gives them vitamins for their families^' diets. Other trees are good for firewood. In a few years, the women won't spend so much time looking for firewood. Third, all these trees are good for the soil. Now rain can't wash the soil down from the mountains so easily.

    This plan isn't enough to stop the greenhouse effect. However, it's a start. The woman of Guatemala are helping themselves and helping their environment.

    When I was a boy, our extended, immigrant family would sometimes gather at my aunt's tiny house over the summer. Relatives from all over the country would come in to visit. The adults would crowd together in the living room to talk and catch up on each other's lives. And the kids would be sent out into the front yard to play when dinner was slowly cooked for all of us.

    Those were the days before video games, smart phones, and motorized toys, so we often ended up playing an old game. I remember one of those moments especially. As I was the youngest and smallest of all the kids there, I got caught first and couldn't catch anyone else. My brothers and cousins were all too fast for me, and I grew more and more frustrated. I finally fell my face first into the dirt. I got up with tears forming in my eyes. Then I saw one of my female cousins Susan standing there. She started to run but was going much slower than before. I easily caught up and seized her. Then she turned to me, smiled, and said, I'm it! You'd better run! Iran off laughing with glee while she turned and started to chase others.

    Now I see how her act of kindness that day saved me from sadness and returned me to joy. It didn't matter that we hardly ever saw each other. I know we are family and she loves me.

    In her wonderful book: Box of Butterflies, Roma Downey writes, "We are all one, we all belong to each other, and we are one big beautiful family." Perhaps it is time that we all started to treat each other that way. Perhaps it is time that we shared our love, our kindness, our laughter, and our joy with everyone without fear. Perhaps it is time to finally and forever bring this world together in one big family reunion.