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Happiness is becoming a huge area in psychological research and even in government policy, with the UK government exploring a “happiness index. “ It’s tough, though, to define exactly what happiness is, and what makes us happy.
There are two broad ways of looking at happiness: short-term happiness(a great cookie, a bottle of wine)and long-term happiness(financial security, achieving your goals). Both types of happiness are valid, and important. The problem is, they’re often in competition.
Let’s say you’ve got a goal of losing 50 pounds this year. You know you’d be happier and healthier if you weren’t carrying that extra weight. To achieve long-term happiness, you need to go on a diet. In the short-term, though, it’s not that easy. A chocolate cake, or a large glass of wine, might seem like just the thing to cheer you up at the end of a long day—or to celebrate with friends. It’s the same with lots of other goal.
If you’ve got a tendency to prioritize long-term happiness at the expense of day-to-day pleasures, you should start looking for some small ways to bring a little joy back into your life. I’m not suggesting that you go out and get drunk every night, or that you stuff yourself with cake. There are plenty of other ways to enjoy yourself. Don’t pin all your hopes of happiness on some far-off future, though. There’s no point working a 60-hour week and making yourself thoroughly miserable in the belief that things will be perfect as soon as you’re making a six-figure salary.
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Thanks to the introduction of new drugs, many of the early problems in organ transplants, such as tissue rejection, have, to a great extent, now been solved. However, there remains a major problem. The people in need of transplant surgery far outnumber the available organs.
Many countries, such as Britain, have huge waiting lists of people whose lives could be saved by being given a kidney, lung, heart, or liver transplant. Sadly, many of them die before they reach the top of those lists.
Under the present British policy, people are asked to carry donor(捐赠人)cards, and/or put their names on the national donor register. Thus, if they lose their lives suddenly, for example, in a traffic accident, they have given permission in advance of their deaths for their organs to be used. If they have not done so, surgeons are faced with the task of asking the grieved relatives for permission to use the organs of the dead. Of course, often the relatives are too upset even to think of such a thing until it is too late. Organ transplants have to take place quite soon after the death of the donor.
Dying and donating organs is not something most of us like to think about, and only about 14% of people have registered. Now it has been suggested that, instead of the present register, there should be a register of potential donors who haven’t made up their minds.
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Recently, the American Heart Association surveyed 1, 000 people nationwide about their thoughts on sodium and heart health. 61% said that they believed sea salt was a low-sodium alternative to table salt. They can be forgiven for thinking so. Sea salt is marketed as a healthy food, added to soups, potato chips and a wide variety of packaged snacks labeled “ low sodium, “ “all natural“ and “healthy. “ But in reality, sea salt and table salt are not terribly different, at least chemically. The real differences are in how the two are used in cooking.
Table salt comes from underground salt deposits. Companies that sell it typically add something to keep it from clumping(结块). During processing, table salt is stripped of many of its natural minerals. Sea salt, on the other hand, is made from evaporated seawater. With little processing, it retains most of its minerals, which some cooks say give it a better flavor.
But both contain the same amount of sodium chloride(氯化的)by weight, which means they contribute equally to total sodium consumption and have the same effect on blood pressure. Officials recommend that adults consume no more than 2, 300 milligrams of sodium a day, equivalent to a teaspoon of salt. You should eat less if you are black, hypertensive(患高血压的)or older than 40. Yet most Americans consume more than double the amount they need, mostly from processed foods, so it is best to limit salt—of any kind.
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