Listening test: Breathwalking

Listen to a short report on breathwalking and answer the questions below by choosing the best option A, B or C.



1 What is breathwalking a combination of?
A. Meditation and walking.
B. Unconscious breathing and walking.
C. Walking, conscious breathing and meditation.

2 What is breathwalking designed to reduce?
A. Stress.
B. The working day.
C. Weight.

3 Where was breathwalking developed?
A. India.
B. The United Kingdom.
C. The United States.

4 What is Michelle Risa’s job?
A. A breathwalk instructor.
B. A business consultant.
C. A Psychotherapist.

5 When does Yogi Bhajan believe people should do to breathwalk?
A. After work.
B. In their everyday life.
C. When they are in an outdoor space.

6 What does Risa look at in people when teaching them breathwalking?
A. Smoking and eating habits.
B. The person as a whole.
C. Work and home life.

7 What does eastern spiritual philosophy teach?
A. Everything is interconnected.
B. Nothing is everything.
C. The future is promising.

Breathing and walking are two of the most natural things that we do in life. Normally, we don’t spend much time thinking about how exactly we perform these actions. Breathwalking brings together conscious breathing, walking and meditation. Instructors teach how to integrate routines of improved breathing and movement into today’s stressful lives.

Breathwalking comes out of Kundalini yoga. This was taught by the late Yogi Bhajan, who was probably best known for his range of ayurvedic teas. The technique was then developed and popularized by his pupil Gurucharan Singh Khalsa. He was the spiritual leader of the Singh community in the US, in addition to working as a psychotherapist and business consultant. Michelle Risa is a breathwalk instructor based on Park Avenue in Manhattan. She says that breathwalking is perfect for modern city life.

Yogi Bhajan basically said: “Let me give you tools. You don’t need to be a Tibetan in a cave up in the mountains and I don’t want you to leave the city, I don’t want you to leave your job. I want to give you tools that you can use easily every day, whenever you need them, to improve the quality of your life,” which is perfect for us because we basically all say: “I don’t have time! I don’t have time!” You know, and so the beauty of his yoga, as well as breathwalk, I feel, is that: that while you’re walking to work, or walking home from work, there are many ways you can place this in your life without... and overcome the obstacle, the proverbial obstacle of: “I don’t have any time. I’m too busy.”

Michelle says there are five parts to every breathwalk: Awaken, Align, Vitalize, Balance and Integrate. You learn about long breathing, short breathing, segmented breathing and ratio breathing; and how to work with your body’s meridian points – and sounds, too. Michelle says that, in addition to breathwalking on your way to work, you can also do breathing exercises at your desk. In her work as a breathwalk instructor, Michelle also looks at people’s lives: what holds them back at work and at home, at addictions like smoking and at clients’ nutrition. This follows the philosophy of Eastern spiritual teachings: everything is connected with everything. Another ancient idea, that prevention is better than a cure, is now becoming popular with big corporations, too, and so Michelle is taking breathwalking into the boardrooms. It would appear that breathwalking has a promising future ahead of it.

KEY: 
1C 2A 3C 4A 5B 6B 7A

Reading test: 10 ways to feel less busy

In this week’s reading test we are going to use The Guardian article 10 ways to feel less busy to practise the heading-matching kind of task.

Match the headings A-H below with their corresponding paragraph 1-6. There are two headings you don’t need to use.

A - Accept defeat
B - Build up walls
C - Give your time away
D - Practise strategic incompetence
E - Respect your rhythms
F - Slow down
G - Stop feeling proud about how busy you are
H- Try to-do lists

10 ways to feel less busy

1
“There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs,” said the economist Thomas Sowell – meaning that with resources such as time or money, spending some of it on one thing always means not spending it on something else. It’s literally impossible to get everything done – time is limited; “everything” isn’t – and that’s great news, because it means you needn’t feel guilty for failing. You can turn, instead, on the far more manageable question of which things to deliberately not to do. The vacuuming? The weekly meeting that nobody cares about? Start from the assumption that something’s got to go, and focus on figuring out what.

2
If you want more productivity from a machine or a computer, you just run it for more hours, and it’s tempting to assume that humans are the same. But in fact, we’re creatures of pace: two hours of intense work, when you’re at your most focused and refreshed, can be vastly more worthwhile than six when you’re feeling exhausted. If you have the flexibility, organise your day so that the most important matters get your best time, not necessarily the most time.

3
In office jobs, there’s one way to avoid being given certain time-consuming tasks: develop a reputation for being rubbish at them. Act as if you don’t understand and panick around the stuck coffee machine, or a frozen computer, and you’ll soon find nobody asks you to deal with it next time around.

4
When you’re doing things quickly, it seems sensible to keep your time, saving as many minutes as possible. Yet research on the experience of time suggests we’ve got things wrong: a better way to gain a sense of “time abundance” is to be generous with your time, for example through volunteering. The explanation for this curious effect, researchers speculate, may be the feelings of self-efficacy caused by the voluntary work: successfully do something useful, and you’ll be subconsciously reassured of your capabilities, making you more confident about the chances of getting more useful things done in future.

5
The last thing you want to hear when you’ve got lots of tasks to do is that cultivating patience might be part of the solution. But our urgency-addicted culture is at the centre of the busyness problem, according to the addiction researcher Stephanie Brown. We’re convinced that with just a bit more speed we could stay in control. When you’re already on this urgency dynamics, it can feel painful to try to go slowly – but you may end up getting more done if you try. Experiment with doing nothing at all for 10 minutes between tasks: the harder that feels, the more you may need it.

6
Complaining about how busy you are is “pretty obviously pride disguised as a complaint,” in the words of the essayist Tim Kreider: “Your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.” But the truth is that all that pride probably makes you feel even busier, because we believe the things we tell ourselves, while making others feel rushed, too. And if you insist that, no, you’re genuinely that busy… well, are you sure you can spare the time to be complaining about it?

KEY:
1A 2E 3D 4C 5F 6G

How stress affects your body

Stress is designed to gives us alertness and energy needed to perform our best. But stress isn’t always good. When activated too long or too often, stress can damage virtually every part of our body. In this Ted-Ed lesson Sharon Horesh Bergquist gives us a look at what goes on inside our body when we are chronically stressed.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.



1. The hormones cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine travel all over the body.
2. Adrenaline results from hypertension.
3. The feeling of butterflies in the stomach is a symptom of stress.
4. Stress makes us lose weight.
5. Having cuts that take longer to heal might be a symptom of stress.
6. Anger is another symptom of stress.
7. A stress-free life is the best course of action.

Cramming for a test? Trying to get more done than you have time to do? Stress is a feeling we all experience when we are challenged or overwhelmed. But more than just an emotion, stress is a hard-wired physical response that travels throughout your entire body. In the short term stress can be advantageous, but when activated too often or too long your primitive fight or flight stress response not only changes your brain but also damages many of the other organs and cells throughout your body.
Your adrenal gland releases the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine also known as adrenaline, and norepinephrine. As these hormones travel through your blood stream they easily reach your blood vessels and heart. Adrenaline causes your heart to beat faster and raises your blood pressure, over time causing hypertension. Cortisol can also cause the endothelium, or inner lining of blood vessels, to not function normally. Scientists now know that this is an early step in triggering the process of atherosclerosis, or cholesterol plaque build-up, in your arteries. Together these changes increase your chances of a heart attack or stroke.
When your brain senses stress, it activates your autonomic nervous system. Through this network of nerve connections your big brain communicates stress to your enteric, or intestinal, nervous system. Besides causing butterflies in your stomach, this brain gut connection can disturb the natural rhythmic contractions that move food through your gut leading to irritable bowel syndrome and can increase your gut's sensitivity to acid making you more likely to feel heartburn.
Via the gut's nervous system stress can also change the composition and function of your gut bacteria which may effect your digestive and overall health. Speaking of digestion, does chronic stress effect your waist line? Well yes. Coritsol can increase your appetite. It tells your body to replenish your energy stores with energy dense foods and carbs, causing you to crave comfort foods. High levels of cortisol can also cause you to put on those extra calories as visceral or deep belly fat. This type of fat doesn't just make it harder to button your pants. It is an organ that actively releases hormones and immune system chemicals called cytokines that can increase your risk of developing chronic diseases such as heart disease and insulin resistance.
Meanwhile, stress hormones effect immune cells in a variety of ways. Initially they help prepare to fight invaders and heal after injury. But chronic stress can dampen the function of some immune cells, make you more susceptible to infections, and slow the rate you heal. 
Wanna live a long life? You may have to curb your chronic stress. That's because it has even been associated with shortened telemeres. The shoe lace tipped ends of chromosomes that measure a cell's age. Telemeres cap chromosomes to allow DNA to get copied every time a cell divides without damaging the cells genetic code, and they shorten with each cell division. When telemeres become too short a cell can no longer divide and it dies.
As if all that weren't enough, chronic stress has even more ways it can sabotage your health, including acne, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and irritability. So, what does this all mean for you? Your life will always be filled with stressful situations, but what matters to your brain and entire body is how you respond to that stress. If you can view those situations as challenges you can control and master, rather than as threats that are insurmountable, you will perform better in the short run and stay healthy in the long run.

Key:
1T 2F 3T 4F 5T 6T 7F

Reading test: Stress pushing teachers to leave profession

This week's reading test is based on the Telegraph article Stress pushing teachers to leave profession,' figures show published in March this year.

Read the text and complete blanks 1-12 with one of the words or phrases below. There are three words or phrases that you do not need to use. You can only use each word or phrase once. 0 is an example.

(0) Growing stress is the leading reason (1) … teachers taking time off work or leaving the profession entirely, new data has revealed.
In fact, stress (2) … more than double the figures of days taken off for sickness, numbers from an insurance firm specialising in covering schools against members of staff being off work showed.
The analysis of its claims showed that 55 per cent its 1,800 schools made stress-related claims in 2014. It also revealed academies experienced the highest proportion of lost teaching days (3) … stress.
“Stress in teachers is caused largely by heavy workload, a particularly pressurized (4) …, tight workforces and additional pressures not directly related to teaching like Ofsted inspections,” said the firm’s Harry Cramer.
(5) … the company's analysis of 138,500 absence days taken by 31,900 staff within the education sector, 3.5 per cent of school staff take a stress related absence every year. The (6) … length of a stress related absence is 26.9 working days, over twice the length of an average staff absence which is 13 working days. The analysis was commissioned by the BBC Radio 4’s File on 4.
Separately, a preliminary online (7) … of 3,500 members of the NASUWT teachers’ union revealed stress and poor mental health. It found 67 per cent of teachers said their job was having an (8) … effect on their mental health.
The report, (9) … is to be published at the union’s annual conference over Easter, found 76 per cent of teachers said they are “seriously considering” leaving their job in the last year, compared to 69 per cent in 2014. Separately, 68 per cent said they considered leaving the profession entirely.
Other (10) … findings include:
• 83 per cent have experienced more workplace stress in the last year, compared to 80 per cent in 2014
• 84 per cent say their job has impacted negatively on their health and wellbeing in the last 12 months; compared to 80 per cent in 2014
• 78 per cent have experienced work related anxiousness, 84 per cent (11) … of sleep, 33 per cent poor health, 25 per cent (12) … use of caffeine, alcohol or tobacco, 11 per cent relationship breakdown and nearly 2 per cent self-harm

according to
adverse
amounts for
as a result of
average
environment
for
growing 0 Example
increased
key
loss
of
raising
survey
that
which

Photo: Alamy in the Telegraph

KEY:
1 for; 2 amounts for; 3 as a result of; 4 environment; 5 according to; 6 average; 7 survey; 8 adverse; 9 which; 10 key; 11 loss; 12 increased

Reading test: Are you a workaholic or simply hard working?

Are you a workaholic or simply hard working? is a BBC article which we are going to use to practise the kind of reading comprehension task that focuses on vocabulary and grammar.

Read the text and for questions 1-15 choose the option a, b or c which best completes each sentence.
0 is an example.

Working hard can win you acclaim and promotions. It can (0) … hurt your health and family life. How do you know when to stop?
There are (1) …  differences between being a high performer and a workaholic. If free time leaves you feeling anxious or you are never satisfied with your work, you may just be working too hard.
Several LinkedIn Influencers weighed in this week on how to identify if you’re a workaholic, and how to stop. Here’s what two of them had to say.
Jullien Gordon, Founding Partner of New Higher
“High performance and workaholism are similar on the outside. They both (2) … hard work. The BIG DIFFERENCE is how the individual feels on the inside about who they are in relationship to their work,” wrote Gordon in his post High Performers vs Workaholics.
First, there is a difference between doing business and being busy. “A workaholics' No. 1 goal is to be busy,” wrote Gordon. “Workaholics fill any space in time with busy work (3) … they feel insecure doing nothing. The insecurity comes from not knowing their value. They believe that the busier they are, the more important they must be.
High performers know when they have succeeded at a task or project. Workaholics, (4) …, don’t know when to stop, Gordon explained. “A workaholic doesn't know what enough is,” he wrote. “I'm not good enough. This isn't good enough… they don't really know what success means to them.”
Gordon wrote that while high performers know their self-value, workaholics constantly (5) … outside cues of validation. “They wait for external evaluations such as mid-year or annual reviews done by others to understand how well they are doing.”
Last but not least, Gordon (6) … that workaholics can’t differentiate between what they can or cannot control. “A high performer focuses on their effort — inputs and outputs,” he wrote. This is quite different from someone who focuses only on the outcome and their income. “Their desire to compare (7) … them to judge themselves using common metrics of success which aren't always directly correlated to effort.”
Joel Peterson, Chairman of JetBlue Airways
Sometimes, the biggest challenge in being a workaholic is that you simply don’t know you are one. Peterson points out some signs in his post 10 Signs You’re Working Too Hard and How to Stop.
“An editor at the Chicago Sun-Times once said that he couldn’t take time off. He was afraid the place would (8) … without him — and he was terrified it wouldn’t,” wrote Peterson. “If you think the universe depends on you, you’re headed for a high-stress (9) …  . (10) … people who will do a better job than you ever could, and then celebrate their successes, get out of their way and recharge your batteries regularly.”
Another sign? “Your favorite phrase is ‘you’ve got mail’,” wrote Peterson. “Email… (is) a two-edged sword. If you’re disciplined, it’s a time-saver. But if your use of it goes unchecked, it morphs into a constant interrupter, a pestering reminder of all you’re having a hard time responding to. So (11) … your email,” he advised.
If you’re always running late, this could also be (12) … to slow down. “Make  (13) … that you’ll be five minutes early to every meeting and every event… This will rarely reduce the quality of your thinking or your work, and it will usually help you re-frame your priorities and focus on your accountability and deliverables.” That way, you can take the mental break you need.
Another sign you’re a workaholic — and an annoying one at that: “You’re impossible to please. The food isn’t good enough, the hotel’s not (14) … enough, your income isn’t high enough,” Peterson wrote. But there’s a solution. “Turn inward and change your mindset. One of my mantras… has become, ‘I have all I need’.”
Peterson also (15) … that most workaholics live in the past or future. “You reminisce, telling stories of past glories. Or you await the future, unable to really start living until a certain goal is behind you. Both of these are signals that you’re living outside the present, a habit that only brings about more stress.” Learning how to focus on the present is just as valuable as looking forward.
Do you self-identify as a workaholic? What are some key signs you’ve seen in you or your colleagues? To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

0 Example:
a) also   b) too   c) as well

1
a) subtle   b) striking   c) noticeable

2
a) look   b) look like   c) seem

3
a) so   b) because   c) so that

4
a) on the contrary   b) though   c) on the other hand

5
a) trust in   b) rely on   c) turn at

6
a) supported   b) told   c) claimed

7
a) leads   b) makes   c) manages

8
a) come down   b) go to ruins   c) fall apart  

9
a) shock   b) collapse   c) breakdown

10
a) Hire   b) Contract   c) Get

11
a) turn on   b) turn off   c) turn down

12
a) some advice   b) a warning   c) an announcement

13
a) a commitment   b) arrangements   c) out

14
a) central  b) convenient   c) suitable

15
a) recommended   b) considered c) pointed out

Photo: BBC and Getty images

Key:
1a 2b 3b 4c 5b 6c 7a 8c 9c 10a 11b 12b 13a 14b 15c

Reading test: 10 Tips for Managing Your Holiday Stress

In mid-December New Avenue published the article by Suzanne Gerber 10 Tips for Managing Your Holiday Stress, which is more than perfect to put our reading comprehension skills to the test these festive days.

Match the headings with each of the paragraphs below. 0 is an example and there is a heading you do not need to use.

A Expect things to go wrong. Paragraph 0 (example)

B Maintain healthy routines.
C Let others help.
D Don’t keep delaying things that must be done.
E Stay in the moment. 
F Try to get in touch with old buddies
G Take time for yourself.
H Take a break from electronic devices.
I Focus on one thing at a time.
J Don’t try to resolve family conflicts.
K Eliminate financial stressors.

0. The turkey may get overcooked or your kids may hate their Christmas gifts, but remember: These are not ultimately the most important things, says Dr. Masand. “Appreciate the season for the time spent with loved ones, create new memories and don’t sweat the small stuff.”

1. We all want to buy that perfect gift or prepare a memorable meal, but those (ephemeral) things can take a toll on your wallet and your stress levels. Besides, a modest but an individually selected gift can bring someone more joy than a generic big-ticket item. “Make a budget and stick to it,” says Dr. Masand. Your family and friends are more likely to remember a calm, happy you than what was under the tree.

2. This is a biggie. You don’t have to be the hero of the holiday season, says Dr. Masand. “Ask each person to bring a dish to dinner, make decorating a family activity where the kids help out and consider a grab-bag gift exchange where each person buys only one gift to alleviate the stress of having to get something for everyone.”

3. Easier said than done, of course, what with meal-planning, gift shopping and organizing family activities. Sinha shares something that works for her. “I tell my kids to think of the brain as a ball. If you have five different things going on at the same time, you’re dividing that ball into five pieces and breaking up your resources. Focus on one thing and commit to doing that for the next 10 minutes or whatever it takes. Then take a break and recoup before you do the next thing.”

4. Get started a few weeks earlier and do a little at a time. By all means, says Dr. Masand, make a list!

5.  “I have people make a list of things they like to do, such as reading a book or getting a manicure — small things, but they’re positive,” says Sinha. “Those activities have been proven to decrease stress.”

6. Whatever you do throughout the year to keep in check, don’t stop now. Keep going to the gym, running or biking. “You also want to get enough sleep, eat nutritious foods, drink enough water and keep up with your social network,” says Sinha. “When you become stressed, you feel overloaded and your body starts to respond with increased heartbeats, blood pressure and stress hormones.”

7. This is the last thing you should try to do. “Many individuals use the family holidays to try to resolve long-standing issues with family members,” says Dr. Masand. “And this often has disastrous consequences — particularly when alcohol is involved. Save these matters for a later date, and ideally in a one-to-one conversation. “

8. This sounds simple, but with so much going on, it can be particularly challenging. “Don’t act in the moment, just observe it," Sinha advises. "Observe your thoughts — then let go of them. Over time and with practice, you can almost free yourself from the urges that become actions and lead to trouble.”

9. The holidays are a wonderful excuse for a “digital detox.” Those seemingly innocuous beeps and pings actually have a physiological effect on us. “Your heart rate goes up and it takes a while to come down,” says Sinha. “While I’m all for the gadgets, I would absolutely say take a break from them.”

Photo credit: Thinkstock

Key:
1K; 2C; 3I; 4D; 5G; 6B; 7J; 8E; 9H; (F not used)

Talking point: Does your life leave you enough time to relax?

This week's talking point, Does your life leave you enough time to relax?, is taken from The New York Times Learning Network.

In mid February Shannon Doyle compiled a number of questions to jog readers' minds on the topic of today's fast pace of life:

• Imagine your life with more sleep, longer breaks from school/work and all your other obligations, maybe even regular naps.  Do these changes appeal to you? Or does the thought of devoting more time to relaxing fill you with stress and worry?
• How do you balance all the things you need to do in an average day with the need to sleep and rest?
• Do you ever feel like being sleep deprived or less than fully rested causes you to make mistakes, take more time to accomplish tasks or otherwise do less than your best?
• If so, how could you change your routine to allow you to have more downtime?
• If you could take more breaks, would you? How would you spend this time?
• Does the idea of working for 90 minutes then having time to relax before resuming seem familiar to you? Possible? Why or why not?

The topic has brought to mind a lesson we did a long, long time ago on a time management lesson in a Business English course. There was this activity on  The Magic Hour, a concept coined by Roger Black in his book Getting things done. Here's a summary of Mr Black's Magic Hour.

Imagine you have one extra hour every week: your 169th hour. It occurs whenever you want it to, and you can do whatever you want with it. You don’t have to see anyone that you don’t want to see, or write letters to them, or do anything that you’re currently feeling guilty about.

• Write down five things that would make you happy in that hour (don’t give yourself any restrictions or nagging guilt feelings about other jobs to be done).
• Write down five things that would give pleasure to someone else in that hour.
• Finally, write down five important things that you have been putting off, that you could at least start in the hour.

Then consider: If you could have last week all over again, where could you fit in the magic hour? Resolve to fit it into this week at the same point. If you find that simply the process of deciding to do this makes you feel good, you probably are not making enough decisions of this nature. Make the magic hour a weekly habit.

Mull over these ideas before getting together with the members of your conversation group. For background information, you can also read Tony Schwartz's article for The New York Times Relax! You'll be more productive.

photo by Lukey Dargons in Flickr

Talking point: Daily stress

This week's talking point is stress and comes from a lesson by Katherine Schulten in The New York Times learning blog, How stressed are you?

Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, read the questions below and think of the answers so that ideas flow more easily the day you get together with your friends.

On a typical weekday, are you normally pushed for time?
How stressed are you these days?
How stressed are you in general?
When are you likely to be most stressful?
Why do you think that is?
Are you someone whose life is limited by stress, or do you feel you are able to manage stress well?
What has worked for you to combat stress in the past?
Look at these strategies for better managing time. Do you think they would work for you?

• say ‘no’ more often
• make lists of things to do
• throw things away
• keep a record of how long each task takes you
• simply do fewer things
• check e-mail at specific times of the day
• delegate more
• plan ahead
• maximise your ‘uptime’
• do ‘nasty’ jobs first

Read JANE E. BRODY's article for The New York Times When Daily Stress Gets in the Way of Life. What tips in this article might you try? Why? Discuss the ideas in the article with the members of  the conversation group.

You can also watch this video on stress from the British National Health Service. A transcript is available if you watch the video on the NHS site.