内容正文:
阅读理解C篇原题:
Loneliness is bad for your health. So, in these days of COVID-19, when enforced solitude(独处)is the order of the day in many places, how to stop solitude turning into loneliness is a pressing medical question.
One part of the answer is to try to understand the physiology(生理) of the change.
Steven Cole of the University of California, Los Angeles, began his work with John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago. They addressed that question by repeatedly observing social isolation in individual volunteers, while simultaneously tracking from blood samples, their gene-expression patterns and other changes in their physiology.
They found that, initially, volunteers' feelings of isolation are related to an increase in their inflammation genes(炎症基因)activity which are also known to travel into the brain and promote anxiety. They also noted that increased levels in this kind of brain activity in turn improve inflammation and cause behaviors such as social withdrawal, feelings of suspicion towards the outside world and a tendency to act more defensively by making decisions that involve few risks. That, of course promotes further feelings of loneliness. It seems, therefore, that though loneliness starts with solitude, it can quickly take on a physiological life of its own.Therefore, dealing with the loneliness caused by enforced isolation will not be a simple matter of allowing people to socialize once again. In search of that, Dr. Cole carried out a series of experiments that encouraged lonely people to direct simple acts of kindness towards their fellow creatures: things like buying groceries for an elderly neighbour or helping a colleague. Those directed to show kindness had precisely the opposite inflammation genes activity to that previously seen in the lonely by Dr.Cole.
They found that in the case of loneliness, the saying :being more blessed to give than to receive is true.
Learning goals:
1.Students will be able to use some words and expressions about l