During Thanksgiving, I stayed with my friends in New York City. We ate a lot and ate at late night, slept late every night and did not go to gym at all. We were all saying that we gained weight a lot during these nine days. So for one night, I asked them whether they go to gym in college quite often. They told me that if they have a friend who will go with them, it increases the chance for them to go to gym. If there isn’t any friend who is going with them, then they don’t have the incentive to go to the gym because going alone is boring. And people always get lazy sometimes. For me, I go to gym by myself usually and I have time that I feel lazy as well. After listening to what they said, I wonder what really motivates people to go to the gym. Can people be more active if provided fancy gym? Is it because people feel lonely and they want somebody to go with them? Is gym a perfect place to kill time with? Or are they not motivated enough to build better muscle or lose weight? Do they really want to go to gym for themselves or is it because everyone goes to gym and they feel like they should as well? With all of these questions, I find a project which is related to motivation methods to promote physical activity.

The Newcastle exercise project conducted a randomized controlled trial that 523 adults aged from 40-64 who were distributed to four intervention groups: a brief (1 interview) or intensive (6 interviews) with or without financial incentives (vouchers), and a control group. It designed four phrases which were baseline assessment, post-intervention, 12 weeks after baseline, and repeat one year after baseline. Within this study, the null hypothesis is that “changes in self-reported physical activity at follow up would be the same in the intervention and control groups” (BMJ). As the results come out, four interventions combined group improved significantly compared to the control group. But within intervention groups, there is no significant effect between vouchers or bigger than (>1) interview. More participants who had increased physical activity scores were given both multiple interviews and vouchers. The data showed that it was 39% higher than in the control group. So does this result suggest that people will have more incentives to go to the gym if they are awarded? Vigorous activity had much bigger improvements than the four intervention groups combined. On the one year base, “Increases in physical activity reported at 12 weeks by participants in the intervention groups were not maintained at one year, regardless of the intensity of intervention, only the increase in vigorous activity in the intervention groups was close to statistical significance. The data were consistent with small positive or negative effects of intervention groups compared with controls” (BMJ). Since the data were consistent, it indicates that there is a relationship between intervention and physical activities. But I still wonder what specifically motivates people to do physical activity?

The second research conducted several studies. The first study is about a simple sign increasing the number of people walking up instead of using an escalator, though the number declined after sign was removed, which indicates of using very low cost intervention shows that very low cost intervention can increase physical activity in a specific behavior setting. The second study is more complicated that creating better environmental improvements “The changes appeared to improve the fitness of personnel on the intervention base, but limitations in the design and measurement strategy limit confidence in the conclusions” (Sciencedirect). The third case study took place in Finland which is a program that encourages people to walk to work. Given showers and changing rooms with government support, changes occur slowly during intervention but only 7% reported that their increase their physical activity. The fourth study happened in Belfast, United Kingdom, that within 7 years, Belfast becomes one of the best-served cities for sports and activity centers. Most participation comes from young adults, some from aged people. And this study shows that environmental interventions do affect people’s participation for physical activity. (Picture is about a model proposed for implementing environmental interventions).

From the second studies above, I come up with several questions. These studies were done within certain countries, so I wonder if different countries will have different effect to the result. The third case study happened in Finland, and the fourth one happened in United Kingdom. What if the places changed? Will the result remains the same or be different? More effective intervention or it totally not works? In the fourth study that took place in United Kingdom, what is the percentage of men and women’s participation for physical activity? Does sex play a role in determining increasing physical activity? Could it exist third variables that influence the result? The first study use very low cost and creates improvements, while the later three studies provide more complicated and modern gyms or infrastructures show effects as well. But after all, implementing environmental interventions still has challenges. Model design still needs evidence to prove the effectiveness.

For the past four years that I stayed in the America, I consume more meet but fewer vegetables than I did back in China. There are only few choices for vegetables at the salad bar comparing to the great amount of vegetable choices and cooking styles in China. With carefully thinking, I find out that I eat more beef and chickens here but more pork and fish in China. Due to fast developments and convenient transportations nowadays, trades between countries allow people to consume better quality of food outside their nation, though the price would be much higher than local productions. The differences between my food consumption might develop from the reason of region restrictions because I lived in Shanghai, which is a big city and nears sea but now I live in central Pennsylvania, an inland place which is a valley and not close to sea. Excluding all these factors that influence food consumption, I wonder if nations differ from each other or it is the geography that differentiate food consumption.

For the first research I read, it is about cross-nation meat and fish consumption. The study examine meat and fish consumption in various nations in three perspectives. Because of the rapid growth in population, rising production of meat demand lead grains consumption grows as well. “While several hundred million people go hungry worldwide, 40% of the world’s grain supply is fed to livestock (Harrison and Pearce, 2000)” (Sciencedirect). In this case, increase demand of grains are more used to feed livestock instead of supplying to the world poorest people. In this article, it gives out example that China’s increasing beef consumption per capita almost equals to the United States’ total annual grain harvest. (Brown, 1999) The study also gives the example that North American people consume higher quantities of meat than people live in Indian subcontinent and concludes that Western nations tend to consume more meat while the Asian nations tend to consume more fish.

When it comes to conclusion, researchers neglect ecological and socio-cultural perspective but find out that food consumption is mostly affected by population, economic growth and urbanization (Rosegrant et al., 2001). Though they conclude that population growth, economic growth, and urbanization are main factors, I wonder if geographical reason and climate factors are involved. Because people who live inner land may not consume the same amount of seafood as people who live in cities nearby seas do. Inner land could still develop modern cities, so urbanization’s existence will leave a doubt. Also, people in North America live in a higher latitude than people in Indian subcontinent. The climate between these two places will differ people’s eating habits which can cause different food consumption. Could it because people who live in higher latitudes need more energy than people live in warmer areas in order to overcome the cold winter?

So for the second research, I find further studies develop on different countries, especially in Asian.

China: It is true that there are more kinds of vegetables dishes available in China, which is almost six times more than in the west. Chinese meat consumption is really diverse as well. “The majority of meat products processed in China are prepared from pork, followed by beef, sheep, chicken, duck, fish, rabbit, and game meat (Xiong, Yang & Lou, 1999).” (Sciencedirect). China has great area in region and big population, so everything consumed can make the number pretty big.

Japan: Japanese consume more raw fish than either China or Korea. I think that might relate to Japan’s geographic reason since the country is basically an island. “After the 9th century, the Japanese meat-based dishes gradually developed including grilled fish and meat, simmered food, steamed foods, soups made from chopped vegetables, sliced raw fish, vegetables, seaweed and pickled vegetables (Yang, 2006).”(Sciencedirect). Though Japanese consume great amount of fish, we do see Japanese barbeque restaurants which means that they still consume meat a lot.

Korea: Within all the countries listed in this research, Korea has the highest latitude. Because of the ancient nomadic culture, meat is obtained through hunting and fishing in Korea. (Kim et al., 2005). “Among Korean meat cuisine, beef, pork, chicken meat are major food ingredients.”(Sciencedirect). In New York City, most of the Korean restaurants are meat barbeques, mostly beef and pork.

Thailand: “South and Southeast Asia has the lowest consumption of meat per capita of any part of the world (Grigg, 1995).”  Thailand is in lower latitude and is in between Tropic of Cancer and Equator. So it did fit my previous guess that lower latitude consumes less meat. Among all the Thai food I have consumed, Thai food contains lot of fresh vegetables, fish, shrimps and herbs but not much beef or chickens. “In terms of meats and meat products, although rice is the staple food and there are Buddhist, meats such as omelets, fried pork, or fried chicken are usually included in ordinary dishes with fried rice, noodle soups, or steamed rice (Bhumichitr, 1994 and Viserssanguan, 2005).” (Sciencedirect).

Vietnam: The most common meats used in Vietnamese cuisine are pork, chicken, fish and seafood. And Vietnam is in the same geographic region as Thailand.

“Meat products and processing industry in the East is not as well developed as in the West because of different environment, history, and culture.” (Sciencedirect). Since I have the hypothesis that higher latitude people consume more meat than people live in lower latitudes, the graph of meat consumption makes me doubt if it is because China has the world’s biggest population? Then, the first research conclusion can be perfectly fitted to the second research. As we can see from the graph, China has the biggest meat consumption but China is in the mid-latitude. Though Korea has the highest latitude and consumes the great amount of meat, it does not surpass China. The same condition happens to Thailand and Vietnam as well. In the past, people in the East usually eat more grains and vegetables while people in the West consume more meat, though the economic growth has changed some of the Eastern eating habits. But from the Thailand perspective, I think there still could have third variables that affect people’s food consumption as it mentions Buddhist in the writing. Religion and culture will be other topics that I need to further develop my research on.

As long as I know, diet sodas have always been contentious. Some people say that drinking diet sodas does not affect our health. Some people say that diet sodas are bad. So why do diet sodas still exist if they are bad for our health? Do they really help people who are on diet? I am not a fan of soda products but I usually want to drink soda in the summer. My father always buys cans of sodas but he never drinks diet ones. When I skype with my parents one weekend, I saw him opened the coke, I asked him why he never drinks diet sodas. And he replied that diet coke is worse than normal cokes. This answer made me confused, I wonder what he said was correct. Since I drink sodas in summer, and this relates to my health concerns, I started my research to find out the answer.

First, I find an article about diet sodas on Washington Post. Use examples from 749 Mexican-Americans and European-Americans ages 65 and older in San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA), they found out that diet soda drinkers gained almost 3 times as much belly fat as non-diet soda drinkers. “Occasional diet soda drinkers added an average of 1.83 inches to their waist circumferences, while the non-drinkers added .8 inches over the 9.4 years of the study. Daily consumers like me gained a striking 3.16 inches” (Washington Post). These details were updated. And this condition has excluded other factors that could affect the study result: age, exercise and smoking. In this case, it seems like that some of the third variables are already left out, but I think there still could have other factors influencing the result, such as gender problem. Men might defer from women in gaining belly fat of drinking diet sodas. Also, various soda brands might cause different results of gaining belly fat.

Due to the adjunct assistant professor of University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Sharon Fowler, there always has an argument about the diet soda and artificial sweeteners. One study he made in 2008 found that there is significant increase in body mass index within diet soda drinkers but within this study, it does not prove cause and effect but an association. And moreover, there is no relation between regular sugary soda drinks and waist circumference growth. My mom always blames my dad of drinking too many sugary and artificial flavors, which cause him to gain belly fat. And when people get older, too much sugar consume can associate with health issues, such as increased high blood pressure and obesity. But from the study above, it turns out that there is not even a relation between soda drinks and waist circumference growth. According to Calorie Control Council, it suggests that people might control their calories on diet soda drinks but let go on other food consumptions. That means my daddy’s gaining of belly fat can come from other factors, which could be the third variables, but not normal soda drinks since he never drinks diet sodas.

Second, I find a research about the usage of citrate, malate and total alkali’s concentration in diet sodas to help patients with hypocitraturic calcium nephrolithiasis or uric acid nephrolithiasis. Scientist conducted a research, calculating 15 diet sodas and a lemonade beverage from the perspectives of total concentration of respective anions, beverage pH, and citric and malic acid pK to find out which one is most useful for dietary therapy. The result for the lemonade beverage is 6.30mEq/l. And here are the results for some diet sodas: Diet Sunkist Orange 8.38 mEq/l, Diet Canada Dry Ginger Ale 6.88 mEq/l, Diet Mountain Dew 6.78 mEq/l and lowest total alkali (<1.0mEq/l) for cola based sodas. (Sciencedirect).

Koff studied 21 patients with kidney stones, of whom 11 with hypocitraturia were treated with lemonade and potassium citrate in a crossover design trial. Penniston examined 63 patients with hypocitraturia on lemonade therapy and 37 on potassium citrate plus lemonade by giving both low calorie lemonades. “Urine citrate increased by 81 mg daily in the lemonade group and by 184 mg daily in the potassium citrate plus lemonade group” (Sciencedirect). The result inclines to the conclusion that combined therapy change was significant but there is not enough evidence to prove the correlation.

So for the two researches, the first one starts in the negative perspective of diet sodas saying that diet sodas could cause belly fat while the result turns out to be there is no relation between diet sodas and the growth of waist circumference. The second one is on the positive site saying that diet sodas can help dietary treatment for hypocitraturia and low urine pH. Although only the combined therapy of potassium citrate plus lemonade had obvious change, the final conclusion states that there is not enough evidence proves any correlation between beverage pH and total beverage alkali content. So for the second research, I wonder if there could happen because of there were too few samples? Did the test result can differ from gender and age differences? Though in the studies, the conclusions are that there is no relationship between belly fat and diet soda consuming or diet sodas and treatment for hypocitraturia, further studies need to be conducted to find out actual clinical effects.

As we all might have experienced, stress eating, is a common phenomenon among students. Since I have came to the US for high school four years ago, I kept an eye on my weight because I gained weight a lot during my first year of high school here. And this never happens to me when I was back in China. Since then, I really care about my weight problem, I eat less and exercise more so that there will not be big fluctuation of weight. As I was forming my new life style, I start to compare my eating habits. I noticed that I tended to eat more fried and sweet food in United States but more vegetables and fruits in China. I ate healthier in China and consumed more calories in the US. Though there will be third variables affecting my weight, for example, I exercise less and sleep later. These all might cause my weight gain. When I start my college life at PSU, I started to gain weight again after three years’ unchanging. So I wonder what cause this to happen. Do I exercise less? Do I eat more? Do I sit in my room all the time? Then I ask myself if it is because of the college pressure I have. With this question, I start my research.

During the past month, I felt the strong differences between college and high school. We do not have to turn in homework at a daily basis as we do in high school. Homework usually due within a week or a month, I feel relax but stressful as well every day because I have always been thinking about this. So do I really have stress, which causes me to eat more unconsciously?

So what is the cause of stress eating? “Activation of the sympathetic adrenal medullary system, with release of catecholamine (adrenaline and noradrenaline), is typical during periods of acute stress. Hyper activation of the HPA axis, with release of corticosteroids (cortisol), associated with chronically stressed individuals. The responses to acute or chronic stress include a number of modifying behaviors such as alcohol consumption, smoking, and eating. Hormones released in response to stress can specifically affect appetite.” (Sciencedirect).

So here is the first study Sciencedirect-Rats of rats’ food intake. In this study, rats are divided to two groups. The first control group is exposed to either stress or restriction, the restriction group increase intake of chow while the stress group consume greater cookie intake over chow. The second groups is exposed to combined stress and restriction, which by using a treatment called opioid-receptor antagonist, showed the larger reduction in food intake. In my opinion, in order to apply it on humans, we should be aware that human beings have strict food intake voluntarily while rats do not. “In support of those findings it has been shown that intermittent access to and consumption of highly palatable food increases mu-opioid receptor binding and precipitates symptoms of opioid withdrawal.” (Sciencedirect).

The human study did several surveys on the eating behavior of students. The first study is about the food intake of US Marine’s during a combat. On the first day, 68% reported that they ate less because of lack of time and fear. And in the prospective study, 158 male and female completed 84 daily records of stress in decrease and increase but more likely to report less eating with increased stressor. The second one examined 225 male and female high school students. “Total energy intake was significantly greater on the examination day when compared with the stress-free day (2225 versus 2074 kcal, 9.1 versus 8.5 MJ)” (Sciencedirect). The third study is under a mild stressor, which shows that “the male stress groups consumed significantly less food compared with the male control group (99 versus 242 kcal, 406 versus 992 kJ)” (Sciencedirect). while there was no difference between female group food consumption. In this case, I think that gender possibly plays a role in determine food consumption under stress.

In conclusion, the studies I found out shows both decreasing food intake and increasing food intake due to different conditions. For the rats study, there is not much difference between the groups of either stress or restriction alone and the control group. For the human study, situations differ that there will be conditions that people eat less while having more stress. While in the second human study, gender difference shows that men tend to stress eating during examination day but women do not. This situation can induce us to think about whether men have more stress than women? Are women more resilient under stress but men are more poor at resisting compression? I think there might exist other factors that influence the study. Also there may be a difference of stress eating between working people and students. And stress eating might also differ from people who earn high salary from people who earn little. We have to do further studies on different groups of people in order to find out the result.

Everyone sleeps and sleep is one of the most essential event in our life which keeps our body works properly. Without enough sleep, all kinds of problems will come up. We cannot concentrate in class or on work if we don’t get enough sleep. We will find it hard to memorize things without enough sleep. We will have various health issues because our immune system does not function well. Without enough sleep, people might get headache or feel unlikely to eat. There are a lot of sleep disorders such as insomnia, narcolepsy and sleep apnea. So when we sleep, our brain gets rest.

REM sleep begins with signals from an area at the base of the brain called the pons. These signals travel to a brain region called the thalamus, which relays them to the cerebral cortex – the outer layer of the brain that is responsible for learning, thinking, and organizing information (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). Scientists have discovered that dreams almost always happens during REM sleep. REM sleep stimulates the learning part of brains and this explains why infants spend lots of time sleep than adults do so that babies learn things fast.

Deep sleep coincides with the release of growth hormone in children and young adults. Many of the body’s cells also show increased production and reduced breakdown of proteins during deep sleep. Since proteins are the building blocks needed for cell growth and for repair of damage from factors like stress and ultraviolet rays, deep sleep may truly be “beauty sleep.” (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)

If sleep deprivation continues, hallucinations and mood swings may develop. Some experts believe sleep gives neurons used while we are awake a chance to shut down and repair themselves. Without sleep, neurons may become so depleted in energy or so polluted with byproducts of normal cellular activities that they begin to malfunction. Sleep also may give the brain a chance to exercise important neuronal connections that might otherwise deteriorate from lack of activity. Some scientists believe dreams are the cortex’s attempt to find meaning in the random signals that it receives during REM sleep. The cortex is the part of the brain that interprets and organizes information from the environment during consciousness. (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)

As the research found out, dreams do affect our sleep quality. And here are some suggestions from (Med Harvard)

Baby smiling in bed with eyes closed and arms out.

) that help improve our sleep

1. Avoid Caffeine, Alcohol, Nicotine, and other chemicals that interfere with sleep
2. Turn your bedroom into a sleep-inducing environment
3. Establish a soothing pre-sleep routine
4. Go to sleep when you’re truly tired
5. Don’t be a nighttime clock-watcher
6. Use light to your advantage
7. Keep your internal clock set with a consistent sleep schedule
8. Nap early-or not at all
9. Lighten up on evening meals
10. Balance fluid intake
11. Exercise early
12. Follow through

China, as one of the biggest tea drinking country in the world, has various kinds of tea. I am not a big fan of tea drinking because I am quite sensitive to caffeine but I only love green tea. When people see me drinking tea, they will always ask what kind of tea I am drinking and if I answer that I am drinking green tea, they will immediately ask if I drink it in order to lose weight. The way that everyone asks me the same question makes me confused, so I search for the usage of green tea to see if it can be functioned as a helper of weight loss.

istock

In the research that I found out, 14 men were divided into two groups that one group received decaffeinated green tea and the other received the placebo, according to the scientists at Anglia Ruskin University, they did get the conclusion that green tea can reduce body fat.

“Dr Justin Roberts, who led the study, said: ‘It is known that green tea as a drink can have numerous health benefits as it contains a relatively high amount of an ingredient called epigallocatechin-3-gallate EGCG.” (Daily Mail). Though they need to extend the experiment, they found out that the compound in green tea can kill cancer cells as well.

The study by Anglia Ruskin University also relates the topic to the research done by Penn State University. The Penn State research used mice instead of humans for the experiment. According to Professor Joshua Lambert, the experiment found out that green tea extract along with exercise makes mice lose weight and become healthier compare to those mice that receive either green tea extract or only exercise but receive no green tea extract. The purpose of using non-caffeine green tea is to avoid the stimulants that could bring up with the caffeine green tea.

Though the experiment works well on mice, it has to be tried on humans to see the effect in order to benefit people of control their blood metabolism and lose weight. “”I think we can make that leap,” he said. “When we put together our animal model experiments, we try to mimic the human situation as much as possible, so the dose of decaffeinated green tea that we used in this study is the equivalent of 8 to 10 cups of green tea a day, which is a lot for some people. But there are many people out there who are heavy, regular tea consumers.”” (Penn State, Joshua Lambert).

Take a walk on the street, we can see that most people are using their headphones either listening to music or making a phone call. Headphones first came out in the early 1900s. It started to become popular when tapes, CDs and Walkman came out. And nowadays, people use iphones, ipods to play their music loudly.

Scientists believe that, depending upon the type of sound, the pure force of its vibrations at high decibel levels can cause hearing loss. Recent studies also show that exposure to sounds at harmful decibel levels triggers the formation of molecules inside the ear that damage hair cells. (Noisyplanet). And there is no treatment for hearing damage because it is irreversible.

Using myself as an example, I know that I have worse hearing than in the past because I use earphones to play music a lot and I would play louder when I am in public areas that are noisy. When I take subways in Shanghai, it is pretty common that I can hear others’ music coming out from their earphones. “Hearing specialist David A. Schessel, MD, PhD, chief of our Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Division, tells parents: “If you can hear the music your child/teenager is playing through their headphones or earphones, it means the sound is too loud and can lead to permanent hearing loss.” (Stony Brook School of Medicine). The subway makes a loud noise so people usually turn up the volume when they take buses or subways. I turn up the volume as well in order that I can hear the lyrics clearly; however, loud sounds do harms to our ears. The louder the music, the shorter time that people can use their headphones. “As a rule of thumb, you should only use MP3 devices at levels up to 60% of maximum volume for a total of 60 minutes a day,” (American Osteopathic Association) It can cause people to become deaf earlier than normal. But how loud is defined as loud?

Here are some loudness/time facts to consider (the unit of measurement is decibel):

• At 95 dB, damage will occur after four hours of exposure per day.
• At 100 dB, damage will occur after two hours of exposure per day.
• At 105 dB, damage will occur after one hour of exposure per day.
• At 110 dB, damage will occur after 30 minutes of exposure per day.
• At 115 dB, damage will occur after 15 minutes of exposure per day.
• At 120-plus dB, damage occurs almost immediately.

  It is quite common for people either to drink coffee in the morning to keep them awake and start a new day or to drink coffee at night in order to stay up late and finish the work.Read more Some people can drink several cups of coffee a day and sleep well at night while some can ingest a little caffeine but feel hard to fall asleep at night. I know that genetic plays a role in people’s caffeine metabolism. I am the kind of person who is extremely sensitive to caffeine, so unless I have to stay up late, I will not drink anything contains caffeine in the afternoon. Read more

Caffeine exists in coffee, tea, and energy drinks but each has different content. And even decaffeinated coffee will have little caffeine content. I wonder if caffeine is beneficial to people so I did a research online to seek out the answer. I found out a research done by Harvard Health and there is a topic that attracts me: Is caffeine good for the brain, bad for other parts? Caffeine probably has multiple targets in the brain, but the main one seems to be adenosine receptors. Adenosine is a brain chemical that dampens brain activity. By hogging adenosine’s receptors, caffeine sets off a chain of events that affects the activity of dopamine, another important brain chemical, and the areas of the brain involved in arousal, pleasure, and thinking. A part of the brain affected by Parkinson’s disease, called the striatum, has many adenosine receptors; by docking on them, caffeine seems to have some protective effects.(Harvard Health) People has long concerned that caffeine might lead to some diseases such as high blood pressure, bone health and blood cholesterol.(Clemson) And the study has showed that caffeine indeed could cause negative effects on human bodies but as people make drinking caffeine a habit, the effect will wear off. For instance, if I keep drinking coffee or tea and it becomes a custom. I will become less sensitive to caffeine. Outside the brain, caffeine can be a performance enhancer, boosting the strength of muscle contraction and offsetting some of the physiological and psychological effects of physical exertion. But, especially in the short term, it also has negative effects, which include raising blood pressure, making arteries stiffer, and increasing levels of homocysteine, insulin, and possibly cholesterol. Habitual use may cause some of these effects to wear off. For some conditions, though, coffee may have some benefit despite, rather than because of, caffeine.(Health Harvard)

Humans can cry due to different reasons: emotional or physical. People may cry when a movie makes them touched. People may cry because of stress and they may also cry because of cutting onions. Women tend to cry more than men. Children cry more than adults do. But why do humans cry?

Children, especially infants, cry out to seek support. Crying is a method of communication according to their perspectives since they cannot actually talk. Adults, on the contrast, have the ability to control our tears and more often, tears show our emotions. According to a study, human eyes can produce three types of tears. Basal tears protect the eye and keep it moist. Reflex tears flush out the eye when it becomes irritated. And emotional tears flow in response to sadness, distress, or physical pain.(brain pickings) For instance, when there is dirt in my eyes, I will cry and the tears will digest the dirt inside my eyes. When my eyes become too dry, I will need eye drops to keep them moist. When we watch TV or movies, it is the empathy that makes audiences cry. When someone surprises us, we will have the tear of excitement and happiness. When we hurt ourselves, it is the physical pain that makes us cry.

Studies have shown that emotional tears contain more manganese, an element that affects temperament, and more prolactin, a hormone that regulates milk production. Sobbing out manganese and prolactin is thought to relieve tension by balancing the body’s stress levels and eliminating build ups of the chemicals, making the crier feel better. (Science line) Crying is an action that could easily affect others in a situation that when one person cries, there will have the second one, the third one and more.

Hi, my name is Xiye Li. I’m from Shanghai, China.

And here’s the picture of the Bund.

Currently, my major is business undecided but I intend to major in either marketing or supply chain. I choose this class because I need credits for GN courses and my friend scheduled this class.

Since chemistry is the only class I did well in high school, science did not interest me much. And usually lab reports are long and complicated.

And here is the dance video of my high school Can’t stop dancing