When we confront with stress in our lives, we usually sigh in order to relieve stress, as if sighing could help us relieve some of the negative emotions from our body. According to the dictionary, sighing is a action “to let out one’s breath audibly, as from sorrow, weariness, or relief.” There are also superstitious belief that sighing is bad for body because it release all the energy one stored in their body which was used to resist against stress.  

Why do we sigh? Scientist had discovered that the reason we sigh is because we want to reset a breathing pattern in order to prevent abnormal breathing and make our breathing more flexible. This definition sound realistic and is the easiest way for the public to accept. However, the definition had left out one of the most important factor that is closely related to sighing, emotions. A lot of time people sigh not because they consciously wanted to adjust their breathing pattern, but more likely to relieve. According to a group of studies(Abelson et al, 2001; Schwartz et al, 1996; Wilhelm et al, 2001a; Wilhelm et al, 2001b), excessive sighing is considered a panic disorder.

An other studies had conducted an experiment where 80 patients voluntarily perform a minute of hyperventilation, also known as sighing. They later on analyzed the oxygen inside of the brain during this procedure and graphed it out. As you can see, the darker the color is in the graph the less oxygen there are in the brain. Therefore the more you sigh the less oxygen is left in your brain.

In other cases, sighing is also a sign of stress. People who are under stress and anxiety tend to sigh more than normal people who do not have problems like that. According to studies (Teigen, et al, 2008), sighing can be an action to exclude the desires and intentions that are not wanted. Various causes could lead to intensify sighing, such as anxiety, overheating, stress and etc. Since sighing could also suggest weak muscle tissue in lungs therefore the body needs chest to help breathing procedure.

Scientist (Aljadeff G, Molho M, Katz I, Benzaray S, Yemini Z, Shiner RJ, Pattern of lung volumes in patients with sighing breathing, Thorax. 1993 Aug; 48(8): 809-11.) had discovered that sighing is a closely related to hyperventilating which is a severe breathing disorder. While hyperventilating patient exhale more than they inhale. This was caused by various reasons that resembles those that caused sighing. Therefore study supported the correlation between sighing and hyperventilation.

So is sighing bad for health? Hyperventilating is certainly bad and could cause harm one’s life, but sighing, which is correlated with hyperventilation , is a common phenomenon. This suggest that there are third variables caused in this relation. The cause may be that hyperventilation is inherited from the parents or predecessors, so sighing may be a symptom of it, or one’s environment could cause sighing more then hyperventilation break out after stress accumulate. The study about hyperventilation and sighing also pointed out that other studies had discovered artificial sigh have positive effects on oxygenation. Therefore there might be a Texas sharp shooter fallacy occurred. Even reverse causation is possible in this case: if someone has hyperventilation, they might sigh more than normal people. Therefore in order to understand whether sighing is truly bad for health or not, one must discovered its mechanism.

In sum, sighing may not be influence one’s health and cause major health issues, but it may serves as a sign of health problem so just be cautious while you sigh, be sure to feel your breath.

Various movies and videos were made for teenagers even adult to teach or guide them how to get a girlfriend in life.  Many may wonder, how important is it to have a girlfriend in life? Many people live by themselves and seem to have a perfect life without the other half bothering them. So does a relationship helps you? Is it essential for a person’s life? Does it effect your healthy status?

When we look back into history, it is rare to see people who live in the pre-modernization era do not have a spouse. In those days, reproduction for the family is one of the major goal of life. Once a person reach certain age, they had to find a spouse and marry in order to reproduce offsprings for the family. In ancient China, reproducing offspring for the family is extremely crucial for a male. If a male is not able to find a spouse, the family would even force him to marry someone who he had never met before. “a three unfilial , without issue, ” saying that many of unfilial conduct, but no children, Nobody inherited status, family name, this is the most serious matter.” Argued the great philosopher and the follower of Confucius, Mengzi. Even in modern China, a middle age male without a girlfriend or had never been in a relationship before is bizarre to the society.

These historical and social phenomenon does not directly support the idea of having a girlfriend could help you get a better health status, but it does indicate that there are some form of relations underneath it. According to a study conducted in 1997, being in a relationship could influence your body psychologically and physically. Being in a relationship does make other feel better than being alone. It does offer some shelter and to prevent us from the busy world these days. Other study also pointed out that being in a relation could help you calm your emotion well, function better in society and making one more responsible for himself and the other half.  Relationship even keeps people more diligent while working.

Body chemistry plays an important role while in a relationship. While people are in a relationship, dopamine is released to keep couples feel related and enthusiastic about their relationship. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that dealt with pleasure. It is released while a person is gambling, smoking, taking drugs or under other kind of situation. A lack of dopamine in the body leads to anxiety and trouble sleeping. While we release dopamine when in love, we also release the stress from our body, therefore creating a good mood for us and help us with better rest, even more energy in life.

While having intercourse with the partner, oxytocin is released from brain. This chemical helps bond the couples and could also help relieving stress. The study of oxytocin also pointed out that it is closely related to “sexual and maternal behavior, aggression, social memory and attachment.” A lack of oxytocin could lead to a person’s aggression in social behavior.   This could also relate to the criminology point of view (Walsh, Anthony. “Chapter 7, The differential association theory, .” Criminology: The Essentials. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, 2012. N. pag. Print.). While having little interact and gaining little positive feedback from the relationship one currently have, they are more prone to show aggression and even the intention to commit their delinquent behaviors. It may sounds extreme but being in a relation could help prevent some issues among certain groups.

Relationship may seem tiring for some because they would have to change and work very hard in order to achieve their ideal partner, sometimes even being in a relationship may not seem so well since conflict will eventually appear and break the relationship. However, please keep in mind that a good relationship does not hurt, instead it helps.

Blood donation is a benevolent move, not only could you save other’s life, it could also help your body to generate new blood so you could be healthy. It sounds like a brilliant move, since you could help others and yourself at the same time, who does not want a win-win situation? Especially losing some blood means little to you.

The main reason blood donation is beneficial to you is because it could balance the iron levels in your blood. Iron, which is one of the most important element that is in our blood is certainly beneficial to our body. However, storing too much iron in our blood is not ideal for our body, and it is common among males and postmenopausal women. Hemochromatosis is a condition when body absorbs and stores too much blood. Adequate iron in our blood could keep our immune system running and absorb more oxygen, but excessive iron stores in our liver, heart and other important organs could be toxic. According to a study, among 11065 blood donors, only 6.2 percent of them had abnormalities in blood iron density in liver. Therefore supporting that hemochromatosis could be decrease by donating blood on a suggested frequency. Study had also shown that excessive iron in blood could lead to pro-inflammatory effect.

Smoking, drinking and high-sugar could cause hypercoagulability in blood. Hypercoagulability in blood means blood would gradually clot up and could triggered blood clot, and even strokes. However, study shows that losing blood could enhance the flow in blood therefore help to reduce the coagulation in blood. It also discussed how drawing certain amount of blood from one’s body could help reduce the stroke volume and declot coagulated blood. Research also reveals that a lower percentage of people who are blood donors compare to those who never donate blood before.

With benefits described above, one could suggests that donating blood is beneficial to the donor’s health status. Although there are hypothesis saying that donating blood leads to iron deficiency, the datas they displayed are “poorly defined”. As long as one follow the instruction before donating the blood and not donate with a empty stomach, they will be fine. Fainting in the process of donating blood is normal if it happened not because the lack of iron but the anxiety that cause the shock. Blood donation is an altruistic act, because you get little from doing so. The long term benefit is also beneficial. Researchers had found that among blood donors, there are less life risking diseases. A study suggested that among 2862 subjects, ranging from age 42 to 60, “those who donated blood on a regular basis are less likely to have heart attack than those who never donate blood before. Although it is hard to experiment on whether blood donors live longer or not, it is very likely that they do have a easier life without much disease bothering them.

Donating blood may not be a bad thing as much people think it might be, and it could also help people. When you lose little but help others, why not participate blood donation?

As an athlete in high school, various injuries had been bothering me throughout the time I played sports. Although I had been playing sports since I was younger, I never had such bad times with my body until I attend high school sports. Those Injuries I had still had been following me whenever I play sports nowadays, so I decided to learn about it.

Knee pain had always been a major issue. According to a control clinic trial, “pain is most commonly due to patellofemoral pain syndrome and differential diagnoses include patellar tendinopathy, known as the jumper knee.” In the research, they particularly studied teenager from 12-18 and discovered that among 268 subjects, “26 percent of the basketball player’s patellar tenon contain ultrasonographic hypoechoic region. Ultrasonographic abnormalities are more common among 17-18 year old players than the younger players.” Indicating that we are more likely to get injured during this period of age. Therefore warming up and protection are needed before sports activity. Doing stretches could also benefit preventing players from getting injured in sports. Although “stretches could not reduce the risk of getting injured in games,  but it could offer some benefits of risk prevention. ” Most teenagers refuse to stretch before sports or they do not pay more attention to warm-ups and stretches because in their perspective they feel like they could do anything. However, when they become adults, they would gradually notice the significance of warming up. It will not be that easy to jam the ball in without warming up anymore. Not only that, but such behaviors could also led to injuries easily once they reach certain age. Therefore protection is very important while a teenager is turning into adult.

Obesity could also be a factor that contributes to injuries. Study had shown that obese children are more prone to injuries while participating in physical activities. The studied observed that “there is a significant higher frequency of obese kids getting injured while participating sports intensively.” It conclude that “childhood obesity increase the occurrence of injuries in sports behavior. but it did not shown much relations between obesity and severe sports injuries.”

Interestingly, there is an article from New York Times suggesting that obesity could be decreased by making obese kids to participate in team sports. This article contradicts the study I had found above. According to the article and the data it gave, “Adolescents who played on three sports teams or more in the last year were 27 percent less likely to be overweight/obese and 39 percent less likely to be obese compared with adolescents who did not play on any sports teams.” This does not seem like a strong evidence and it also interviewed a researcher in Dartmouth, claiming that “team sports are the most consistent and strong inverse with weight status.” There are not enough evidences to prove this wrong, since I consider little studies had been done to follow up those subjects after the studies to see if they are having problem with their knees. Since studies like that had been done and widely read among parents in America, they are more likely to send their children to participate in team sports, which could also explain a growing trend of young athletes getting injured per year.

The chart indicates that basketball is a team sport that is most likely to get kids injured. Therefore what I could conclude is not prevent people from basketball, but decrease their frequency in participating basketball and focus on other less risk sports as possible. Also, stretches are important to follow before participating any kind of sports in order to prevent unnecessary injuries.

Hitting the weight room is a common phenomenon for people among all colleges and schools. Some wants to go to the gym to lose some weight, some wants to work out for gaining muscle strength and shape, some simply wants to exercise. “Pain and Gain” might be the most familiar sentence to all the fitness enthusiasts, but do working out a lot really help you gain muscle effectively?

For those who wants to lose weight from working out, eating less is more important than hitting the weight room harder and harder. Although working out does help the body to form muscle and gain more strength, it does not fundamentally change your body shape unless you alter your diet. Swimming and jogging could help one burn off calories, but not unless one work out everyday. “30 minutes of swimming and jogging could help one burn 350 calories, but not everyone could do that on a day in and day out regimen.”

To many work out enthusiast, diet may not be a pat of their concern while working out. The subjects in their mind may be I am benching 250 pounds, but that is not enough or other things than their diet.  The effort of a good two hours work out may be simply ruined by drinking two 16 ounces of soda everyday. There are also various things in daily diet that could cause obesity than helping you to have a better body shape. Carbohydrate plays a big role in America’s food culture. However absorbing too much carbohydrate without a good sense may easily cause obesity. A meta-analysis had shown that working out does not necessarily help reduce obesity. In fact, controlling the diet has more impact than going to work out.

There might be a time when one feels weaker despite the fact that they work hard in the weight room everyday. It is because the the duration of your muscle recovery was not enough therefore could cause the decrease of energy. When we give our body exercise continuously on a set schedule without enough recovery time, our somatic function will not gradually increase but significantly decrease. If they are not aware of this situation on time, injuries may follow.

For instance, John may set himself a twelve weeks work out schedule, and he followed the routine for the first week. But due to classes and exams, John did not get good sleep and food. His body is not recovering well from it. Under this type of circumstance, if he does not lower the intensity of weight training but still did the same as he did for the first week, very likely he is going to have a bad performance on the second week, which also directly influence his performance on the third week, so on and so on. Eventually, instead of improving his body condition, John became weaker and weaker after weeks spent in the weight room.

Articles online had shown that you need a good amount of time to recover from your workout in order to get back to the ideal performing stage. Individuals will perform and gain drastically while working under ideal body shape than in fatigue. Therefore, under normal circumstance, it is best when one keeps a stable schedule to go to weight room on a duration of 36 to 72 hours, which is up to two to three days.

Excessive training without a good recovery time does not only effect the performance in the weight room, it also lead to other side effects. Studies had also shown that over training, no matter you are a professional athletes or amateur, will have negative influence such as lack of appetite, attention deficit, fatigue, low interest in practice, decrease in athleticism, low desire for sex and bad sleeping condition. If the symptoms above had ever happened to you, maybe you shall think about reducing the intensity or go to weight room less.

When I first came to United States, one thing that surprises me a lot when we have meals is the jello. Growing up in China, I was educated that anything with artificial color are bad for your health. Therefore I always had the preconception that jello  is evil. However things may be a little different in the States I guess. When I went online to search if jello is good for kids or not, I found these on youtube. “How to make a healthy Jello”, “cooking ahealthy diet with jello”, “they love jello” and etc. So I started to ask myself is jello really a healthy food? Since from what I found online people had been claiming it is delicious and low fat.

It seems like little amount of people nowadays realized that jello is made of various chemicals. While it melt in your mouth, you are not eating something fun but something toxic. Here’s what I found online. This box of jello is made of these following ingredients:”Gelatin, artificial flavor, red #40, artificial food dyes, BHA, GMO sugar and various preservatives.”

Galatin is a kind of protein that is made of various animal by-products. It had been widely used among different fields. Study on dogs had shown that while injecting small amount of gelatin into dogs’ veins there are no disturbances, but when injected over certain amount dogs appeared to have “inhibition of blood protein production, signs of intoxication, much weight loss, and even death.” The observation had shown the toxicity of Gelatin and therefore could speculate gelatin is not a great type of ingredient in food one would want in their kids’ daily diet. During the process of growing, metabolism occur faster in childhood or teenage compare to other age period. Adequate amount of blood protein is important to support health and immune system. Therefore putting a food that contains an amount of gelatin on the table everyday may not sounds like a smart choice for children’s development.

Artificial flavor and Red#40 are both made of petroleum. Red#40 is one of the most common artificial color that is used in the US. One study that was conducted in 1980s suggested that “red number 40 may accelerate the appearance of immune system tumors in mice”. A widely accepted concept is that Red number 40 might trigger hyper-activity in children. Various study had been done on the artificial color and turned out to have different result. While some had proven that artificial color had negative effect on children which may lead them to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, others had shown that artificial colors have no effect on children. One thing is certain, consuming a big amount of artificial color is never healthy for body and have negative influence on immune system. An article on Boston Globe had pointed out that “A handful of clinical trials found that a small percentage of children experience attention problems and aggressive behavior when they consume 35 mg a day of synthetic coloring, while a larger percentage experiences behavioral problems at doses of 100 mg a day or higher.” Interestingly, study from Purdue University indicated that how much artificial dyes were contained in children’s daily meal. It had also shown that “8 percent of ADHD cases are due to artificial dyes in diet”. From what we had learned in class, since the percentage is above 5 percent, this cases this study had observed may not be a fluke therefore proven a correlation that artificial dyes do cause problems to kids.

In addition, some flavors of jello also contain blue#1 in it which the FDA had been advocating the prohibition of this artificial dye since 2003 because “patients were dying from refractory hypotension and metabolic acidosis which was caused by blue number 1.”

One thing that Jello has the most is sugar. “One serving of Jello contains 19 grams of sugar, which is five teaspoon.” Convert into calories is 74 cal, opposing from their slogan “0 calories”. A Study done by Dana Dabelea, a professor in Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora, had indicated that from 2000 to 2009, type 2 childhood diabetes had increased for 30%, greatly associated with the sugar consumption among children. Although companies used “cane sugar” in their products, some pointed out that they mostly used genetic modified corn in order to have higher production and lower cost. A rat feeding study done by Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini had shown result that genetic modified maize are proven toxic to the rats.

The purpose of this is not to inform and discuss how toxic are jello to children or genetic modified crops. I only want to point out that jello is not good for kids to consume because it is not healthy for their development unlike the parents assumed. Therefore can conclude that Jello is not good for kids.

As a huge basketball fan, I had always been interested in science behind basketball. Basketball as one of the biggest sports in the world is far more than a simple activity people have fun with and play together, there are also science behind every subtle detail. My last writing was about how a shooting form could influence one’s shot, but I want to discuss more than just the form but the mechanics and the science that lie underneath the process of shooting.

According to Dr. Gintaras Duda, the physics professor at Creighton University, if you would like to shoot a perfect three pointer, the ball must be released at at least 33 degrees from you hand when the ball leaves the basket for a slight chance to hit a shot. However, suppose an individual” shot a ball with an arc of 45 degrees, with the speed of just under 20 miles per hour and two revolutions per second of spin, at 20.9 feet from the basket,” they player would very likely hit a perfect three point shot. Although he does not understand the game well enough, he still gave an incredibly helpful information. In order to make a shot, the arc of releasing a ball must be above 33 degrees. This finding suggests that shooting a good a three pointers had a lot to do with the releasing arc.

Speed is also a great factor while shooting the ball. Speed does not only imply how fast the ball goes but also suggest the distance it would travel. Using all time three point shooter Ray Allen as an example, this person explained the physics behind shooting a perfect three pointer like Ray with a series of calculation. Although this study had seem impractical to apply to reality, it quantified the process and also showed that the highest point Ray Allen’s three point shot reached was 4.195 meters which is 13.76 feet in the air. Therefore further supporting the hypothesis that the arc of releasing a ball is vital to a three point shot.

Putting a backspin on a ball while releasing it could also help improve the chance of making a shot. According to the book The physics of Basketball, the author John Fontanella pointed out that the backspin one puts on the ball while releasing it allows the ball to travel the slowest possible speed in the air and a less violent rebound when it hits the board or the rim. This suggest that while taking a shot putting spins on the ball is essential and has greater chance of going in compare to a shot that has no spin at all, also known as the ‘knuckle ball’.

One has to keep in mind while shooting a ball, strength is the most important factor as well. According to Newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When a player is shooting a ball, he would apply force to the ground and force would apply back to him so he could jump. As him jump, the force that let him jump also apply to the ball therefore allowing him to shoot the ball with that force. In other words, the more force a player puts on the ground, the more force would be apply to the ball. Therefore, in order to shoot a ball well and consistent, lower body power matters as much as the upper body. The stronger you are, the more likely you are able to send the ball in a higher point and faster speed, therefore could help improve the accuracy of the shot.

In sum, shooting a ball well in basketball is not as simple as it looks on TV, it requires loads of practices to help one’s muscle adjusting to a certain extent so that they could knock down shots after shots. Science also helps basketball training easier since it could help people to understand the game better.

People may look at basketball in different ways, but the most pleasant thing for me to do while watching a basketball is to see good shooters shoot the ball. In my opinion, there is nothing better when you see a player shoot in a beautiful form and then swish the shot. With that being said, it will be painful and even funny to watch a player pull up an ugly jump shot and make it, especially when they are making big time shots against your team. One may wonder how could  that kind of jump shot  ever success, and how could someone who shoots like that ever survive in the most competitive sports in the world? Here comes the question, do you really need a good shooting form to be a good shooter in basketball?

Looking back at the history of NBA, which is one of the most competitive professional sports league in the world, many players had found themselves a role in the league simply by being good shooter.

Great example such as Larry Bird, Chris Mullin,, Reggie Miller  and Ray Allen  they all have their unique shooting style.

Shooting a basketball seems easy, and everybody who ever played basketball could make a shot if you give them plenty of chances, but the key to consistency is the proper shooting form and mechanism. No matter how many shots one could make in a row, it is totally different in the real game, therefore practicing the fundamentals is the first but the most important steps to become a good shooter.

It requires a lot of key elements to shoot well in the game, such as concentration, hand eye coordination, muscle strength and a big heart. As a great shooter, Larry Bird once admit that he had a bad shooting form. However, he did mention that in order to be a good shooter you do not need a good shooting form, what really matters is the dedication and the repetition. If one practices two thousand shot a day, and keep practicing everyday, he would eventually become a good shooter because all his muscle had the memory of how much strength and energy you have to put in to make a shot. Nevertheless, Rob Babcock, the general manager of the Toronto Raptors stated that a good shooting forms could help one improve his shooting ability faster.

This Theory had been proved widely among the basketball world and emphasized more in nowadays’ games. As sports training are getting more scientific, people started to pay attention to how a good shooting form could benefit a player. One could tell the significance of shooting forms from all the shooting tutorials online.

In sum, a good shooting forms could be an important but not necessary factor to be a good shooter. While it could help player to develop their shots faster and properly, it is also to emphasize the repetition while practicing shooting form since that is the most essential part among all the other factors.

Hi everyone, my name is King Sun and I am from China. I studied in California for my sophomore year in high school and spend rest of high school years in Long Island, New York. I am majoring in Psychology and Labor Employment Relationship.

The reason I chose this class is to fulfill my general education requirement for science. I had always been really bad at science and there are not a lot of science courses intrigue me other than this course. Although I am majoring in psychology, I am not aiming at the biological field of it since I am bad at biology which is a branch of science. I always enjoy helping people by talking to them and solving their problems by simply using words and analysis, so I try to set my goal to be a psychotherapist rather than a psychiatrist. Also it would take way more years to graduate from the medical school than other schools. I am, however, interested in learning more about science since it is essential to our lives.

I am a huge fan of nba and have been learning about it and its history since high school. My favorite team is the San Antonio Spurs because I idolize it’s head coach Greg Popovich as an artist in coaching, he turned the team into a accurate machine that demonstrate beautiful execution skill.  Here’s the link to the unstoppable San Antonio Spurs.

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