Sleep your way to the top

Exercise 1. Look up the following words and word combinations from the text in bold type in a monolingual dictionary: find appropriate synonyms and definitions: mood, perception, crucial, subsequent, to induce, slumber, sedentary, chamomile, tranquil. Use them in active vocabulary while sharing your opinion on the problem of the text.

Improving your sleep quality you can improve your health, enhance your judgment, balance your mood, and even increase sensory perception. When you first fall asleep, you enter the quiet sleep phase. This is when your body “let’s go”, your brain is at its most inactive and your heart and circulation are under less stress than when you’re awake. The first part of quiet sleep should only last a few minutes, if you are healthy. The second part follows in uninterrupted blocks of about 30 minutes. This is your deepest sleep of the night. Delta sleep, also known as body sleep, comes in blocks of 1.5-2 hours, during which you swing from deep to light sleep (when you are most easily woken up).

It is the delta sleep phase that is crucial for physical activity. During deep delta sleep, an increased blood supply to the muscles repairs any damage you’ve done to your body during the day.

But the good news is, with one subsequent night of good sleep, your immune system can get right back in action.

REM (rapid eye-movement) is the period when you dream most vividly. This recurring period lasts about 30 minutes, and gets longer and closer together towards the end of the night. REM is known as brain sleep.

“How you feel and behave tomorrow depends on how you sleep tonight’, says Nigel Ball, the author of “The Sleep Solution”.

“You can control your sleep to improve your life”. Here is how to do it:

♦ Go to bed at least eight hours before you need to get up. Try to maintain that same bedtime for at least one week for maximum benefit.

♦ If you need an alarm clock to wake you up, you haven’t slept enough. But don’t lie in.

♦ Go to bed an additional 30 minutes earlier for the next week.

♦ Gradually add 15 to 30 minutes of sleep each week until you can wake easily without needing the alarm clock and still feel alert all day”.

♦ Stick to a sleep schedule.

♦ Once you’ve found your ideal bedtime stick to it every night, and wake up at the same time every day, even at weekends.

♦ Sleep without stopping.

♦ The best sleep is continuous sleep – in fact, six straight hours are better than eight broken hours.

♦ Play sleeps catch-up.

♦ If you have lost several hours of hours of sleep, you’ll need extra sleep (on top of your normal amount).

♦ Go to bed early for three nights rather than changing your normal waking time.

If you are the one who has problems sleeping, here’s how to get the sleep you need.

1. Our bodies were designed to move, so if you have a sedentary job, your instinct can kick in at night and make you feel restless. Exercise will give your body the chance to release excess adrenaline, for a better night’s sleep.

2. A warm bath is an effective therapy that can induce power sleep.

3. If you’ve been in bed for more than 30 minutes and haven’t fallen asleep, get up, do something calming until you feel sleepy again (no TV!) and then return to bed. If another 30 minutes pass without slumber, you are going to stay awake all night, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

4. “Sleeping pills are not a cure for insomnia, they merely mask the difficulty you have in sleeping”, says Nigel Ball. ‘They may hide the real reason for your problems and cause rebound insomnia, where you suffer even worse insomnia, when you stop taking the pills, than you had before”.

5. Alcohol damages the quality of sleep. To help you sleep, try chamomile tea instead.

6. Go to bed on an (almost) empty stomach.

7. A tranquil bedroom is a big step towards power sleep: clear out computers, TVs and keep the window open.

Exercise 2. Read the text and match the words from the text in A their synonyms in B:

A	B
1) tranquil (n) 2) chamomile (n) 3) slumber (n) 4) induce (n) 5) sedentary (adj.) 6) subsequent (adj.) 7) crucial (adj.) 8) perception (n) 9) mood (n) 10) judgment (n)	a) sleep b) cause, lead to c) smth, done by long sitting d) a field flower, sweet smelling dried plant e) quiet, calm f) later, following g) act or power of perceiving h) trial i) spirit j) critical, decisive

Exercise 3. Read the poem for practice.

Evening Waterfall

Carl Sandburg

What is the name you called me?-- And why did you go so soon?

The crows lift their caws on the wind, And the wind changed and was lonely.

The warblers cry thier sleepy-songs Across the valley gloaming, Across the cattle-horns of early stars.

Feathers and people in the crotch of a treetop Throw an evening waterfall of sleepy-songs.

What is the name you called me?-- And why did you go so soon?

Exercise 4. Before listening read an article about two people who found themselves involved in life or death situations. Work in pairs. A read the first article and B read the second [1.15, 1.16;1] .

Help! My friend’s choking!

Library assistant, Mrs.Johnson was having dinner with friends in a restaurant. They were all having steak and Mrs.Johnson had just swallowed a piece of meat when she suddenly found that she couldn’t breathe. Her friends hit her hard on the back, but the piece of steak remained stuck in her throat. She was starting to panic. One of her friends shouted out desperately, “Excuse me, can anyone help my friend? She’s chocking!”. At another table in the restaurant Trisha Goddard, a TV chat show presenter, saw what was happening and rushed over to try to help. She stood behind Mrs.Johnson and put her arms round her waist, and then pulled hard inwards and upwards three times…

The day my little boy swallowed a tomato

“Look at me, mum” giggled three year-old son. I could hardly understand him, as his mouth was full of cherry tomatoes. He had taken them out of the fridge while I was making lunch. “Oh Peter, don’t be silly,” I laughed. This was a big mistake. Peter tried to laugh too, and as he did so, one of the tomatoes got stuck in his throat. He tried to cough, but nothing happened. He was chocking. I hit Peter on the back, but the tomato didn’t move. Peter began to turn blue. I run outside into the street, screaming for help, but the road was completely deserted. I was desperate. I put my whole hand in his mouth and pushed my fingers as far as I could down his throat…

Exercise 5. Take turns to tell each other your story. Explain…

1 what the situation was

2 what the person who was giving first aid did.

Exercise 6. Listen to [1.15., 1.16] what happened next and answer the questions:

1 What happened to Mrs.Johnson in the end?

2 What happened to Peter in the end? Did his mother do the right thing?

Exercise 7. Make the dialogue between a doctor and a patient using bellow vocabulary:

S ymptoms

a temperature a cough a headache

a rash a blister earache

a pain stomach ache