If you like texting and are trying to lose weight, a new study found that using texting(发短信) to track diet and exercise habits may help you lose weight.

    Previous research has shown that keeping food and exercise diaries improves the likelihood of success when you are using it to lose weight. Using a computer or a pen and paper to record information, however, can be a burden and cause some people to give up.

    Duke University researchers said using text messages to track eating and exercise habits can save time, and increase the chances that people will stick with their weight-loss rules.

    The study included 26 obese/fat women with an average age of 38. The women used daily texting as part of their weight-loss program. The text messages focused on tracking personalized goals, such as avoiding sugary drinks or walking 10,000 steps a day. Messages also provided brief feedback (反馈) and tips.

    Every morning, the women received a text from an automated system that said, “Please text yesterday's personal information of steps you walked and how many sugary drinks you had.” Based on the women's responses to the text message, the system sent another text with personalized feedback and tips.

    After six months, the women who used daily texting lost an average of nearly 3 pounds, while another group of women who used traditional methods to keep food and exercise diaries gained an average of 2.5 pounds, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

    “Text messaging has become popular and may be an effective method to simplify tracking of diet and exercise behavior,” Dori Steinberg, who was responsible for this research, said.

    Steinberg said, “Text messaging offers several advantages compared to other self-monitoring methods. Unlike web-based diet and exercise diaries, data in a text message can be entered quickly on nearly all cell phone platforms so it is very convenient to receive feedback. Besides, because of the limited number of words used in text messages, it saves time.”

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    In 1812, the year Charles Dickens was born, there were 66 novels published in Britain. People had been writing novels for a century—most experts date the first novel to Robinson Crusoe in 1719—but nobody wanted to do it professionally. The steam-powered printing press was still in its early stages; the literacy（识字） rate in England was under 50%. Many works of fiction appeared without the names of the authors, often with something like "By a lady." Novels, for the most part, were looked upon as silly, immoral, or just plain bad.

    In 1870, when Dickens died, the world mourned him as its first professional writer and publisher, famous and beloved, who had led an explosion in both the publication of novels and their readership and whose characters — from Oliver Twist to Tiny Tim— were held up as moral touchstones. Today Dickens' greatness is unchallenged. Removing him from the pantheon（名人堂） of English literature would make about as much sense as the Louvre selling off the Mona Lisa.

    How did Dickens get to the top? For all the feelings readers attach to stories, literature is a numbers game, and the test of time is extremely difficult to pass. Some 60,000 novels were published during the Victorian age, from 1837 to 1901; today a casual reader might be able to name a half-dozen of them. It's partly true that Dickens' style of writing attracted audiences from all walks of life. It's partly that his writings rode a wave of social, political and scientific progress. But it's also that he rewrote the culture of literature and put himself at the center. No one will ever know what mix of talent, ambition, energy and luck made Dickens such a singular writer. But as the 200th anniversary of his birth approaches, it is possible — and important for our own culture—to understand how he made himself a lasting one.

    Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 to a Mexican American family. As the only girl in a family of seven children, she often felt like she had “seven fathers,” because her six brothers, as well as her father, tried to control her. Feeling shy and unimportant, she retreated(躲避)into books. Despite her love of reading, she did not do well in elementary school because she was too shy to participate.

    In high school, with the encouragement of one particular teacher, Cisneros improved her grades and worked for the school literary magazine. Her father encouraged her to go to college because he thought it would be a good way for her to find a husband. Cisneros did attend college, but instead of searching for a husband, she found a teacher who helped her join the famous graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. At the university's Writers' Workshop, however, she felt lonely－a Mexican American from a poor neighborhood among students from wealthy families. The feeling of being so different helped Cisneros find her “creative voice”.

    “It was not until this moment when I considered myself truly different that my writing acquired a voice. I knew I was a Mexican woman, but I didn't think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalance in my life, but it had everything to do with it! That's when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn't write about.”

    Cisneros published her first work, The House on Mango Street, when she was twenty-nine. The book talks about a young Mexican American girl growing up in a Spanish-speaking area in Chicago, much like the neighborhoods in which Cisneros lived as a child. The book won an award in 1985 and has been used in classes from high school to graduate school level. Since then, Cisneros has published several books of poetry, a children's book, and a short-story collection.

    Most of us feel very tired after working for eight hours a day, five days a week. When we get home, we watch at least one film because it's well-deserved and the only time we get to "relax" before going to sleep. Wake up and repeat. No wonder you feel tired. So how do you get out of this vicious circle? How do you restart your life?

    ⒈YOUR MINDSET

    "Oh man, another one of these self-improvement things. I hope I can do it, but I've tried these things before, and I just never stick to it."

    This was something I used to say to myself every time I try to start something new for myself. There's a fear-driven side of your brain which tells you, "You can't do this."

    What can you do? Well, the tip here is to talk to yourself like you're talking to a friend, or a coworker. So the next time you try something new, be kind to yourself like you would be kind to others. You are your own worst critic. But you can also be your firm defender.

    ⒉YOUR DIET

    If you are looking at what you eat for the reason to feel energized, then the general rules are:

    1) Eat when you're hungry. Don't eat when you're not.

    2) Be mindful when you eat. Chew at least 20 times. Let yourself taste and digest your food.

    3) Don't do three things at once when you're eating. Your body wasn't made for that.

    4) Preferably, eat "real" food. Eat what your great-grandmother would recognize as food.

    Don't let your days pass by in a boring way. Start by re-examining these key habits in your life to build a body that can start doing things you want.

    ⒊YOUR SLEEP

    Without enough sleep, we're basically going through the day drunk. This means tiredness, difficulty to respond quickly and smartly to anything that comes up. The sleeping hours needed for an average adult ranges from 7 to 9 hours.

    We can make mistakes at any age. Some mistakes we make are about money. But most mistakes are about people. "Did Jerry really care when I broke up with Helen?" "When I got that great job, did Jim, as a friend, really feel good about it?" "And was Paul friendly just because I had a car?" When we look back, doubts like these can make us feel bad. But when we look back, it's too late.

    Why do we go wrong about our friends or our enemies? Sometimes what people say hides their real meaning. And if we don't really listen we miss the feeling behind the words. Suppose someone tells you, "You're a lucky dog." That's being friendly. But "lucky dog"? There's a bit of envy in those words. Maybe he doesn't see it himself. But bringing in the "dog" bit puts you down a little. What he may be saying is that he doesn't think you deserve your luck.

    "Just think of all the things you have to be thankful for" is another noise that says one thing and means another. It could mean that the speaker is trying to get you to see your problem as part of your life as a whole. But is he? Wrapped up in this phrase is the thought that your problem isn't important. It's telling you to think of all the starving people in the world when you haven't got a date for Saturday night.

    How can you tell the real meaning behind someone's words? One way is to take a good look at the person talking. Do his words fit the way he looks? Does what he says agree with the tone of voice? His posture(姿态)? The look in his eyes? Stop and think. The minute you spend thinking about the real meaning of what people say to you may save another mistake.

    The term "smiling depression" —appearing happy to others while actually suffering depressive symptoms—has become increasingly popular. In fact, many people who experience a low mood and a loss of pleasure in activities manage to hide their condition in this way. And these people might be particularly easy to suicide.

    While smiling depression is not a technical term that psychologists use，it is certain to be depressed and manage to successfully mask the symptoms. The closest technical term for this condition is "atypical depression: It can be very hard to spot people suffering depression because they may seem like they don't have a reason to be sad — they have a job, an apartment and maybe even children or a partner. They smile when you greet them and can carry pleasant conversations. In short, they often put on a mask to the outside world while leading seemingly normal and active lives. Inside, however, they often feel hopeless and down, sometimes even having thoughts about ending it all.

    People with smiling depression put on a happy face to the outside world, but they can experience a lift in their mood as a result of positive occurrences in their lives. Other symptoms of this condition include overeating, feeling a sense of heaviness in the arms and legs and being easily hurt by criticism or rejection. They are also more likely to feel depressed in the evening and feel the need to sleep longer than usual. With other forms of depression, however, your mood might be worse in the morning and you might feel the need for less sleep than you are normally used to.

    So how can they break this circle? A starting point needs to be known that this condition actually exists and that it's serious. Only when we stop ignoring our problems because we think they're not serious enough can we start making an actual difference. Then we can find purpose by taking the attention away from ourselves and placing it onto something else. Feeling that our lives matter is finally what gives us purpose and meaning — and this can make a significant difference for our mental health and well-being.