Coping with Stress

Stress is a natural part of living. Crossing a road, going to a party, driving a car, these are all stressful activities. We live in a fast-moving age, so we must learn how to relax properly. Here are some of the most common symptoms of stress: sleeping badly, poor appetite or overeating, drinking too much alcohol, difficulty in concentrating.

How do you deal with these problems? The average business person often has no time to sit down and think the answers over. But if you want to survive, you have to know how to cope with stress. So, here is a guide to reducing the level of stress in your life.

First, take up a hobby, if possible, an active outdoor activity. You won’t worry about your problems when you are concentrating on a hobby that really interests you.

You must take plenty of exercise. This will keep you fit and should also help you to sleep better.

At work, it’s important to make lists of tasks that you need to complete during the day. Write down your thoughts and ideas on paper. Learn to say ‘no’ even to your boss, if you think that colleagues are unreasonable. And, finally, don’t forget that laughter is the best medicine.

1. Answer the following questions:

1. Why is it important to learn how to relax properly?

2. What are the most important symptoms of stress?

3. Is it possible to avoid stress?

4. What situations do you find stressful?

2. Speak about stress in student life.

Exercise 4.

Health and Medical Care

Vivien

To promote a healthy way of life, I suppose the cliché is “You are what you eat”. I think it is. They’re always telling us in newspapers and magazines to eat low-far food, to cut down on fat. A Hungarian diet isn’t particularly good for that, as they’re used to cooking everything in lard. Now, however, they even advertise on TV to cook things in sunflower oil, although recently it was revealed that this Health Education advert was in fact sponsored by the sunflower oil producers. So, it’s very healthy to cut down on red meat. Of course, if you are a vegetarian, you don’t have to particularly worry about fat.

The most healthy diets are in places like Greece, I think, where they eat a lot of oils like olive oil, which belongs to a kind of fats which are more healthy. They eat a lot of fresh fruit and tomatoes, and suffer from less heart disease although they smoke a lot in Greece, so it’s always one step forward and three steps back.

We should eat more fibre, and that’s another thing in favour of a vegetarian diet, as if you eat no meat, then you have to get your protein in some other way, for example by eating beans, brown rice or lentils, which are also full of fibre. In England they have breakfast cereals that are full of bran, but they’re horrible really. They have no taste, but if you eat a bowl you get lots of fibre.

What is Vivien’s idea about a healthy way of life?

Exercise 5.

Profile: Peter Parker

Interviewer: With us in the studio this morning is Peter Parker. Good morning, Peter.

Peter: Good morning.

Interviewer: Peter Parker is an English Language teacher. He was always good at languages at school, so he decided to take his degree in French and German. When he finished his university studies, he began teaching in a secondary school in England. Two years later, however, he met someone by chance who offered him a job teaching English to foreign students during the long summer holidays. His students were adults and he enjoyed the work immensely. He soon found he was more interested in teaching his own language to foreigners than foreign languages to English schoolboys.

Since then he has specialised in this work. He has found that one of the advantages of the job is that it enables him to find work almost anywhere in the world. First he went to Africa for two years and then he spent a year in Arabia. After this he went to Greece where he has worked for the last 3 years. He hasn’t been to South America yet but he intends to go there next. He has taught men and women of all ages and of various nationalities. He has also learned to get on with all kinds of people and to adjust to different ways of life. So far he has not regretted his decision to follow this career.

Assignments after the text:

I

Speak about Peter Parker’s profession, i.e. when and why he chose it, if he liked his work at school, if he had any desire to change it for something more interesting, how long he has specialised in teaching foreigners, if he has ever regretted his decision to follow his career, what the advantages of his job are.

II

1. Do you think you can speak about yourself like Peter Parker? Say:

1. Why you decided to enter this Institute and learn foreign languages;

2. What you’ve done since you became a student?

3. If you have made good progress in French and English, if you have regretted your decision to learn English so far;

4. What subjects you have learnt and intend to learn?

5. What vacations you’ve had and intend to have?

6. What countries you have been to and intend to go to?

7. What you have learnt and done since you came to Syktyvkar and if you regret your decision to study in Syktyvkar?

2. How could you talk with your groupmate about your life at the Institute and advantages of knowing foreign languages?

Exercise 6.