The weather is getting hotter. You are thirsty playing basketball or riding home from school. A cold drink may be just the thing. But be careful what you are drinking. Something that looks cool may not be good for your health.

    There are plenty of “energy drinks” on the market. Most of them have beautiful colors and cool names. The lists on them tell you they are helpful to your health. Sounds great!

    But after a careful check you may find that most energy drinks have lots of caffeine(咖啡碱)in them. These drinks are especially aimed at young people, students, busy people and sports players. Makers sometimes say their drinks make you better at sports and can keep you awake. But be careful not to drink too much. Caffeine makes your heart beat fast. Because of this, the International Olympic Committee(IOC) has limited(限制) its use. Caffeine in most energy drinks is at least as strong as that in a cup of coffee or tea.

    Possible health dangers have something to do with energy drinks. Just one box of energy drink can make you nervous, have difficulty sleeping and can even cause heart problems. Scientists say that teenagers should be discouraged from taking drinks with a lot of caffeine in them.

    A large body of research has been developed in recent years to explain many aspects of willpower. Most of the researchers exploring self-control do so with an obvious goal in mind: How can willpower be strengthened? If willpower is truly a limited resource, as the research suggests, what can be done to make it stay strong?

    Avoiding temptation (诱惑）is an effective method for maintaining self-control, which is called the “out of sight, out of mind” principle. One recent study, for instance, found office workers are less attracted to candy in the desk drawer than that on top of their desks, in plain sight.

    The research suggesting that we possess a limited reservoir of self-control raises a troubling question. When we face too many temptations, are we to fail? Not necessarily. Researchers don't believe that one's willpower is ever completely exhausted. Rather, people appear to hold some willpower in reserve, saved for future demands. The right motivation allows us to tap into those reserves, allowing us to carry on even when our self-control strength has been run down. High motivation might help overcome weakened willpower—at least to a point.

    Willpower may also be made less vulnerable (脆弱) to being exhausted in the first place. Researchers who study self-control often describe it as being like a muscle that gets tired with heavy use. But there is another aspect to the muscle comparison, they say. While muscles become exhausted by exercise in the short term, they are strengthened by regular exercise in the long term. Similarly, regular practices of self-control may improve willpower strength.

    The evidence from willpower-exhaustion studies also suggests that making a list of resolutions on New Year's Eve is the worst possible approach» Being exhausted in one area can reduce willpower in other areas, so it makes more sense to focus on a single goal at a time. In other words, don't try to quit smoking, adopt a healthy diet and start a new exercise plan at the same time. Taking goals one by one is a better approach. Once a good habit is in place, Baumeister says, you'll no longer need to draw on your willpower to maintain the behavior. Eventually healthy habits will become routine, and won't require making decisions at all.

    Many questions about the nature of self-control remain to be answered by further research. Yet it seems likely that with clear goals, good self-monitoring and a little practice, you can train your willpower to stay strong in the face of temptation.

    In recent years I have had two very good roles on television: Florence, the wisecracking maid on the series The Jeffersons, and Mary, the mother who holds things together on 227. But 17 years ago, in 1972 when I was just getting started in theater work, I thought I'd never make it as an actress. For that matter, I couldn't even hold my life together or afford a home of my own.

    Back then I had about as much self-confidence as a chicken in a fox's nest. I was recovering from surgery and had been off work for six months from my job as a United Airlines reservations agent. I'd had some bit parts in local theater groups, but those came and went, not leading to anything bigger.

    Worse, as a single mother with three youngsters, I had no place to live. My children were staying with their father while I recovered in an aunt's apartment. Lying in bed, staring hopelessly at the wall, I didn't know what to do or where to turn.

    Then one Sunday morning I aimlessly turned on the television set, and there were actor Robert Young and his wife talking about their faith. I sat right up in bed. They said, "When one door closes, a better one opens," Well, I wasn't going to just sit staring at the closed one. So I got up and trudged (跋涉) on. Even if my shoes wore out, I decided, my faith wouldn't.

    Later, when I began filling small parts in television productions, that self-confidence showed. I'd always done my best to play the role as I thought the director wanted, but now I found myself freer to interpret it, I was more natural, more me.

    It was once common to regard Britain as a society with class distinction. Each class had unique characteristics.

    In recent years, many writers have begun to speak the 'decline of class' and 'classless society' in Britain. And in modern day consumer society everyone is considered to be middle class.

    But pronouncing the death of class is too early. A recent wide-ranging society of public opinion found 90 percent of people still placing themselves in particular class; 73 percent agreed that class was still a vital part of British society; and 52 percent thought there were still sharp class differences. Thus, class may not be culturally and politically obvious, yet it remains an important part of British society. Britain seems to have a love of stratification.

    One unchanging aspect of a British person's class position is accent. The words a person speaks tell her or his class. A study of British accents during 1970s found that a voice sounding like a BBC newsreader was viewed as the most attractive voice, Most people said this accent sounded 'educated' and 'soft'. The accents placed at the bottom in this study, on the other hand, were regional city accents. These accents were seen as 'common' and 'ugly'. However, a similar study of British accents in the US turned these results upside down and placed some regional accents as the most attractive and BBC English as the least. This suggests that British attitudes towards accent have deep roots and are based on class prejudice.

    In recent years, however, young upper middle-class people in London, have begun to adopt some regional accents, in order to hide their class origins. This is an indication of class becoming unnoticed. However, the 1995 pop song 'Common People' puts forward the view that though a middle-class person may 'want to live like common people' they can never appreciate the reality of a working-class life.

After nearly two months of relative silence among new waves ofCOVID-19 pandemic infection in Japan, organizers of Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday released the first of playbooks that will instruct athletes, officials and members of the news media on the procedures they must follow at the rescheduled Games.

Already delayed by a year, the opening ceremony is now a little more than 120 days away. Organizers must find a way to accommodate and ensure the safety of more than 10,000 athletes who view this summer as the result of years of sacrifice and training.

For now, the best that organizers could offer were the outlines of a plan. Athletes and other attendees will not be required to be vaccinated (接种疫苗) or to quarantine (隔离) on arrival in Japan, but they will be subject to severe restrictions on movement and socializing. All athletes will be required to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their departure for Japan and give in to another test on arrival.

The organizers said the documents were not an end. They would wait until spring to decide if audiences will be permitted to travel to Tokyo. If fans are eventually allowed to attend, the documents suggest they be asked to express support for athletes only in the form of clapping, rather than singing or chanting. To track outbreaks, visitors from abroad will have to file a list of everyone they have close contact with during that initial 14-day period.

Olympic officials see some reason for optimism. In many parts of the world, professional sporting events have been held for months, though often with very few or no spectators at all, and nothing as large as the Summer Games.

71-year-old, Helen Lloyd Jones from Cardiff recently completed her first marathon and is encouraging others of her age to take up the challenge. "Do it. We only live once," she said after the event.

Helen took up running in her 50's while working as a teacher. After jogging alongside one of her students during a sports day race, Helen said, "I felt terrible, absolutely terrible. It was a wakeup call and I started to practise jogging."

Helen started attending her local parkrun, but decided she needed a bigger challenge to keep her motivated. Once the idea of running 26.2 came into her head, she was decided, and set her sights on running a larger race, using the support of the crowds to get her round.

Helen didn't tell her husband for the first five months of her training as she knew he'd be worried about the toll the distance might have on her, saying g afterwards, "The difference between the man who waved me goodbye and the smiling man who greeted me when I returned was a reflection of how much he had been worrying. But he is very proud of me."

At 71, Helen explains how she didn't do her training "by the book". After trying to do a long run, a speed run and a hill run each week, she soon found her body was not able to recover fast enough between sessions. Instead, she chose one long run a week with her local running club Pegasus and friend Sally, so she could feel confident with the distance. 

A proud grandmother, Helen is I now taking her grandchildren to parkruns and junior parkruns. She hopes that they will remember running with their grandmother when they grow up. Are there more marathons in her future? "I said I would only do the one, but have a feeling that if I got a place in London or New York... I might change my mind."