People have probably observed that stress level can rise due to a lack of typical psychological breaks they get in workplaces. Walking to the tea room to make a cup of coffee, stopping for a chat with one of your colleagues or discussing your plan with your leaders will help you. All of those actions are actually giving our brains an opportunity to recharge.

The workplace banter (打趣) could be worn out when you’re employed from home. The psychological breaks, however, are vital to maintain your stress at the lowest level, so attempt to copy these mini-breaks at home. Besides, you need a proper schedule for yourself. Otherwise, things go against your wishes. For example, one of my friends devoted herself to her business, ignoring her family and her own health. Though she has achieved a lot in her business, now she is in poor health and has a broken home and good-for-nothing children.

One of the toughest issues about working from home is setting boundaries. People tend to overwork at home because they often confuse work and home life. You can moderately end working at a fixed time and have time to get along with your family members. If you begin the day by bearing this in your thoughts, it's completely possible for you to stick to it. At home, you can do a bit of gardening or take a slow relaxing walk within your yard to help increase your memory and overcome depression. Even doing some arts and crafts, reading an e-book or baking a cake may also help. Anyway, you need to take yourself away from the computer screen for a superb couple of hours every day.

As the saying puts it, “Sharpening your knife won’t waste your time for cutting your firewood”. If you have good psychological breaks while working from home, your working efficiency will be improved. Besides, you’ll manage and lessen your stress and create a good family relationship.

In the past decade, the use of social media has grown in a way that no one could have guessed. It has turned some teenagers into celebrities (名人) and turned the famous into the infamous, overnight.

A key feature of social media, however, is its volatility. Trends come and go, disappearing almost as quickly as they appeared. So, what were the key social media trends of 2019?

Short video apps such as TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin, took the world by storm. The Telegraph reported that TikTok was ranked 8th on Apple’s App Store in April. And Douyin had more than 300 million domestic monthly active users in June, CNBC said.

Why are these short videos — which are rarely longer than a few minutes — so popular? Jiang Yige, Singapore — based analyst at Feng He Fund Management, has a theory. Short videos are “just right to fill in the little gaps in our busy schedules”, he told CNBC.

These videos — apart from being very convenient — are important to teenagers because they allow them to express themselves, according to Teen Vogue.

The sense of community that users of short video apps get is another appealing feature. Liza Koshy, a user of the US app Musically who has over 2 million followers, said that she was thrilled when anyone said that her video had “inspired” him. “It’s really cool...because I think as short video creators that’s what we all expect.” she added.

Live streaming is another feature of our social media life that now seems as natural as sunrise. It’s a pretty neat idea: You can watch anyone, anywhere, live.

However, the boom in social media may be having side effects too. Fake news is one serious problem it arguably causes. Material shared on these platforms is often not checked for accuracy. The most basic content can be false and can sway users one way or another. We use social media all the time; that doesn’t mean that we understand the influence it is having on us. We should be mindful of both the time we spend on it and its impact on our minds.

“Snowplow (扫雪机) parenting” is the newest parenting style that can include parents booking their adult children haircuts, calling their college kids to wake them up so that they don’t sleep through a test, and even calling their kids’ employers.

“‘Helicopter (直升机) parenting’ means monitoring their kids’ every activity, which is out of date.” Claire Cain Miller and Jonah Engel Bromwich wrote in The New York Times. “Some rich mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: clearing any problems in their children’s path to success so that they don’t have to meet failure or lose opportunities.”

There is a mother who started a charity in her son’s name to try to raise his chances of being accepted to the college. Another couple of parents spent years helping their daughter avoid foods with sauce, which she didn’t like. Once she got to college, she had problems with the food in her school because it was all covered in sauce.

A survey says that three-quarters of parents of children between the ages of 18 and 28 ask for doctor visits or haircuts for their children, and 11% say they would call their kids’ bosses whether their children are having an issue at work.

As reported, wealthy parents try to get their children into top colleges by giving a large amount of money to a school, such as paying for a building. This parenting has become the most popular way to raise children, whatever the income, education, or race is.

Julie, a teacher at Stanford, told the Times that “snowplow parenting” is not a reasonable approach. “The parents should prepare the kid for the road, instead of preparing the road for the kid,” she said.