Vijay Gupta is known to classical music lovers across the United States. He serves as the first violinist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In that job, he often plays to large crowds, including many very rich people. When he is not performing, he organizes concerts for homeless people. “They have reminded me why I became a musician.” He said.

Last week, Gupta was recognized for being a founder and the artistic director of Street Symphony. The group has performed at homeless shelters, jails and halfway houses for about eight years. Gupta is among the 25 winners of the 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the “Genius Grant”. Each winner will receive $ 625,000 over five years to use as they wish. The money is coming from a private group, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It awards grants (补助金) to people whose work it considers exceptional and whose work “inspires hope in us all”. Gupta said he got the idea for Street Symphony while teaching Nathaniel Ayers, a trained musician whose mental illness led to his homelessness.

The 31-year-old winner said he did not know yet how he would spend the money. He has been a performer since the age of seven and the award will give him “space to breathe, plan and look ahead”.

Another winner is Rebecca Sandefur, an associate professor (副教授) of sociology and law in the University of Illinois. The Associated Press says her research actively supports new ways to involve poor communities in the U. S. justice system.

47-year-old Sandefur created the first national mapping of civil legal aid providers. It shows which states have the financial(金融的)resources to provide such aid and which don’t. She also found that the cost of legal services was only one of the things preventing poor people from getting lawyers. Among the others were fears of unfairness(不公平)in the legal system. Sandefur noted that a lot of attention had been paid to problems with the criminal justice system, but more attention must be paid to the civil side of the law, which also affected millions of people.

Born with severe hearing loss, Li has found her way to communicate with the world—through painting.

Before learning to paint, Li always felt lonely in a silent world. She knew she was different from her peers because she could not hear. But a painting class in primary school opened for her a door to creativity and a way of expression.

“I still remember my first mural, which was to help a kindergarten to design and paint its wall,” Li says. “The project made me realize how happy I was immersing myself into painting.”

To pursue her passion for art, Li went to study advertising design at a vocational and technical school. “Painting brushes can help me create a colorful world in my imagination, telling my thoughts on paper, instead of through voices,” Li said.

Graduating from college in 2005, Li got a job as a typist at a public institute. But she could not communicate well with her other colleagues. Her husband understood how she felt because he lost his hearing due to medication when he was 1 year old. He is also an art lover. In March 2016, under her husband’s suggestion, Li quit her job and joined her husband’s company, which specializes in 3D wall and ground paintings.

Wall painting is a demanding job because it requires people to work outdoors, whether in extremely cold or hot weather. As all the people are hearing-impaired in their company, communication with clients is the most common challenge that the team faces.

Now in many parks and scenic spots, the couple have created large-scale murals and interactive pavement painting that make onlookers a part of the drawings.

“My husband and I want to introduce painting to more people like us and help them find their own way to make a living,” Li says. Now Li has an apprentice who just graduated from college. While coaching the newcomer, Li is exploring her own style and hopes to become an illustrator and open her own exhibition one day.

“They’re energetic young people with a passion to create new things, and you can feel that in their paintings,” one of their clients said. “They’re also a professional, dedicated team, often working late into the night on the designs for us.”

Li hopes that their stories can encourage more hearing-impaired people to build their own careers and achieve their goals, regardless of how tough it may be.

What does the passage mainly tell us?

I was a graduate student in Manhattan having breakfast on my rooftop on Sept. 11, 2001, when I witnessed planes hit the Twin Towers. For months afterwards, I shook with anxiety every morning. Unwilling to medicate, I tried everything else. Mindfulness meditation (冥想) caused panic attacks. Hot yoga built muscle but did nothing for my anxiety. I went to talks by Buddhist monks and meditation teachers hoping to attain inner peace, but in vain. Finally, I attended a SKY Breath Meditation class, which involves a 20-minute breathing regimen (养生之道) in different postures and rhythms. Though I went in skeptical,I came out calm. Two decades later,I never missed a day of my breathing practice, not even when I gave birth.

I’ve also devoted part of my research career to studying the benefits of breathing for mental health and well-being. Seven years after 9/11, I was working with veterans returning from war with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traditional treatments had failed many of them, so my colleagues and I ran a randomized controlled trial to test the effects of SKY breathing. Compared with the control group, veterans practicing SKY every day for one week saw their anxiety drop to levels typical of the general population.

Emotions influence your breathing patterns, and changing your breathing can change your emotions. For example, anxiety and anger correspond to an irregular, short, fast breath. Adopting the slower and more regular breathing pattern that corresponds to a calm feeling signals relaxation by activating the vagus nerve (交感神经), slowing heart rate, easing blood pressure, and settling you down. A simple exercise you can try is to close your eyes and breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in. Do this for five minutes in the morning, before a stressful meeting or as you transit from work to home.