Teenager Smoking?????

I have figure out that nowadays a lot of teenagers smoke. I believe that most of them knows that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease; that it can shorten their lives by 10 years or more; and that the habit can cost a smoker thousands of dollars a year. Even though they know this, why do they still try it and do not quit?

Well, according to a 2014 survey of 40000 to 50000 students in 8th, 10th and 12th grade, 8 percent of teens at 400 secondary schools in the United States reported smoking cigarettes in the month prior to answering the questionnaire. This is kind of understandable because young people always want to try things that adults do. However, why can't they quit? Then answer is - addiction. Smoking is a hard habit to break because tobacco contains nicotine, which is highly addictive. Like heroin or other addictive drugs, the body and mind quickly become so used to the nicotine in cigarettes that a person needs to have it just to feel normal.

People start smoking for a variety of different reasons. Some think it looks cool. Others start because their family members or friends smoke. Statistics show that about 9 out of 10 tobacco users start before they're 18 years old. Most adults who started smoking in their teens never expected to become addicted. That's why people say it's just so much easier to not start smoking at all.

For those teenagers who want to try it, here is a video I found on YouTube. 

DON'T FOLLOW THE CROWD
THINK FOR YOURSELF
SAY NO TO SMOKING!!

What Is A Stress?

Many of you guys may have experienced stressful situations. Stress is a common symptom among nowadays people. However, what is a stress? Stress is anything that poses a challenge or a threat to our well-being. Some stresses get you going and they are good for you - without any stress at all many say our lives would be boring and would probably feel pointless. However, when the stresses undermine both our mental and physical health they are bad. 

Fight or flight response

The way you respond to a challenge may also be a type of stress. Part of your response to a challenge is physiological and affects your physical state. When faced with a challenge or a threat, your body activates resources to protect you - to either get away as fast as you can, or fight.. 

Our fight-or-flight response is our body's sympathetic nervous system reacting to a stressful event. Our body produces larger quantities of the chemicals cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline, which trigger a higher heart rate, heightened muscle preparedness, sweating, and alertness - all these factors help us protect ourselves in a dangerous or challenging situation. 

Non-essential body functions slow down, such as our digestive and immune systems when we are in fight-or flight response mode. All resources can then be concentrated on rapid breathing, blood flow, alertness and muscle use.

In the MNT, its says, when we are stressed the following happens:

• Blood pressure rises
• Breathing becomes more rapid
• Digestive system slows down
• Heart rate (pulse) rises
• Immune system goes down
• Muscles become tense
• We do not sleep (heightened state of alertness)

We are continually sizing up situations that confront us in life. We assess each situation, deciding whether something is a threat, how we can deal with it and what resources we can use. If we conclude that the required resources needed to effectively deal with a situation are beyond what we have available, we say that that situation is stressful - and we react with a classical stress response. On the other hand, if we decide our available resources and skills are more than enough to deal with a situation, it is not seen as stressful to us. 

Organ-on-a-chip

I m going to give a speech in composition class in few weeks, and I will persuade people to avoid experiments on animals. To give audience readabilities, I did some research.  

According to Humane Society International, animal testing is known as the experiments using non-human animals as subjects. The common experimental animals include mice, fish, rats, rabbits, hamsters, dogs and non-human primates such as monkeys and chimpanzees. And there are approximately more than 115 million animals are used in laboratory experiments per year. 

A lot of animals are suffering form animal experiment every year. According to the article "Harm and Suffering" published by New England Anti-Vivisection Society, in research and testing, animals are subjected to experiments that can include everything from testing new drugs to infecting with diseases, poisoning for toxicity testing, burning skin, causing brain damage, implanting electrodes into the brain, maiming, blinding, and other painful and invasive procedures. Many, if not most, animals die before the end of the study. With the exception of chimpanzees, animals who survive their use in research and testing can be killed after the study is completed.

Because of a lot of negative aspects of animal experiment, the scientists is working on developing alternatives to it, and they finally have come up with a new method that could replace the animal testing - organ on a chip.

In fact, there are a lot of advantages: first, it cost less. According to [1]Kevin Healy, who is a bioengineering professor at the University of California-Berkeley said that “It takes about $5 billion on average to develop a drug, and 60% or that figure comes from upfront costs in the research and development phase. Using a well-designed model of a human organ could significantly cut the cost and time of bringing a new drug to market.” Second, the biochip works as real heart. It make a regular heartbeat of 55 to 80 times per minute. 

The development of this new technology will eventually lead to decrease in sacrificing of innocent animals. 

Oversleeping

During the spring break, while some of my friends are going back to their hometown and some are traveling overseas, I am just staying at home all day and oversleep. 

I usually sleep more than 10 hours during the break, but I often feel dizzy and have a headache after long hours of sleep. 

According to WebMD.com, sleeping too much will cause some medical problems, including diabetes, heart disease, and increased risk of death. 

How much sleep is regarded as "too much", then? It depends on your age and activity level as well as your general health and lifestyle habits. For instance, during periods of stress or illness, you may feel an increased need for sleep. But although sleep needs differ over time and from person to person, experts typically recommend that adults should sleep between seven and nine hours each night. 

In WebMD.com, it also stated that for people who suffer from hyper somnia, oversleeping is actually a medical disorder. The condition causes people to suffer from extreme sleepiness throughout the day, which is not usually relieved by napping. It also causes them to sleep for unusually long periods of time at night. Many people with hypersomnia experience symptoms of anxiety, low energy, and memory problems as a result of their almost constant need for sleep. 

Then, how should we stop oversleeping? I found a video about Tips to Prevent Oversleeping:

I will try to sit up in bed and do some outdoor activities.
Hope everyone has a wonderful spring break!

Pets' Effects upon Human's Health

Look at this lovely puppy. This makes my day. I think most of people are living with pets today. In fact, according to the article "Pet ownership statistic", more than 62 percents of American households have at least one pet in 2012. 

You might or might not know, pets actually actually have both physical and psychological effects upon human. 

In fact, scientists have discovered that people who have a pet have healthier hearts, stay home sick less often, make fewer visits to the doctor, get more exercise and are less depressed. 

Pets also have psychological effects on human’s childhood. Nienke Endenburg in his article “The Role of Pets in Enhancing Human Well-being” says that pets help improve social and emotional development of children by building them self-esteem and developing their empathy. The youngsters who grow with pets learn at an early age how to care for and nurture a dependent animal. And for them, involvement, positive reinforcement and acceptance are important for building self-esteem.

Empathy is the child’s ability to understand how someone else feels. It is possible that by interacting with pets, children learn to understand the feelings and needs of animals and those of fellow human beings from an early age. And the research also found that children who owned pets felt more empathy towards other people.

Furthermore, pets also have been cited as providing important 'social' support.  Some researchers found that children regularly nominated pets when asked who they would go to with a problem. The 'social' support given by pets has some advantages compared to the social support given by humans. Pets can make people feel unconditionally accepted, whereas fellow humans will judge and may criticize.

Nowadays, most of the households are living with pets, and pets are no longer considered as house guards or burdensome animals we have to take care of, they actually affect us in beneficial way. 

How much sleep do teenagers need?

If you are a Missouri Academy student, you might heard more than enough of how important sleeping is. Dr. Samudzi have been emphasized this all the time, and recommended students to sleep enough. 

According to the article Teens and Sleep, "sleep is vital to your well-being, as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. It can even help you to eat better and manage the stress of being a teen". 
It said that teenagers need at least 8 to 10 hours of sleep everyday to function best. However, most teens do not get enough sleep due to tremendous school work.

What if we don't get enough sleep? There are some negative consequences:

• Staying up late and sleeping in late might limit your ability to learn, listen, concentrate and solve problems. 
• Teenagers may suffer from treatable sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy, insomnia, restless legs syndrome or sleep apnea.
• Lack of sleep might lead to aggressive or inappropriate behavior such as yelling at others.

I usually sleep less 5-7 hours during the weekdays, and I think it is impossible for students to 8 to 10 hours everyday. 

Instead of just keep telling us to sleep more, I think the adults should help students to lighten their burdens.

Blue and Black vs. Gold and White

If you are a SNS (Social Network Service) user, surely you have heard about the debate on a dress color. For those of you who do not have a Facebook or Twitter, last week, a dress that was worn by a mother of a bride, has become the topic of the week. 

And this is the dress of controversy. As you can see, it is obviously white and gold! (I'm just kidding,, lol)  
In fact, it is difficult to really tell what color this dress is. I thought it was white and gold at first glance, but I was really confused when it turned blue and black. When I first saw the picture, and read the comment said that it was absolutely blue and black, I thought that person was crazy and thought that more than six hundreds of people who "liked" that comment were just making fun of me. 
Although many people still debate this fact, it turns out the dress is actually blue and black.
http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931?colour=Ivory this is the actual site that sells the dress. As you can see, there are only white, red, pick, and blue dresses. White and gold dress is not even exist!



I found this video on Youtube, and I think it explained the phenomenon thoroughly. As it explained in the video, this is a phenomenon known as color constancy. For this dress, people who picture the dress as white, have brains which may be interpreting the dress in a blue-lit room. On the other hands, the brains of people who see it as black and blue may be interpreting the dress in the setting with yellow lights. 

And there are a lot of parodies of people who see the dress as gold and white. 

 I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this on twitter. The person said "There are two with people with gold hair."

Does any of you guys still think it is a gold and white dress? 

Tiredness after eating

"I am always so tired in the afternoon. I feel so drowsy as soon as I eat." I told my mom on the Skype yesterday. And mom said that my eating habits might be the main cause of tiredness. 


In the article "Why am I so tired after eat", the writer Judd Handler said that following eating habits could be the causes of fatigue:

• Not eating all three macro-nutrients at every meal (protein, natural dietary fat, and slow-burning, low starch carbohydrates)
• Interval between meals is too long
• Not eating enough or eating too much
• Eating too much sugar

In fact, I am guilty of at least three of those followings. I usually eat only two meals in a day. Because I prefer sleeping to eating, I always skip breakfast and go to classes in the morning. For me, I would rather save  few more minutes for sleeping than get up earlier for the breakfast. Sometimes I even skip the lunch because I am so lazy to go to the Student Union. And because I did not eat enough, I look for some snacks like chocolate chip cookie, which contains a lot of sugar. 

And then I started to concern about my health. Fortunately, the article said, "Small changes in nutrition and eating habits can make a huge difference". 

1. Eat balanced meals. It helps people to regulate blood sugar levels and prevent energy crashes. 

2. Eat within 5 hours. Stay five hours without eating will make you crash. 

3. Eat less sugar. Jonah Lehrer, writing for Wired, points out that orexin - a brain chemical that keeps you feeling awake -  is inhibited when you consume sugar.

Although feeling tired after eating is not a serious symptom, it would be better for people's health if they eat balanced food, and eat more regularly.

Coca Cola vs. Coca Cola zero

       Yesterday night, I was looking at the Facebook Newsfeed as usual and saw a video called "Coca Cola vs. Coca Cola zero sugar test". As a person who prefer Coca Cola over its zero, I thought the video was very interesting, but later I was disappointed by the results.
       The person in the video started to boil both Coca Cola and Coca Cola zero, and stirred them until all the water was evaporated.

      After some bubbles formed, the water finally evaporated completely. And the result was astonishing. As the picture shown below, compare to Coca Cola zero (on the right), which had few sugars remain, Coca Cola (on the left) left with a lot of sugars after the evaporation.
       To find out exact sugar content in the drinks, i looked up the nutrition facts of Coca Cola and Coca Cola zero in the www.cocacola.com.

        The picture with the black background is the nutrition facts of Coke Zero, and the one with the red background is nutrition facts of Coca Cola. Even though both of them have same serving sizes (240mL), the sugar contents are differ by great percentage. In contrast to Coca Cola zero, which contains 0% of sugar, Coca Cola contains more than one fifth (22%) of sugars. On the other hand, coca cola zero has the higher contents of sodium.
          I was confused how Coca Cola could taste similar to regular Coca Cola without that much sugars. In fact, according to the article written by Elizabeth Wolfenden "Coke Zero Health Risk", Coca Cola zero adds aspartame instead of sugars to make it sweet (Aspartame, popularly known as NutraSweet, is a sugar substitute found in many no-calorie, no-sugar sodas).
         Because coke zero does not contain any calories, fat, carbohydrates, cholesterol or sugars, a lot of people prefer Coca Cola zero. However, it also has certain number of health risks:

• A 2005 European study conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation suggested there may be a link between aspartame and cancer.
• The drink does not provide any nutrition benefits: it does not contain any protein, fiber, vitamin C, vitamin A, calcium or ion.
• The caffeine in coke zero may cause some side effects, such as restlessness, irritability and difficulty sleeping.

        Drinking Coca Cola zero would not likely to pose any potential health risks for healthy people, but you should still consider more before drinking too much. If you drink Coca Cola zero for a diet purpose, it would be better for you to drink low in calorie but nutrient-rich beverages such as Gatorade. Also, drinking pure water is a good choice for your body.

What are low fat, reduced fat, and fat-free?

http://inlightimes.com/old_site/archives2
/2011/08/Fat-Free-Food.html

The most time I spend in Walmart is when I stand in the aisle and hesitate to choose among the low fat, reduced fat, and fat-free string cheese. What I always think is that “What do low fat, reduced fat, and fat-free really mean?” “Are they really different from each other?” or "Do I gain less fat if I eat fat-free cheese?" In fact, I always end up choosing the “original” one.

          The only thing I knew was that FAT is the most useless nutrition (this is my own opinion). And for any kinds of foods, the low fat, reduced fat, and fat free are “healthier” than the original one. But I had no idea how they actually work.

          Penny Klatell, in his article “What’s the difference between Low fat, Reduced Fat, Light, Lean”, stated that Fat Labels includes total amount of fat, saturated fat and unsaturated fat.

·       Low fat means 3 grams of fat or less per serving (or per 100 grams of food)

·       Reduced fat means the food product contains 50% (or less) of the fat found in the regular version

·       Less fat means 25% or less fat than the comparison food

·       Fat free means the product has less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, with no added fat or meal

In other words, the percentage of fat in each fat labels are different. The order of fat from the highest percentage to lowest percentage is original, reduced fat, less fat, low fat, and fat free. 

http://www.everydayhealth.com/sexual-health/
1024/milk-and-cheese-birth-control-for-men.aspx

In fact, I avoid eat fat-free foods because I cannot imagine how does fat free version of fat and cream-based foods taste like. And I don’t think eating fat-free ice cream, cheeses, milk, and butter can be called eating “healthy”. I would rather eat apple or carrot with full-fat ranch sauce instead of eat fat-free chocolate ice cream.