Stress is an inevitable part of a busy and modern life. Time and time again, we see people feeling overwhelmed because of stress. But after years of being dosed up by doctors and seeking solutions on the self-help shelves, can most common complaints be cured through your next holiday? The festival doctor will see you now.

    Complaint

    Prescription（处方）

    Dosage(剂量)

    Guilty

    Restart yourself at the Wanderlust Festival

    A weekend at any Wanderlust Festival should restrain some of the shame you are feeling. Empty your mind with meditation (冥想) sessions in the mountains of America or adjust your feelings with a sound bath in Santiago, Chile.

    Sad

    A healthy dose of laughter at Just for Laughs in Montreal, Canada in July.

Have fun at the largest comedy festival, which attracts more than two million ha-ha hunters every summer. Apart from 250 comedy acts, there will be walkabout theater ,circus acts and lots of new comedy films to make you laugh to tears.

    Over- thinking

    Get nourishing food for your thought at the U.K.'s How the Light Gets In in May.

    Spend a week or so in the company of like-minded individuals and you will see you are not the only one over-thinking things. The world's largest philosophy festival, held in Hareous Wye, will have talks, debates and classes on culture, philosophy, politics, art and science.

    Heart-broken

    Find one of your favorite fish in the sea at Ireland's Matchmaking Festival in June.

    A week at Liverpool's Matchmaking Festival could be a choice as Ireland's mythical matchmakers have been pairing lovers together for centuries. Try to find Willie Dally, a fourth-generation matchmaker, for your best chance of everlasting love. Those who touch his lucky book are said to fall in love and marry within six months.

    In the mid-nineteenth century, as iceboxes became increasingly common in American homes, there were efforts to find cheaper and more reliable sources of ice. In the eighteen-thirties, scientists discovered a way to make ice, which is similar to how a refrigerator works. In 1860, there were four artificial-ice plants in the United States; in 1889, there were about two hundred; by 1909, there were two thousand. Ice now came from factories, not ponds, and it was turned out in three-hundred-pound blocks by lowering steel cans of pure water into tanks of refrigerated salted water. Kept below thirty-two degrees, the salted water did not freeze, but the water in the cans did. Those cans were then lifted from the tank, and the ice was taken out of them.

    The ice blocks were delivered to home users, and to the fishing and chemical industries. On the railroads, trains carrying fruit and vegetables had cars at each end filled with blocks of ice. It was a growing industry.

    The great trade began to fall away in the middle years of the twentieth century. The railroad business shrank, and, in the immediate postwar period, block ice lost out to home refrigerators and then to small commercial ice machines. By the nineteen-sixties, things looked very dark. “It was scary,” Dan Ditmar, an ice expert in San Antonito, told me. “Your biggest customers were cafeterias and country clubs, and you'd go out there and they'd say, 'We don't need you anymore; we've got ice machines.'”

    Then the companies that survived the slump（a slump is a period when there is a reduction in business）began investing（投资）in newly developed ice-cube machines, and by the late sixties American ice was becoming a packaged-ice business. And packaged ice was exactly what the country needed. These were years of increased leisure time—more barbecues, more cars, and more houses by the lake. “Things exploded in the nineteen-seventies, Paul Handler said. Ice cubes evolved. They became hugely popular^ shoveled（铲）here and there into picnic coolers and fast-foof sodas. They became noisier.

    What do Leonardo da Vincii, Marie Curie, and Albert Einstein have in common? They were all left-handed, along with other famous people including Brad Pitt Prince William, and Barack Obama. In fact, an estimated 13 percent of the world's population may be left-handed and still most people around the world are right-handed.

    What makes a person become right-handed rather than left-handed? As yet no one really knows for sure. One simple idea suggests that people normally get right-handedness from their parents. Studies have found that two right-handed parents have only a 9.5 percent chance of having a left-handed child, whereas two left-handed parents have a 26 percent chance of having a left-handed child. Another common theory is that left-handed people suffer mild brain damage during birth, which makes them left-handed. However, if this theory were true, it would not explain why the percentage of left-banded people is so similar in every society, when birth conditions vary so much from society to society.

    Whatever the reasons behind it, people's attitudes toward left-handedness have changed a lot over the years. Statistics show that although 13 percent of young people (10-20 years old) are left-handed, only 6 percent of the elderly are left-handed. Left-handed children used to be punished until they began using their right hand like other children, but today people who are left-handed are no longer looked down on nor are they considered abnormal. For most people today, either case is perfectly acceptable.

    Families should reduce exposure to synthetic chemicals found in food colorings, preservatives and packaging materials as a growing body of research shows they may harm children's health, according to a policy statement and technical report from the American Academy of Pediastrics released online.

    The statement also suggests improvements to the food additives regulatory system, including updating the scientific foundation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations safety assessment retesting all previously approved chemicals.

    Leonard Trasande, the author of the policy statement, to tell us more about these concerns.

Q: What are the growing number of studies showing us?

A: Over the past two decades, an accumulating body of science suggests some food additives can interfere with a child's hormones, growth and development.

    Potentially harmful effects of food additives are of special concern for children because they are more sensitive to chemical exposures because they eat and drink more relative to body weight, than adults do and are still growing and developing. An early injury to their organ systems can have lifelong and permanent consequences.

Q: What additives does the statement highlight?

A: The additives of most concern, based on rising research evidence cited in the report, include:

    Bisphenols, such as BPA, used to harden plastic containers and line metal cans, can act like estrogen（雌激素）in the body which may potentially change the timing of puberty, decrease fertility, increase body fat and affect the nervous and immune systems. BPA is now banned in baby bottles.

    Phthalates, which make plastic and vinyl tubes used in industrial food production flexible, may affect male genital development increase childhood obesity and contribute to cardiovascular disease. In 2017, the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the use or some phthalates in child-care products such as teething rings.

    Knowing a little first aid could be life-saving if you see someone lying unconscious.

    Too often people don't do anything because they think they will kill the patient, but by learning simple rules you could make the difference between life and death.

    First, you need to find out if they're unconscious, asleep or drunk, by squeezing the skin between their neck and shoulder and shouting. If there is no response at all, you need to establish if they are dead or just unconscious—sometimes it's very difficult to tell the difference.

    Open the airway by placing one hand on their forehead and gently tilting the head back while lifting the chin.

    If there are no signs of life—no obvious pulse and their chest is not going up and down—call an ambulance and then start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) (心脏复苏) to maintain (获得) a flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and heart.

    Do this by pushing up and down on the centre of the chest, with your hands interlocked together, constantly until an ambulance arrives.

    Push at a rate of 100 beats a minute. You can't harm them doing this and might just save a life.

    The UK has a well­respected higher education system and some of the top universities and research instructions in the world. But to those who are new to it all, sometimes it can be confusing.

    October is usually the busiest month in the college calendar. Universities have something called Freshers' Week for their newcomers. It's a great opportunity to make new friends, join lots of clubs and settle into university life.

    However, having just left the comfort of home and all your friends behind，the prospect(前景) of meeting lots of strangers in big halls can be nerve­wracking (令人焦虑不安的). Where do you start? Who should you make friends with? Which clubs should you join?

    Luckily, there will be thousands of others in the same boat as you worrying about starting their university social life on the right foot. So just take it all in slowly. Don't rush into anything that you'll regret for the next three years.

    Here is some top advice from past students on how to survive Freshers' Week:

    Learn rules. Make sure you know British social etiquette(礼节). Have a few wine glasses and snacks handy for your housemates and friends.

    Be kind. Sometimes cups of tea or even slices of toast can give you a head start in making friends.

    Be sociable. The more active you are，the more likely you'll be to meet new people than if you're someone who never leaves his room.

    Bring a doorstop. Keep your door open when you're in and that sends positive messages to your neighbors that you're friendly.

    So with a bit of clever planning and effort, Freshers' Week can give you a great start to your university life and soon you'll be passing on your experience to next year's new recruits.