понедельник, 27 октября 2014 г.
понедельник, 20 октября 2014 г.
Sleep deprivation
Sleep Habits: More Important Than You Think
Chronic Sleep Deprivation May Harm Health
Reviewed by Stuart J. Meyers, MD
WebMD Archive
Not sleeping enough and not sleeping well is not OK. As a matter of fact, there is quite a price to pay. It may surprise you to learn that chronic sleep deprivation, for whatever reason, significantly affects your health, performance, safety, and pocketbook.
There are many causes of sleep deprivation. The stresses of daily life may intrude upon our ability to sleep well, or perhaps we trade sleep for more work or play. We may have medical or mental-health conditions that disrupt our sleep, and be well aware that we are sleep-deprived.
However, it is critically important to realize that sleep deprivation is very often due to unrecognized sleep disorders. After a typical night's sleep, you may not feel restored and refreshed and be sleepy during the day, but be totally unaware that you are sleep-deprived or have a sleep disorder. You might think, "It's just the stress of work or the kids," or you might have "always felt this way" and had no idea that you should feel differently. This lack of awareness compounds the consequences, because so many people remain undiagnosed for years.
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That said, let's look at the consequences of sleep deprivation.
In the short term:
- Decreased Performance and Alertness: Sleep deprivation induces significant reductions in performance and alertness. Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as one and a half hours for just one night could result in a reduction of daytime alertness by as much as 32%.
- Memory and Cognitive Impairment: Decreased alertness and excessive daytime sleepiness impair your memory and your cognitive ability -- your ability to think and process information.
- Stress Relationships: Disruption of a bed partner's sleep due to a sleep disorder may cause significant problems for the relationship (for example, separate bedrooms, conflicts, moodiness, etc.).
- Poor Quality of Life: You might, for example, be unable to participate in certain activities that require sustained attention, like going to the movies, seeing your child in a school play, or watching a favorite TV show.
- Occupational Injury: Excessive sleepiness also contributes to a greater than twofold higher risk of sustaining an occupational injury.
- Automobile Injury: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates conservatively that each year drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities.
The good news for many of the disorders that cause sleep deprivation is that after risk assessment, education, and treatment, memory and cognitive deficits improve and the number of injuries decreases.
In the long term, the clinical consequences of untreated sleep disorders are large indeed. They are associated with numerous, serious medical illnesses, including:
- High blood pressure
- Heart attack
- Heart failure
- Stroke
- Obesity
- Psychiatric problems, including depression and other mood disorders
- Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
- Mental impairment
- Fetal and childhood growth retardation
- Injury from accidents
- Disruption of bed partner's sleep quality
- Poor quality of life
MODAL VERBS: CAN, MAY, MUST
Вставьте глаголы may или can.
1. … I come in? 2. Let me look at your exercises. I … be able to help you. 3. I … not swim, because until this year the doctor did not allow me to be more than two minutes in the water. But this year he says I … stay in for fifteen minutes if I like, so I’m going to learn to swim. 4. Libraries are quite free, and any one who likes … get books there. 5. I … come and see you tomorrow if I have time. 6. Take your raincoat with you: it … rain today. 7. Do you think you … do that? 8. I … finish the work tomorrow if no one bothers me any more. 9. … we come and see you next Sunday at three o’clock in the afternoon? 10. What time is it? – It … - be about six o’clock, but I am not sure. 11. Only a person who knows the language very well … answer such a question.
Вставьте модальные глаголы may (might) или can (could).
1. … you help me? 2. I … imagine her speaking in public: I knew that she was so shy. 3. Something was wrong with the car: he … not start it. 4. A fool … ask more questions than a wise man … answer. 5. She asked me if she … use my telephone. 6. … I use your pen? 7. … I find a pen on that table? 8. You … read this book: you know the language well enough. 9. You … take this book: I don’t need it. 10. … help you? 11. … I ask you to help me? 12. The school was silent: nothing … be heard in the long dark corridors. 13. Waiting … be endless, you know. 14. … you tell me the nearest way to the city museum? 15. They … think that I am too weak to take part in the excursion, but I am strong enough to do any kind of hard work, indeed. 16. He knew this period of history very well: he had read everything on the subject he … find in the rich university library.
Переведите на английский язык, употребляя модальный глагол must.
1. Я должна упорно работать над своим английским. 2. Вы должны внимательно слушать учителя на уроке. 3. Ты должен делать уроки каждый день. 4. Вы не должны забывать о своих обязанностях. 5. Вы должны быть осторожны на улице. 6. Она должна быть дома сейчас. 7. Мои друзья, должно быть, в парке. 8. Вы, должно быть, очень голодны. 9. Должно быть, трудно решать такие задачи. 10. Я должен сегодня повидать моего друга. 11. Он, должно быть, очень устал. 12. У них даже есть яхта. Они, должно быть, очень богаты. 13. Ты должен уехать завтра утром? 14. Вы не должны опаздывать. 15. Я не должен забывать о своей матери. Я не писал ей целую вечность. Сегодня вечером я должен написать ей письмо.16. Эта книга очень ценная. Вы не должны ее терять. 17. Неужели вам надо уже уходить? 18. Я должен признать, что я неправ.
вторник, 14 октября 2014 г.
PRESS
Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai and Indian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their "struggle for education and against extremism." (Photo: Getty)
Indian children’s-rights activist Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenager shot by Taliban militants after campaigning for girls’ education, were awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, in the same week that cross-border violenceflared up between their countries.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee sought to draw attention to problems that persist globally: child labor and the limits imposed on women and girls by radical Islamists.
In its statement announcing the prize, the committee said it is “an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism.”
The joint honor came at the end of a week in which fighting between India and Pakistan left 17 people dead and more than 100 injured.
Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947 after the partition of the South Asian subcontinent along religious lines.
Nobel committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland said this year’s prize was unrelated to the current confrontation between the countries but, he said, “any contribution to resolving any conflict is of course good.”
Children rescued by Mr. Satyarthi’s organization watch the news on the 2014 Peace Prize in New Delhi on Friday. Bernat Armangue/Associated Press
In its prize citation, the committee said that 17-year-old Ms. Yousafzai, the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize, had fought for girls’ rights to schooling “under the most dangerous circumstances.”
Ms. Yousafzai, speaking in Birmingham, England, where she lives, said she felt honored to be chosen as a Nobel Laureate and that the award made her feel more powerful and courageous. She said her teacher had taken her aside in class to tell her the news.
“I’m proud that I’m the first Pakistani and the first young woman, or the first young person, who is getting this award,” she said. “This is not the end, this is not the end of my campaign, this is the beginning.”
She also said she was happy to share the award with another campaigner for children’s rights, Mr. Satyarthi, and appealed for peace between India and Pakistan.
“This prize is a recognition and honor to hundreds and millions of children who are still languishing in slavery, who are still deprived of their childhood, their education, their health care, their fundamental rights,” Mr. Satyarthi told journalists in his New Delhi office.
The 60-year-old has for decades been a leading voice in the fight against child trafficking and forced labor in India. Save the Childhood Movement says it has rescued 83,000 Indian children from servitude in India since 1981.
He said that he thought the prize carried a pointed message: “It has to be read between the lines—not by the governments alone, but by the public in general, by every Indian citizen and every Pakistani citizen.”
Globally, the incidence of underage work is declining, but remains widespread, with children toiling in brickyards, factories and as domestic servants. The United Nations says there were 168 million child workers in 2012—78 million fewer than in 2000.
India has more than 280 million children between the ages of 5 and 14, according to the country’s 2011 census. Unicef says 12% of them are child laborers, though India’s official figures put the number as low as 1.5%, or about 4.3 million children.
Not all child labor is illegal in India, where the government imposes limits on the number of hours and kinds of work children can do. Poor-quality public education and families’ need for children’s wages are among the main reasons children leave school for the workforce, development groups say.
Asked Friday if he thought India’s government had failed the country’s children, Mr. Satyarthi said: “Absolutely, they have failed. Not just them, it is a collective failure of the international community.”
Ms. Yousafzai rose to prominence in 2009 when she started writing an online diary about her experience living under the Taliban in Pakistan’s northern Swat Valley.
She criticized restrictions on education for girls and became a campaigner for women’s rights and education, drawing the ire of the Pakistani Taliban. On Oct. 9, 2012, when she was on her way home from school, two gunmen stopped Ms. Yousafzai’s school van and shot her in the head.
Life for Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has never been particularly normal. WSJ’s Dipti Kapadia looks at Ms. Yousafzai’s life since she was shot in 2012. Photo: AP
Fifteen years old at the time, she survived and—undeterred by the attack—has continued to campaign around the world to raise awareness about education.
“I think it’s absolutely fantastic,” said Christina Lamb, who co-wrote Ms. Yousafzai’s book, “I Am Malala.” “I don’t think it could’ve been given to a better person. She really is out there trying to make a difference.”
The pair was honored by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for showing great personal courage in “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children” to schooling.
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee congratulated Mr. Kailash on the prize and his work aimed at abolishing child labor in India.
The Nobel Committee said Malala Yousafzai, left, and Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the prize for their struggle for child education. Getty Images
“The prize should be seen as recognition of the contributions of India’s vibrant civil society in addressing complex social problems such as child labor,” Mr. Mukherjee said.
The five-member Nobel Committee picked the winner out of a record 278 nominations that included former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and Pope Francis.
The committee has come under fire in recent years for selecting winners such as the European Union in 2012 and PresidentBarack Obama in 2009, but the eight million kronor ($1.1 million) cash award is still considered one of the most prestigious honors in the world.
This year’s winners were widely praised and regarded as being more in line with the traditional spirit of Alfred Nobel. “This is an excellent choice,” said Anna Ek, chairwoman for the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. “This is a way to acknowledge people who are trying to change the world with peaceful means on the grass-roots level.”
Ms. Ek added: “there’s a very nice symbolism in sharing the prize jointly between an Indian and a Pakistani. Hopefully, this can be a positive injection in that conflict and put pressure on the leaders to approach each another.”
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