Crossing your legs is an extremely common habit. While you may find it comfortable to sit with one knee crossed over the other, it might be causing health problems that you are not aware of.
A study published in Blood Pressure Monitoring stated that sitting with your legs crossed can increase your blood pressure. The reason this happens is because the blood in your legs has to work against gravity to be pumped back to your heart, crossing one leg over the other increases resistance, making it even harder for the blood to circulate. You won't feel any immediate effects, but sitting for long periods of time will hurt you forever.
Crossing your legs can also lead to neck and back pain. Ideally, it's best for our bodies to sit with our feet planted flat, hip width apart, on the floor, but it's not easy to maintain perfect posture all day at the office. When you sit with your legs crossed your hips are in a twisted position, which can cause one of your pelvic bones(骨盆) to rotate. Since your pelvic bone supports your neck and spine（脊椎）, this can cause pressure on your lower and middle back and neck.
You also might notice that when you sit with your legs crossed for long periods of time your feet and legs get painful or have the feeling of being asleep. This is because when one leg sits on top of the other it causes pressure on the veins（静脉） and nerves in your legs and feet. It can cause numbness and/or temporary paralysis in the legs, ankles, or feet. While the feeling of discomfort may only last a minute or two, repeatedly crossing your legs until they feel numb can cause permanent nerve damage.
So next time you sit down, try to get yourself in the habit of sitting with both of your feet on the floor. Not only will it help your posture and stability, but it will also save your health in the long run.
Microsoft has developed a new smartphone app that interprets eye signals and translates them into letters, allowing people with motor neurone disease to communicate with others from a phone.
The GazeSpeak app combines a smartphone's camera with artificial intelligence to recognize eye movements in real time and convert them into letters, words and sentences. For people suffering from ALS（渐冻症）, also known as motor neurone disease, eye movement can be the only way they are able to communicate.
"Current eye-tracking input systems for people with ALS or other motor impairments are expensive, not robust under sunlight, and require frequent re-calibration and substantial, relatively immobile setups," said Xiaoyi Zhang, a researcher at Microsoft who developed the technology.
"To mitigate the drawbacks…we created GazeSpeak, an eye-gesture communication system that runs on a smartphone, and is designed to be low-cost, robust, portable and easy to learn."
The app is used by the listener by pointing their smartphone at the speaker. A chart that can be stuck to the back of the smartphone is then used by the speaker to determine which eye movements to make in order to communicate.
The sticker shows four grids of letters, which each correspond to a different eye movement. By looking up, down, left or right, the speaker selects which grids the letters they want belong to. The artificial intelligence algorithm is then able to predict the word or sentence they are trying to say.
Zhang's research, Smartphone-Based Gaze Gesture Communication for People with Motor Disabilities, is set to be presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May.
On the day the tornado hit, there was no indication severe weather was on its way—the sky was blue and the sun had been out. The first alert my husband, Jimmy, 67, and I, 65, got came around 9 p.m., from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom, and we changed the channel from the presidential primary debate I had been watching to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.
No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. Suddenly, the bones of the house shook, the power went out, and the wind began to roar through blown-out windows. We had three flights of steps to navigate to the relative safety of the first floor, where a closet fixed underneath a brick staircase might be the firmest place to wait things out. Everything around rattling, we struggled forward, uncertain whether we would make it.
As we reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Shards of glass flew everywhere. A three-foot-long tree branch whipped, missing us by inches.
By the time I reached the closet, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the closet floor, but the wind kept him outside. I grasped his arm as the tornado constantly sucked the door open and tried to bring him with it. My knees and scalp were full of glass, but I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay. Then everything stopped. In those first quiet moments, I couldn't believe it was over.
The storm lasted four minutes. Four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. Amazingly, none of us were severely injured.
The "best years of your life"? Maybe not. .
⒈Learn to appreciate small things. Whether it's having a computer, having friends, having a family that loves you, having a decent education or simply being born in this world. Be happy, and life will reward you. Remember that these are the last few years you will be able to enjoy yourself without having to worry about the responsibility of an adult, but make sure you prepare yourself for when you do become one.
⒉ Participating in clubs, activities, and sports increases your chances of meeting new friends. While you only need 4 or 5 close friends, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to meet new people. Participating gives you something to do instead of sitting bored at home and wallowing in self-pity.
⒊You can pursue interests you enjoy. Video games, for example, are good if you're the type who can get into that kind of thing. You should also find a hobby that is meaningful or practical. Use your "hobby time" to either A. Volunteer (to gain practical skills for college apps, job resumes, and scholarships) B. Learn an instrument, or get into something else in the creative field like painting or dance. .
⒋Play a sport or work out. Having a healthy body leads to a healthy and happy mind. Being confident in your appearance makes you more confident in other areas.
⒌Do well in school. It will pay off in the end. Plus, doing well means no angry parents. (257)
A. This is the time to start developing and uncovering passions that might otherwise lie inactive.
B. Even though you want to enjoy your teen life as best as possible, don't be lazy in school.
C. But you can learn to make the most of your high school days.
D. Choose your friends wisely.
E. Be sociable.
F. Remember that the point of life is for you to enjoy it.
G. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing your hard work pay off in the form of A's and B's.
I was walking around in a Big Bazar store doing a shopping, when I saw a Cashier talking to a boy who couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old. The Cashier said, "I'm sorry, 1you don't have enough money to buy this doll." Then the little boy turned to me and asked, "Uncle, are you sure I don't have enough money?"
I 2 his cash and replied, "You know that you don't have enough money to buy the doll, my dear." The little boy was still holding the doll in his hand. Finally, I walked 3 him and I asked him 4 he wished to give this doll to. "It's the doll 5 my sister loved most and wanted so much. I wanted to gift her for her Birthday. I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she goes there." His eyes were so 6 while saying this.
"My Sister has gone to be with God. Daddy says that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, so I thought that she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister." My heart 7 stopped. The little boy 8 me and said, "I told daddy to tell mommy not to go 9. I need her to wait until I come back from the mall."
Then he looked again at the 10with sad eyes, very quietly. I quickly11 for my wallet and said to the boy. "Suppose we check again, just 12 you do have enough money for the doll?" I added some of my money to his, without him seeing and we started to count it. There was enough for the doll and even some13money.
The little boy said, "Thank you God for giving me enough money! I asked last night God to 14 I had enough money to buy this doll. He heard me! I also wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my mommy, but I didn't 15 to ask God for too much. But He gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose. "
I finished my shopping in a totally different 16from when I started. I couldn't get the little boy out of my mind. Then I remembered a local newspaper article two days ago, which mentioned a 17 man in a truck, who hit a car occupied by a young woman and a little girl. The little girl died right away, and the mother was left in a 18 state.
The love that the little boy had for his mother and his sister is 19, to this day, hard to imagine. And in a 20 of a second, a drunk driver had taken all this away from him.
Mary and her husband Dimitri lived a tiny village of Perachora. One of Mary's prize (possess) was a little white lamb which her husband had given her, She kept it (tie) to a tree in a field. One evening, however, the lamb was missing. The rope had been cut, so it was obvious that the lamb had been stolen.
When Dimitri came in from the fields, his wife told him had happened. Dimitri at once set out to find the thief. After telling several of his friends about the theft, Dimitri found out that his neighbour, A1eko, had suddenly acquired a new lamb. Dimitri (immediate) went to Aleko's house and angrily accused him stealing the lamb. He told him he had better return it or he would call the police. Aleko (deny) taking it and led Dimitri into his backyard. It was true that he had just bought a lamb, he explained, but his lamb was black. (shame) of having acted so rashly, Dimitri apologized to A1eko for having accused him. While they were talking it began (rain) and Dimitri stayed in A1eko's house until the rain stopped. he went outside half an hour later, he was (astonish) to find that the little black lamb was almost white. Its wool, which had been dyed black, had been washed clean by the rain!
In recent years, our parenting culture began to send the message that competence was important for building self-esteem. However, that same parenting culture made a big mistake by telling parents that the way to instill competence in their children was to tell them how competent they were. But here's the problem. Children can't be convinced that they are competent.
When parents try to convince their children of how competent they are, they often have the exact opposite effect. There is this little thing called reality that children have to confront on a daily basis. When children are faced with the conflict between what their parents had told them about how good they are and what reality is telling them, the result is the bursting of the “You are the best” bubble that their parents blew up for them.
You can, however, do several things to encourage them to develop their own competence. First, you can give them opportunities in their daily lives to gain a sense of competence, for example, dressing, eating, drawing, cooking, and interacting with others. These daily experiences allow your children to develop specific competencies that will be helpful to them as they progress through childhood and into adulthood.
Second, you can be sure that they gain the most value from their experiences. You can direct their focus to the competencies that enabled those successes (e.g., “You were really focused and worked hard on that project.”) rather than some generic praise of the accomplishment itself (e.g., “Good job!). And you can praise their accomplishments (e.g., “You must feel so good about your project.”).
But you shouldn't just focus on the successes because, as every parent knows, as your children develop, they will experience far more failures than successes as they begin to gain competence. How you react often dictates how they will respond to those failures, if you are positive and supportive, your children will get the message that failure is okay and just a part of life.
