There are many ways to help improve your health, like eating healthy food, exercising and getting medical help. But the easiest and cheapest way to improve your health is just to sleep eight hours or more every night. The general sleeping is that the younger you are, the longer sleep you need. But some people need to sleep more while it is enough for some people to sleep for a few hours.

The problem with sleep is that more and more people in the world are not sleeping enough. According to the World Health Organization, over half the people in the world may be sleep-deprived. Having less sleep not only makes people feel tired but also causes accidents. In the United States alone, sleepy drivers cause at least 100,000 traffic accidents a year. Also, sleep problems can cause medical problems such as high blood pressure (高血压).

Why are so many people sleep-deprived? Part of the reasons may be cultural. In American culture, people put a higher value (价值) on work than on sleep. In fact, people who sleep a lot are usually seen as “lazy” . Also, you can sometimes hear some people say proudly that they don’t have much time to sleep, and they only sleep four or five hours at night. It seems that the less you sleep, the more work you’ll do.

How do we teach these people to learn the value of sleep? Perhaps they may listen to the advice of Dr. James Maas, an expert (专家) in sleep. He says, “Sleep is like a credit card (信用卡). When you sleep less, you are only borrowing time. You always have to pay it back. The more hours you don’t sleep, the more hours you should sleep to ‘pay back’ the hours on your sleep credit card.”

For those who value work more than sleep, they should listen to what a famous person once said, “Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the night. That is a foolish idea which is held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to do more.”

Paul is a middle school student. He loves playing sports. He has five volleyballs and three basketballs. He always plays them with his classmates after school, because he thinks it is useful and good for health. His dream is to be a volleyball player (运动员). Paul has a big family. His father likes volleyball, too. He thinks it is interesting. His mother likes ping-pong. She thinks ping-pong is relaxing. And Paul has a little sister, Jenny. She is 4 years old. She doesn’t like sports and she thinks it is boring. She likes watching TV. Do you like playing sports? Please tell me!

Doing exercise is very important for everyone. But it can be a little different to keep a exercise plan when winter comes. 【小题1】Do you have the same problem? I'll tell you what you can do to change the situation.

To stay active during the winter, you should first make it as easy as possible to do your exercise. 【小题2】The following advice will give you some ideas for making winter exercise more comfortable and more enjoyable.

【小题3】 If you want to exercise outside, you might keep the clothes in the dryer for a few minutes before that. It's often harder to get warmed up when it's cold outside. Putting on clothes fresh from the dryer is just one way to get your body warm.

【小题4】If it's really cold outside, you may try it to get you warm before you do exercise.

Walk in door. 【小题5】to get out of cold weather of winter, you can simply walk in door, probably in the living area of your room. Walking indoors makes you feel safe and gives you a dry and warm temperature to do it.