It's normal to wake briefly during the night. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}But if you're waking up during the night and having trouble falling back asleep, the following tips may help.

    Stay out of your head. The key to getting back to sleep is continuing to prepare your body for sleep, so remain in bed in a relaxed position. Hard as it may be, try not to stress over the fact that you're awake , because that very stress and anxiety encourage your body to stay awake. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} If you are finding it hard to fall back asleep, try a relaxation technique such as visualization, deep breathing, or meditation, which can be done without even getting out of bed. Remind yourself that although they're not a replacement for sleep, rest and relaxation still help refresh your body.

    Do a quiet, non-stimulating activity. If you've been awake for more than 15 minutes, try getting out of bed and doing a quiet, non-stimulating activity, such as reading a book. Keep the lights dim so as not to think that it's time to wake up. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} A light snack might help relax you, but be careful not to eat so much that your body begins to expect a meal at that time of the day.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} If you wake during the night feeling anxious about something, make a brief note of it on paper and postpone worrying about it until the next day when you are fresh and it will be easier to resolve.

"Smart" Idioms

    Today we take a look at the word “smart”.If someone says you are smart,what do they mean?Is it a good thing or something bad?{#blank#}1{#/blank#}This is because the word smart has many meanings.

●That smarts!

    For example,someone could say you look smart or are dressed smartly.That means they like what you are wearing and your physical appearance.To use a slang（俚语）expression,they could say,“You look really cool!”But if something smarts,it can be unkind or hurtful,either physically or mentally.If you accidentally trip over a chair and fall down,you might shout,“Ow!That smarts!”Or if a friend says something that hurts your feelings,you can say you are smarting from the hurtful comments.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

●Smarting

    If you are standing too close to a campfire,you could say your eyes are smarting from the smoke of the fire. Here the word “smarting” means a sharp pain.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}If someone is smart as whip,they are able to think very quickly.

●Street smart and book smart

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Some people are considered street smart.They may not have a strong education.But they are good at dealing with people and problems in the real world.Other people might be book smart.This means they have spent many years in school.But they may not be so smart when dealing with people or real-world problems.

●Don't get smart with me!

    And then there is the definition of smart that means to talk or behave disrespectfully.If you say something disrespectful to your parents,they might say,“Don't get smart with me!”Here,“smart”means to show a lack of respect by saying something unkind.In fact,a child who has a smart mouth makes rude comments,not smart ones.This definition of smart can also be used as a verb.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A.Do they really mean you are smart?

B.People have different attitude toward being smart.

C.However,different people have different ways of being smart.

D.In fact,maybe that person is no longer you friend.

E.The answer is not as easy as you might think.

F.But the most common meaning of smart is to be intelligent.

G.If you smart off to the wrong people,they could hit you in the face.

Ig Nobel Prize

    Having a meal is an easy and delightful process for most people. However, for a woodpecker (啄木鸟), it's not that simple. To get dinner, a woodpecker has to hit its head against a tree numerous times per day. Yet, amazingly, it never suffers any ill effects like brain damage. According to research, it is the woodpecker's thick head bones that protect it from the impact of the blows. For explaining that, Ivan Schwab won an Ig Nobel Prize.

    Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by The Annals of Improbable Research, an American magazine that celebrates the funny side of science. Each year, ten winners are awarded prizes in honor of their “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”. Most of the award-winning research, like Schwab's, may seem unusual, but it usually grabs people's attention indeed. And no matter how ridiculous the research sounds, people can find it inspiring and amusing.

    Brian Wansink's research might interest you. He took home an Ig Nobel Prize for looking into the influence of visual factors on people's appetites. He used specially designed bowls that refilled themselves with soup while people were eating. Since these people had no idea this was happening, they just kept eating from these “bottomless bowls”. They said they didn't feel full because their bowls were not empty yet. People in this experiment ate 73 percent more soup than normal. Owing to these results, Wansink concluded that it's not people's stomachs that decide when they have eaten enough, but their eyes.

    Ig Nobel Prizes also give attention to science and technology that is a part of our daily lives. Take the karaoke machine for example. Its inventor Daisuke Inoue was employed at a nightclub, playing the piano for the customers who wanted to sing. He wasn't skillful enough to play all the songs properly. To clear up the problem, he created the karaoke machine. To Inoue's surprise, the machine caused considerable changes in entertainment worldwide. The Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to Inoue not only because his invention was entertaining, but also because it brought about “an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other”.

    These research results of Ig Nobel Prizes may not be as great as Edison's light bulb or Newton's laws of motion. However, they do show people's willingness to take action and to try new ways to solve problems. According to Marc Abrahams, a founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes. “If you win one, it means that you have done something.”

WISH YOU WERE MORE CREATIVE?

    I want to ask you a favor. I have a pair of pants. Tell me: How many different ways can I put a pair of pants to use? Now imagine you're an architect. Same question. Now imagine you're Bill Gates. A scuba diver. A medieval knight. You still have the pants. What alternative uses come to mind?

    What you just practiced--the conscious act of "wearing" another self-is an exercise that, according to psychiatrist SriniPillay, MD, is essential to being creative.

    One great irony (讽刺) about our collective addiction to creativity is that we tend to frame it in uncreative ways. That is to say, most of us marry creativity to our concept of self: Either we're "creative" or we aren't, without much of a middle ground. "I'm just not a creative person!" a discouraged student might say in art class, while another might blame her talent at painting for her difficulties in math, making a comment "I'm very right-brained."

    Dr.Pillay, an assistant professor at Harvard University, has spent years overturning these ideas. He believes that the key to unlocking your creative potential is to challenge the stereotyped (陈词滥调的) advice that urges you to "believe in yourself." In fact, you should do the opposite: Believe you are someone else.

    He points to a study showing the impact of stereotype on one's behavior. The authors, psychologists Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar, divided their college student subjects into two groups, instructing one group to think of themselves as "eccentric poets" and the other to imagine they were "rigid librarians". The researchers then presented them all with ordinary objects, including a fork, a carrot, and a pair of pants, and asked them to come up with as many different uses as possible for each one. The former group came up with the widest range of ideas, whereas the latter had the fewest.

    These results suggest that creativity is not an individual characteristic but a "product of context and perspective". Everyone can be creative, as long as he or she feels like a creative person.

    Dr. Pillay's work takes this a step further: He argues that simply identifying yourself as creative is less powerful than taking the brave, creative step of imagining you are somebody else. This exercise, which he calls psychological Halloweenism, refers to the conscious action of "wearing" another self. An actor may employ this technique to get into character, but anyone can use it. According to Dr. Pillay, it works because it is an act of conscious unfocus, a collection of brain regions that spring into action when you're not focused on a specific task or thought. Most people spend nearly half of their days in a state of "unfocus." This doesn't make us lazy; it makes us human.

    Imagining yourself in a new situation, or an entirely new identity, never felt so productive. You're making yourself more creative, and you're giving yourself permission to do something you'd otherwise feel guilty about.

A surprising new research from Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand contradicts the commonly held view that surfers are folks only focused on their own fun. Instead, they often play an important role in saving lives. The research reveals that these thrill seekers selflessly save people they see struggling in the ocean as swimmers or after boating incidents, and so actually reduce deaths from drowning (溺水), playing a key role in making beaches safer. 

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 236,000 people drown worldwide each year, with drowning the third leading cause of unintentional death. 

However, according to a survey, at the heart of the research, life-saving acts of heroism by surfers who save others in difficulty in the ocean waters around them, are surprisingly common. In fact, based on the sample of 418 surfers, respondents reportedly rescue an average of three people drowning or struggling in the water over the course of their lives, and some even report taking part in 10 to 20 rescues. This makes surfers the under-recognized guardians of the beach rather than the self-centered images shown in movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or Point Break. 

In addition, the survey found that in almost 90 percent of rescues, people aided by the responding surfers required no further treatment after the incident, making their help unlikely to be reported and so recorded, As one of the survey's co-authors Jamie Mead says, "We need to get surfers the recognition they deserve and do more research to accurately quantify (用数量表述) how many rescues they're actually doing."

Since this research was published, there has been a growing interest in the training of surfers in life-saving skills. Sonia Keeper, an experienced surfer and instructor, explains that the insights provided by the survey have motivated surfing organizations to expand their reach and connect with an even broader community of surfers. "If life-saving skills are rolled out (正式推出) to the broader coastal surfer communities around the world, this preparation can help ensure that a good day at the beach doesn't turn into a sad one," she adds. 

"WOW, THIS is not what I was expecting at all," says Allison, a nurse, remembering the first romance novel she ever read. Having shared the general literary bias (偏见) towards romance novels, she is now crazy about this genre (体裁). Allison was browsing in The Ripped Bodice, a romance-novel shop that recently opened in Brooklyn. The day the shop opened, the queue to get in was more than an hour long. The shop, which is uniquely-decorated, is serious in its devotion to romance novels.

The popularity of The Ripped Bodice (the second chain store devoted to romance in the district) is part of a larger shift. During the pandemic, when many were stuck at home and looking for escapist reading, fictional romance blossomed. In the year to May, romance print sales were up by 52%, according to a market-research firm. List-price sales grew by 74%. Annual growth in sales went from 6% in 2020 to more than 50% last year.

Readers have changed too. Newer fans are mostly young adults and many are teenagers. They are keen on romance novels with a central love story and a happy ending. 

"The industry has a lot of respect for what has been happening with romance," says Kristen, the manager of the market-research firm. "Now modern authors want to seek something deeper. Love is a powerful feeling. I wish that the writers could all see their way past thinking that those emotions are somehow less valuable than emotions that are built out of pain and sorrow," says Sarah, author of "Knockout"－a best-seller about romance in this season.

Librarians have noticed the shift too. Stephanie Anderson, of BookOps, which buys books for public libraries in New York and Brooklyn, notes that "the biggest challenge with romance at this point is finding the money and space to keep up with all the popular titles."