the "positivity" effect

Studies show that the “positivity” effect leads to better health and a longer life. What is the meaning of the “positivity” effect? The “positivity” effect means that people have a more positive attitude. Becca Levy, a psychologist at Yale University, collaborated with researchers for the Ohio Longitudinal study to state that “older people with a more positive attitude toward old age lived seven and a half years longer”(hall.2007 paragraph20). The reasons for this are: different brain pattern, good emotion control and less chance of sickness.
First of all, people with a positive attitude showed a distinctly different pattern of brain from those with a negative attitude which leads to better health. Studies show that, people with a positive attitude seem to use their prefrontal cortex, which exerts “executive control” over certain brain functions, “to tamp down activity in the amygdale”, which is used to process a negative attitude, such as fear (Hall .2007 paragraph22). In contrast, people who always face life with a negative attitude will have a higher activity in the amygdala. Since the brain is the most important part of a human being’s body, any slight change will affect people a lot. Therefore, a higher activity in the amygdala will cause poor health which is bad for people.
Secondly, people who are good at regulating negative emotions have longer life. Old people especially have a lot of experiences. When they have some unhappy things, they can face them with a positive attitude because they know from their previous experiences a negative attitude cannot help. The only thing they can do is avoiding negative thinking and finding out the best solution. Therefore, they always smile at life. In China, there is a very famous adage saying that “the smile will make you ten years younger.” Obviously, even a long time ago, when people’s knowledge was very limited, people already realized that a positive attitude leads to better health and a longer life.
Last but not least, the “positivity” effect reduces the chance of sickness. Negative emotions, such as sadness, unhappiness and stress, cause poor health. In recent years, a lot of young people have died suddenly due to heart weakness. That is because they did not know how to regulate their negative emotions under stress. Nowadays, stress appears everywhere. If you are student, you are afraid of failing of your exams; if you are worker, you are afraid of losing your job. These people always feel sad because of stress. Their heart rapid beat cause heart weakness. It is very bad for health. Finally, their heart cannot bear the load. They died during the golden period of their life. How pity! Therefore, we can easily see that, the “positivity” effect leads to better health and a longer life.
In conclusion, the “positivity” effect leads to better health and a longer life due to: different brain patterns, good emotion control and less chance of sickness. Therefore, we have to learn to use a positive attitude toward our life.





Reference
Hall S.S.(8 May,2007). Wisdom comes with age? Not true. The Straits Times.

zero waste vs landfilling

Nowadays, waste became one of the most serious problems all around the world. If waste can be handled correctly, resources can be used more efficiently; otherwise, waste will cause environmental problems and reduce efficiency of resources’ usage. There are two main waste disposal schemes: zero waste and landfilling. They have their own different benefits and shortages. First of all, zero waste means that everything is made from materials that can be recycled, reduced or repaired; while landfilling is simply to find land to store rubbish. From their definitions, we can easily see that zero waste is the better way to solve the waste disposal problem because it turns waste into assert. In other words, we can say that we not only solve the waste disposal problem, but also increase out limited resources. In contrast, landfilling is just throw rubbish away. Besides, landfilling needs a specific land. This is another kind of waste. However, landfilling is still used now because it is the easiest way to solve the waste disposal problem. As a result, it causes a lot of environmental problems, such as the air pollution and the global warming. Therefore, we should reduce landfilling and do our best to find ways to turn waste into a profitable resource.

Healthy national logging policy V.S. unhealthy national logging policy

Forests in many countries are being logged. However, there are two different way to log forest causing different aftereffects. One is a healthy national logging policy. It is to control the quantity of trees been logged, meanwhile plant the same quantity of trees in order to keep the forest coverage of the whole nation. The other one is an unhealthy national logging policy. It is uncontrollable logging while not enough or even no tree planting.
A healthy national logging policy will keep a high forest coverage of a nation, so a lot of nature disaster which caused by lack of forest coverage such as mud-rock flow and flood will not happen. An unhealthy national logging policy will cause lower forest coverage so there is a high possibility that nature disaster could happen. For example, Japan has the highest forest coverage in the world which is 64%; China only has 16.55% forest coverage, even lower than global average 22%. That’s why recently a lot of nature disasters happened in China.
A healthy national logging policy will keep a healthy climate. For example, forest can absorb a lot of exhaust gas like CO2 (carbon dioxide) and produce oxygen, so the effect of pollution will be minimized. It also can reduce the direct radiation from the sun and keep the temperature in a certain range. An unhealthy national logging policy will destroy the forest so the pollutant will directly go to the air and cause tremendous climate change, such as storm. A very good example is the weather in desert is extreme hot in day time and extreme cold in night time because of no forest.
In conclusion, we should log the forest under a healthy national logging policy which can keep high forest coverage of a nation and keep a healthy climate. That’s the only way to make our life better and better.

My Impact on the Earth's Environment

There are a lot of things in our daily life have impact on earth’s environment. The most common thing is plastic bag which can not be recycled. Everyday a tremendous quantity of plastic bags are consumed in supermarket, food court, and shops. Plastic bags are everywhere, and most of the time plastic bags are only been used once, then people will through it away. it's because tomorrow people can get another plastic bag when they go shopping. Plastic bag can not be biodegraded, so it causes white pollution which made government headache.
It was common for people to toss the plastic bags after using them, resulting in plastic bags littered everywhere. Many piling up along the railways and floating in the rivers.
Experts are trying to find solutions to alleviate the environmental hazard. So far the most direct and easy way is to restrict the amount of plastic bags supplied in shopping centre and supermarkets. Consumers have to bring their own bags to shopping, so those disposable plastic bags are less used.
Another way to reduce environmental hazard is to invent another disposable package which uses renewable raw materials and it’s biodegradable.
Enhancing the recycling, supplemented by improving degradable packaging, should be the future direction of dealing with white pollution.

Difficulties in Writing

When I write an English article, the most serious difficulty is how to use English to think. Usually, I always generate ideas and organize contents in my mind using Chinese, after that then I directly translate them to English. However, this method sometimes doesn’t work and not efficient at all. It will cause some serious grammar errors and interfere with communication. The best solution is reading. I can study how to use English to generate ideas and organize contents through reading. This is the most efficient way to improve my English. I need to practice more to use English to think instead of Chinese.
The second serious problem in English writing is vocabulary. Obviously, it’s one of the most common problems in studying English. Usually when I have an idea, I don’t know how to explain my idea in English clearly. You know that feeling? I am so vexation but there is nothing I can do. The best solution is still reading. Recite dictionary is an inefficient way to improve vocabulary. First of all, it’s so boring that you cannot insist on reciting. Secondly, it’s very important that even you can recite every word in dictionary but you cannot use them correctly. By contrast, reading is the most efficient way to improve vocabulary. You are not just reciting those words, but also know how to use them correctly.

The most serious environmental problem

The most serious environmental problem in the North China is air pollution. Since breathing is the most basic human function required to survive, air pollution will affect everyone’s daily life and most importantly, our health.
Some obvious causes of air pollution would be cars and power plants. Oil and natural gas are the major producers of exhaust gas. These pollutants can cause lung irritation and inhibit the body’s ability to fight off disease such as influenza and pneumonia. However, there are many not so obvious products that you may use everyday will cause potential damage. For example, those pollutants from cars and power plants are decomposed by sunlight and immediately with oxygen to form another kind of pollutant which is ozone (O3). Ozone can cause coughing, choking, and reduced lung capacity. It can also worsen chronic respiratory diseases.
Air pollution will also affect the weather. One of the most serious weather problems which are caused by air pollution is acid rain. It can destroy crop and basify land as a result of being no more suitable for agriculture. We can’t imagine what we could eat without crop.
Last but not least, air pollution can cause other environment problems. As most scientists agree, air pollution and global warming seem to go hand in hand. We are well known that global warming is very serious environment problem which can start to melt ice and cause flooding. We have to solve air pollution and global warming together to prevent those balefulness from happening.
In conclusion, air pollution is an important topic that the North China should focus on for the next 10 years since air is the basic element for human life. Air pollution has many causes, some are obvious that all of us know, but there are many causes are undiscovered which are more dangerous. Therefore, we should start to solve and control air pollution right now.

My Life's Meaning

What’s my life’s meaning? Many of us spend each day of our life searching for, or seeking the simple life answers to this question. Until now, most of my time was spent on study. I always come and go between home and school. Sometimes, I feel confuse and ask myself “what’s my life’s meaning? Is that never-ending exams? Or is that a piece of result transcript? “Finally, I find it: my life will be long learning experience.
Pay attention, learning is not simply about acquiring knowledge from school. It has very broad scope. When I make mistakes, it’s a bad thing, but I can learn from my mistakes to achieve success. It’s one of my life’s meanings. Making friends and sharing happiness and sadness with friends are learning of importance of good-fellowship; spending time with family is to learn how to improve family members relationship; helping others is a learning of sacrifice; traveling is a learning of enjoying nature etc. All of those make my life meaningful. For all its ups and downs, good and bad days, life truly is a wonderful journey.