In today's busy and competitive world, we all lead incredibly stressful lives. When stress becomes overwhelming, it can affect our mood and productivity. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The good news is that it is manageable and can be reduced, or even relieved completely.

    Enter the world of books. Feeling stressed out? Pick up your favorite book and leave the reality and worries behind. It is the most effective way to relax and overcome stress. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Getting lost in a book before bedtime can calm your mind and prepare your body for a good night's sleep.

    Connect with people. Another way to successfully beat stress is meeting with friends. Friends and loved ones are important to any healthy lifestyle. If you're feeling a little overwhelmed and just can't seem to shake it off, call your best friend or a member of your family and talk to them. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Walk it off. You can also effectively relieve yourself of stress by simply taking a walk around your neighborhood. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} There's a whole new world up there that you never seem to notice while rushing to work or talking to someone. Take a moment to admire a new building or a balcony somewhere high up that reminds you of a castle from your favorite movie. Enjoy your time alone and seize every moment of it.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Nothing brings you back on track like a good laughter. It is the most powerful antidote(良方) to stress and it brings joy into your life. Laughing brings people together and drives away all stress-related problems as if they never existed. It is absolutely the best medicine there is, and it will keep you both physically and emotionally healthy.

    Today we eat on the go, at our desks and even in front of computers. We eat takeout, delivered and packaged meals, {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    “Over the past three decades, people have started eating out more than ever before and purchasing more prepared foods at the grocery store, which tend to contain more fat, salt and sugar than their home-made foods,” noted US healthy living website SparkPeople.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} It encourages us to value the time we spend preparing, sharing and consuming food, as a recent USA Today article put it. It all started in 1986 with the efforts of Slow Food's founding father, Italian activist Carlo Petrini, who wanted to bring back food varieties and flavors that had gone dark in the face of industrialization. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Now, his idea is almost the mainstream.

    Starting at the table, the movement promotes an unhurried way of life founded on the idea that everyone has a right to cooking pleasure, and that everyone must also take responsibility to “protect the heritage (遗产) of food, tradition and culture that make this celebration of the senses possible”, wrote The Phnom Penh Post.

    “{#blank#}4{#/blank#} It means turning down the speed at which we eat and increasing the amount of time we spend dining together with other people,” Althea Zanecosky, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, told The Huffington Post.“ {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Dinner table conversations keep families together,” noted the Belgian non-profit organization Greenfudge.

                           How to Make Friends

    Having friends may well keep you healthier and help you deal with difficulties better. It is not very hard to make friends. Continue reading to find out how to make friends.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} There are many ways to do this—talking about the weather (“At least it's not raining like last week!”), asking for help or saying words of praise (“I love your shoes.”).

    Introduce yourself at the end of the conversation. It can be as simple as saying “Oh, by the way, my name is ...” {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Remember his or her name!

    Join a sports team. As long as you enjoy the sport, you don't have to be really good at playing a sport in order to make friends with others.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} If you play the guitar or sing, try joining a band.

    Be a good listener.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Ask questions about their interests, and just take the time to learn more about them.

    Encourage your friend. A very good friend encourages their friend.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} Never make fun or laugh at your friend in front of others. If someone is making fun of them, a good friend will come to save their friend.

A. Start a conversation.

B. Find out common interests.

C. But a sports team isn't the only way.

D. The key to being a good friend is the ability to keep secrets.

E. They will remain with them in both good as well as bad times.

F. Once you introduce yourself, the other person will do the same.

G. Listen carefully to what people say, and remember important information about them.

    Nowhere To Hide: What Machines Can Tell From Your Face

    The human face is a remarkable piece of work.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} So is the face's ability to send emotional signals, whether through the unconscious shame or the trick of a false smile. People spend much of their waking lives, in the office and the courtroom as well as the bar and the bedroom, reading faces, for signs of attraction, hostility, trust and deceit. They also spend plenty of time trying to hide their feelings, intentions or nature.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} In America facial recognition is used by churches to track worshippers' attendance; in Britain, by retailers to spot past shoplifters. This year Welsh police used it to arrest a suspect outside a football game. In China it confirms the identities of ride-hailing drivers, permits tourists to enter attractions and lets people pay for things with a smile. Apple's new iPhone is expected to use it to unlock the homescreen

    Set against human skills, such applications might seem enhancive. Some breakthroughs, such as flight or the internet, obviously transform human abilities. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Although faces are peculiar to individuals, they are also public, so technology does not, at first sight, intrude on something that is private. And yet the ability to record, store and analyse images of faces cheaply, quickly and on a vast scale promises one day to bring about fundamental changes to notions of privacy, fairness and trust.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Masking true feelings helps fix the wheels of daily life. If your partner can spot every prohibited yawn, and your boss every hint of annoyance, marriages and working relationships will be more truthful, but less harmonious. The basis of social interactions might change, too, from a set of commitments founded on trust to calculations of risk and reward derived from the information a computer attaches to someone's face. Relationships might become more reasonable, but also transactional.

A. However, facial recognition seems merely to encode them.

B. Research show that artificial intelligence can reconstruct the facial structures of people.

C. Anyone with a phone can take a picture for facial-recognition programs to use.

D. Technology is rapidly catching up with the human ability to read faces.

E. Continuous facial recording that paints computerized data onto the real world might change the texture of social interactions.

F. The astonishing variety of facial features helps people recognize each other and is crucial to the formation of complex societies.

    The memory of Dad flooded into my mind. In the morning when I was nine years old, he would come home from working 18 hours at his bakery and wake me up at 5 a.m. by scratching my back with his strong, powerful hand and whispering, “Time to get up, son.” By the time I was dressed and ready to roll, he had my newspaper folded and stuffed in my bicycle basket. Recalling his generosity of spirit brings tears to my eyes.

    When I was racing bicycles, he drove me 50 miles each way to Kenosha, Wisconsin, every Tuesday night so I could race and he could watch me. He was there to hold me if I lost and share the euphoria when I won.

    Later, he accompanied me to all my local talks in Chicago when I spoke to Century 21, Mary Kay and various churches. He always smiled, listened and ______ told whomever he was sitting with, “That's my boy!”

    In my dad's last telephone call to me, he said, “I am going home to Denmark, son, and I want to tell you I love you.” He repeated that line seven times in half an hour. I wasn't listening at the right level. I heard the words, but not the message, and certainly not their profound intention.

    Two days later, Dad passed away. My heart was in pain because Dad was there for me but I wasn't there for him. Please always, always share your love with your loved ones, and try to be invited to that important period when physical life transforms into spiritual life. Experiencing the process of death with one you love will give you a deeper understanding of life.

Discovering the Lost City

Sixty miles south, in Cusco, Hiram Bingham gazed thoughtfully at the old Incan stone wall. He had come to this place in search of Vilcapampa, the lost city of the Inca. But right here was the most beautiful stonework he had ever seen-huge stones cut so perfectly that not even a razor blade could be slipped between them.

The Inca had no iron tools to carve them, no wheel or animals to move them. The wall had endured time and earthquakes.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

It was a mystery.

He walked through the cobbled streets of the old capital, Cusco. The Spanish had come to this city, conquered the Inca, taken their gold, and built churches over their temples. Suddenly, he stopped. Before him was the famous Temple of the Sun. He placed his hands on the sun-warmed stones so beautifully carved, as if they had grown together.

{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Would it hold gold and riches like the Spanish had found in Cusco? More than ever he was determined to find that city.

The next day Bingham began his search. He would look for ruins-that might be the key. He and his party, accompanied by the military man Sergeant Carrasco, left for the holy valley of the Urubamba River. They came to the sleepy old village in the valley, long ago an important city.

"Are there any ruins nearby?" Bingham asked. "Do you know of the lost city of Vilcapampa?" No one knew of it. Traveling north, the adventurers came upon a remote and wild canyon. In the distance were snowcapped mountains over three miles high.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Bingham's determination to find the lost city grew with each turn of the increasingly wild path.

Far below in the valley, Bingham's party camped on a sandy beach alongside the thundering rapids of the Urubamba River. Days had gone by. No one knew of any ruins.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

This time, through the interpreter, the farmer said, "Yes. There are very good ruins on top of the mountain called Machu Picchu." The farmer pointed straight up.

"Can you take us there?" Bingham asked.

...

A. Hidden in the mountains, the lost city would be built of stones like these.

B. What could he be thinking!

C. But now the adventurers aroused the curiosity of a local farmer named Arteaga.

D. How had they built them!

E. Cliffs rose thousands of feet above the roaring rapids of the Urubamba River.

F. Suddenly, the clouds drifted away and there it was.