A phrase “less screen time and more green time” is popular now. A study from the University of Adelaide found that more time outside and less time spent watching TV is connected with better psychological (心理的) results and school achievements among teenagers. Gardening is a great way to do so.

Jim Carter, a psychologist of America, is asking for teenagers’ return to traditional values of gardening, and thinks that they need to turn off the TV and go outside to do something healthier instead. Carter even considers it important to put gardening as a usual course because it is proven to be good for mental health.

“It’s physical exercise, and it teaches patience,” Carter explains. “The wait for a small sunflower seed (葵花籽) to become a six-foot plant is long.”

“I’m hearing that teenagers are struggling to deal with stress, and every time they open Gardeners’ World, they talk about how gardening helps them deal with stress. They learn so much about life, and so much about themselves through gardening,” said Lee Connelly, a teacher who is carrying out his own green school programme—Gardeners’ World. “The join of gardening into the class course for schools presents a remarkable chance to change education and the benefits are far beyond the classroom, influencing mental health, behavior and developing a lifelong love for horticulture (园艺).”

You’ve probably heard this before. In a society that praises productivity and business, it seems funny to talk about being bored as a good thing. We like being productive, but moments of boredom are actually good for our lives. Here are the reasons:

Boredom is necessary for creativity.

Often new ideas come to you when you let go of doing or thinking too much. It feels like they come out of nowhere, but they are actually born when you’ re bored or when you’re looking for something fresh. 【小题1】 It’s because they get bored so easily and, want to try something else.

Boredom can help you with your productivity.

The two aren’t exclusive, but they complement(补充)each other. They’re often like yin and yang if you will.【小题2】   Having one without the other could have a harmful influence on us.

Being bored encourages reflection.

【小题3】 It can also encourage you to think a lot about yourself, which will help you see where you’ re headed. It’s like taking a break from your actions and seeing them like an outsider.

【小题4】

Our brains need to cool down and take a break from everything. And what better way to do this is there than taking a break or going to sleep? Feeling bored can give you a better chance of getting a good night’s sleep. Waking up rested the next day will only increase your productivity. 【小题5】.

Handwritten notes in class might seem outdated as digital technology involves nearly every aspect of learning. But a steady stream of research suggests that compared with typing, taking notes with pen and paper is still a better way to learn. And scientists are zeroing in on why.

In a recently published study, scientists found that those writing by hand had higher levels of electrical activity across many interconnected brain regions. They added 256 sensors into a hairnet, which helped monitor 36 students’ brains as they wrote or typed words displayed on a screen. When students wrote by hand, the sensors picked up widespread brain connectivity including visual regions, regions that receive and process sensory information, and the motor cortex (运动皮层) . Typing, however, resulted in minimal activity in these brain regions.

Across many contexts, studies have shown that students appear to learn better when they’re asked to produce letters or other visual items using their fingers and hands. The educational neuroscientist Sophia Vinci-Booher says the recent study highlights the clear tie between motor action and conceptual recognition: “As you’re drawing a letter or writing a word, you’re taking this perceptual (感知的) understanding of something and using your motor system to create it. That creation is then fed back into the visual system, where it’s processed again — strengthening the connection between an action and the images or words associated with it.”

The new findings don’t mean technology is always a disadvantage in the classroom. Laptops, smartphones, and other such devices can be more efficient for writing essays and can offer fairer access to educational resources. But people now increasingly tend to “offload” mental tasks to digital devices, such as by taking a photograph instead of committing information to memory, says Yadurshana Sivashankar at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “If we’re not actively using these areas, then they are going to worsen over time, whether it’s memory or motor skills.”