D. Ориентирование в тексте.

QUITTING SMOKING

Many people who are addicted to tobacco believe that smoking has no effect on the heart, but the evidence is loaded against them. The nicotine in tobacco smoke increases your heart rate and raises your blood pressure, while the carbon monoxide cuts down the amount of oxygen that can be carried by your blood. The heart must work harder but has less oxygen supplied to it. If you smoke, the best way to reduce your risk of heart disease is to quit.

Everybody knows that smoking can cause cancer, but not everyone realizes how bad it is for the heart. Overall, cigarette smokers have a death rate from coronary heart disease that is 70% higher that that of nonsmokers. The more heavily you smoke 40 or more cigarettes a day, you are between two and three times more likely to die of heart disease than a nonsmoker.

Smoking also increases the likelihood of cerebrovascular disease (disorders of blood vessels in the brain) and thus increases the risk of stroke. It is also directly related to diseases of the arteries in the legs. Smokers make up at least 95 % of patients suffering from these diseases – which can result in gangrene and amputation of the leg.

Stop now.

A strong motivation to quit smoking is the most important factor in being successful. Some people find it easiest to go “cold turkey”, quitting all smoking at once. Many people benefit from behavior modification programs.

If you give up smoking, your risk of heart disease declines rapidly. For example, if you consume less than one pack of cigarettes a day and give up now, after about 3 years of not smoking your risk of heart disease is almost identical to that of a lifelong nonsmoker. As the years without tobacco pass, the risk diminishes for other diseases as well. Every day spent without smoking is an investment in your future health.

WHY DO YOU SMOKE?

Find the answer to the given questions:

1.Do you smoke out of sheer habit or whenever you are unoccupied?

2.Do you smoke because you need something to do with your hands or mouth?

3.Do you smoke only when you are with other smokers?

4.Do you smoke because you are truly addicted to nicotine?

5.Do you reach for your cigarettes as a way of relieving tension?

6.Do you smoke to help with tasks requiring mental concentration?

To help you stop smoking it is useful to think about your reasons for smoking and to decide what type of smoker you are. Answer these questions after careful consideration. Be honest in your assessment of your smoking habits. And remember – your desire to quit smoking is the most important and effective means of becoming an ex-smoker.

1. If so, you probably begin to feel restless and crave another cigarette a few minutes after finishing the previous one. You will do best with the “cold turkey” approach. Nicotine chewing gum, available by prescription, helps relieve withdrawal symptoms.

2. You must break your habit pattern. Delay your first cigarette by an hour each day, smoke less of each cigarette, don’t carry cigarettes, and sit in the “no-smoking” areas in restaurants and on airplanes. Also, try using your other hand to hold the cigarette.

3. If so, you probably have a problem with mental discipline. Physical exercise increases mental alertness and stamina and relieves depression, which will help you concentrate without cigarettes. In addition, it is difficult to smoke and exercise at the same time.

4. Many smokers reach for a cigarette to alleviate boredom. You may need a hobby that keeps your hands occupied and is mentally stimulating in a nonstressful way. To keep your mouth occupied, try chewing on coffee stirrers, toothpicks, or gum.

5. You may need to avoid socializing for a while with friends who smoke. This may seem to be a drastic measure, but consider it a short-term sacrifice that will add to the quality of your life. Once you have built up your resistance to the temptation to smoke, you can join them again.

6. In the long term, smoking can add to personal stress by impairing your health and thus your ability to cope with stress effectively. Learn some other ways of dealing with stressful situations. Smoking doesn’t solve any problems.

ASK YOUR DOCTOR QUITTING SMOKING

1.Q I’ve smoked for more than 30 years. Is stopping really going to help my heart now?

A It’s never too late. Studies show that ex-smokers are much less likely to have a heart attack than people who smoke. The risks associated with smoking decrease quickly in the first year of giving up.

2.Q My mother smoked 20 cigarettes a day all her life, and she died in her sleep when she was 92. Might I not be like her?

A There are always exceptions. In any case, your mother probably would have felt a lot healthier had she not smoked.

3.Q Is there any danger of becoming addicted to the nicotine chewing gum my doctor prescribed?

A Yes, but it’s not as bad for you as smoking because you are not inhaling carbon particles and carbon monoxide from the cigarettes.

1. Q I’d like to quit smoking, but I worry about gaining weight. Isn’t obesity just as bad for the heart?

A People do tend to put on weight when they quit smoking, but being overweight is not as bad for your heart as smoking. The average person gains only 5 to 10 pounds and some people don’t gain any weight.

2. Q A friend of mine underwent hypnosis to help him stop smoking. Does hypnosis work?

A Some smokers find it helpful, but it works only if you are motivated to quit.

NOTE: Тексты Quitting Smoking, Why do you smoke?, Ask your doctor quitting smoke могут быть использованы для ролевой игры “Round table talk: Quitting Smoking”.

DON’T PUSH YOUR KIDS TOO HARD

Dr.B.Spock on bringing up today’s children.

Find the answers to the questions:

1. Are children raised in single-parent homes more stressed than other kids?

2. How do working mothers affect kids?

3. Do parents harm kids by pushing them to achieve?

4. Dr. Spock, why are today’s children under stress?

5. Is watching television harmful to kids?

6. Are there specific things to avoid?

7. What kind of parents will today’s children make?

8. Do the new stresses on kids make them better equipped to deal with adult stresses?

9. Is it harder to be a parent today?

A. Partly because we’ve given up so many of the comforts and sources of security of the past, such as the extended family and the small, tightly knit community and the comfort and guidance that people used to get from religion.

B. It is stressful to children to have to cope with groups, with strangers, with people outside the family. That has emotional effects, and, if the deprivation of security is at all marked, it will have intellectual effects, too.

We know now that if there’s good day care it can substitute pretty well for parental care. But, though we’re the richest country the world has ever known, we have nowhere near the amount of subsidized day care we need. We’re harming our children emotionally and intellectually to the degree that they’re in substandard day care.

C. It’s not that a single parent can’t raise a child well but that it’s harder to raise a child in most cases with one parent than it is with two parents. The parents can comfort and consult and back up each other.

D. Our emphasis on fierce competition and getting ahead minimizes the importance of cooperation, helpfulness, kindness, lovingness. These latter qualities are the thing that we need much more than competitiveness. I’m bothered, for instance, at the way we coach young children in athletics and, even more ludicrous, the interest we focus on superkids. It hasn’t gone very far, but there are parents who, when they hear that other children are learning to read at the age of 2, think, “My God, we should be providing reading instruction, too,” without ever asking the most significant question: “Does it make the child a better reader or is there any other advantage to learning to read at 2 rather than waiting until age 6?” It imposes strains on children.

E. Absolutely no violence on television. Don’t give war toys. These are poisonous to children. This whole Rambo spirit is a distressing thing, especially in the most violent country in the world.

F. A lot of what they see brutalizes sexuality. In simpler societies, you don’t see people smashing each other in the face or killing each other. The average American child on reaching the age of 18 has watched 18,000 murders on TV. Yet we know that every time a child or an adult watches brutality, it desensitizes and brutalizes them to a slight degree. We have by far the highest crime rates in the world in such areas as murders within the family, rape, wife abuse, child abuse. And yet we’re turning out more children this way, with this horrible profusion of violence that children watch on TV. It’s a terrible thing.

G. No, human beings do make some adjustment to stresses, but that doesn’t mean that they’re doing better by being brought up with stresses. It’s going to make them more tense, more harsh, more intensely competitive and more greedy. I don’t think people can live by that. It is a spiritual malnutrition, just like a lack of vitamins or a lack of calories.

H. If they’re brought up with tension and harshness, then they’ll do the same with their children. Everybody acquires his attitude and behavior toward his children by how he was treated in his own childhood. What was done to you in childhood, you are given permission to do. To put it more positively, good parental standards are what make for a better society and poor parental standards are what make for a deteriorating society.

I. Yes. When I started pediatric practice in ’33, parents worried about polio and pneumonia. Now they have to worry about drugs and teenage pregnancy and nuclear annihilation.

NOTE: Text “Don’t push your kids too hard” may be used for the role game “Round table talk: On bringing up today’s children”.

LIVING OUT LOUD

Timothy Stevens has lived most of his life in a silent world. Until six months ago, he had never heard his mother’s voice, never listened to music and never heard the sound of birds singing or the laughter of his playmates.

#0- His mother, Sandra, knew that something was wrong with her baby son, because he did not have the same reactions as other babies. “If I didn’t look into Tim’s eyes, he didn’t seem to know I was there,” she says. When he was eight months old, Sandra took Timothy to the hospital and explained why she was worried. The doctors carried out hearing tests and decided that Timothy must be a little backward. #1-

Sandra insisted that the hospital should send Timothy to a specialist for more tests. Unfortunately, it was a long time before a specialist would see him. Finally, when he was almost two years old, Timothy and his mother went to a children’s hospital in Manchester where the staff had plenty of experience in dealing with deaf children.

#2- At last, someone believed her when she told them that her son was deaf. “Doctors often think that others worry too much about their children and that they always think the worst,” she smiles. “I knew I was right about Tim, but it took almost two years before the doctors would agree with me.” However, even Sandra had not imagined that Timothy’s condition could be as serious as it was.

#3- Doctors told Sandra that there was no chance that his hearing would ever improve. Sandra was shocked to learn that the only hope for Timothy was to have a bionic implant.

#4- The electrodes would send electric signals to his brain, which would allow him to hear them as sounds. The implant would not allow Timothy to hear perfectly, but it would be the only way for him to ever have a chance of overcoming his deafness. After checking that there was no serious risk involved, Sandra put Timothy’s name on the waiting list for the operation. Because he was so young, the doctors decided that Timothy should be given the implant as soon as possible.

#5- “I have to admit, I was very worried,” says Sandra, “but only hours after he came out of theatre, he was playing with the other children on the ward and I knew he was going to be fine! I couldn’t wait to find out whether or not the operation had been successful.” The moment of truth came on Timothy’s third birthday, when the doctors switched on the implant for the very first time. Timothy played with toys in the doctor’s surgery while a speech therapist played different sounds and checked his reactions. When Sandra said, “Hello Timothy,” and he looked into her eyes, she cried tears of happiness.

Timothy is now enjoying a life full of sound. #6- He is also attending the local nursery school where he likes nothing more than to make as much noise as possible as he plays with his friends.

Timothy celebrated his fourth birthday last week.

#7- “He is driving me mad with the noise he makes,” laughs Sandra, “and that’s something I never imagined I would complain about! For me, though, the greatest gift of all is to hear my son talking and to know that he can hear me when I speak to him.”

Find the right comment to each part of the text:

A – He has already learnt several words and phrases which allow him to communicate with his mother.

B - His presents included a variety of musical instruments which he loves to play with.

C - Sandra was relieved to find people who would listen to her.

D - A full examination showed that Timothy was completely deaf.

E - However, Sandra knew that the problem was more serious than that.

F - Timothy is only able to communicate by using sign language.

G - Three months before his third birthday, he went into hospital to have the operation that would change his life.

H - Timothy was born deaf.

I - This would mean having an operation to put a special receiver in Timothy’s head, with electrodes connected to the nerves in his ears.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 3682