Shadowing Practice: The Best Journaling Habits for Your Brain, Backed by Neuroscience - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you pick up a pen and spend about 10 minutes writing about what's stressing you out,
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this simple act can change how your brain handles stress.
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And we have brain scans that can prove it.
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The thing is that after 40 years of research, scientists still don't fully know why something so simple works so well.
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People who journal visit the doctor less, and even students who journal get better grades, and in interesting places too,
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like faster healing, better sleep, and even stronger immune responses.
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And again, this is people with no changes in diet or exercise, the only difference is what they wrote down.
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So how can writing with just a pen and paper make such a difference?
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Here's what this video is about.
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Why journaling works, the four ways that writing affects your brain and the science behind each one.
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We'll look at real studies with really interesting findings and some common myths.
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By the end, you'll have a page you can fill out tonight and know exactly why it works.
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Let's start with the simplest thing, words.
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Researchers at UCLA ran a study in 2007.
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They showed people photographs of angry and frightened faces while they scanned their brains.
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So one group just looked at the faces, the other group had to pick a word for the emotion that they saw,
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things like angry or afraid.
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That was the entire task.
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But amazingly, they found that just picking a word calmed the amygdala, the threat detection system of the brain, and at the same time,
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it increased activity in an area behind your forehead called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which helps you control your reactions.
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Researchers call this affect labeling.
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Simply put, you feel something, you name it, and the feeling loses its grip.
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Which is interesting because we tend to assume that naming a hard feeling or thinking about it might make it louder,
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but actually putting it into words turns the volume down.
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And we've known this before we had brain scans.
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It's just a philosophy of looking inward, reflecting, and identifying how you feel.
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So that's the first mechanism at play, naming, because journaling is essentially affect labeling stretched out across a page.
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But the second mechanism behind journaling explains a problem we all face.
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Now here's the thing, your brain doesn't like leaving things unfinished.
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You might keep thinking of a text you didn't answer, a bill that you forgot to pay, or maybe something you wish you'd said last week.
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Things like this stay in the background, repeating in your mind, and taking up attention.
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And there's a study on this from 2011 with a quite fitting title,
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Consider it Done, where researchers gave people a list of unfinished tasks, and those tasks started to distract them,
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even affecting their performance on unrelated reading tests.
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Then the researchers asked them to write down a plan, when, where, and how they would do each task.
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And the mental noise stopped.
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Just writing the plan made people feel as if the job was already finished.
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Again, you're not solving the problem.
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You're just moving it out of your mind so you don't have to keep thinking about it.
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Psychologists call this cognitive offloading, anemic space for you to think.
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But there's one important detail.
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Making a vague plan doesn't help.
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The effect only worked when people truly intended to follow through
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and they tracked with whether they actually did the task later on.
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So your brain knows the difference between a real plan and a fake one.
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And this little trick pays off.
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One of my favorite examples comes from a sleep lab at Baylor.
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They split people into two groups.
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One group spent five minutes before bed writing tomorrow's to -do list, while the other group only wrote down what they already did
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that day the to -do list group fell asleep faster
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and the longer and more detailed their lists the quicker they actually fell asleep.
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Now the next mechanism behind journaling is a little bit different because it changes the way you write about yourself.
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Remember when LeBron James went on TV to announce he was leaving Cleveland
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and he kept saying he wanted to do what was best for LeBron James?
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You can view it as arrogance, but I think he stumbled onto a technique our brain loves.
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That is, addressing yourself by your name and not I.
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Ethan Cross, a psychologist at Michigan, tested this across seven experiments.
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In one experiment, people had to give a speech with almost no time to prepare, which was intended to stimulate high stress.
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The ones that coached themselves by name walked in calmer and performed better, and also spent less time beating themselves up afterward,
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and the brain responds fast.
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In a 2017 study, as soon as people switched to using their own name, the brain stress signal dropped within the first second.
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So just by seeing ourselves or addressing ourselves from a more distant perspective, we get a larger buffer room.
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And there's an old truth here.
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We're amazing at solving other people's problems, but often we're stuck with our own.
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If a friend calls you about relationship problems, you can see the answer right away.
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But when it's your own problem, you often can't see where you're stuck.
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Psychologists call this Solomon's Paradox, named after the wise king who offered legendary wisdom even as his own house fell apart.
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Now, bring it home to journaling.
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In one study, people wrote about their day in the third person, by name, every day for a month.
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Not, I felt or I did this, but he walked in and felt.
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And by the end, they reasoned more wisely about hard situations than a group that was writing in the first person.
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And this is great because it addresses a common concern about journaling, that is that writing about your feelings can turn into rumination,
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where you keep replaying everything that's going wrong.
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But scientists have found the difference.
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Asking why do I feel this way from inside keeps the feeling stuck.
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But asking from outside of yourself actually leads to insight.
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We don't remember our lives as a list of facts.
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We remember them as stories.
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And the story you tell yourself matters way more than you might think.
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Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern, has spent his career on this.
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And his research shows that when people tell their story as something good turning into bad, bad, they tend to do worse.
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People who tell it the other way, as bad turning to good, or as failure that taught them something,
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or a low point that led somewhere else, they tend to be happier and healthier.
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Now, it's a correlation and it's partly shaped by your culture and upbringing, but the pattern is there and it's enough to take seriously.
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So in journaling, how we write about what happens to us is equally important.
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A team of researchers reviewed the writing of 177 people from earlier studies.
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The people who go healthier weren't the ones to express the most emotion, but those whose words changed over time.
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What's interesting is they started using more words like realize, understand, because, and reason.
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They stopped describing what happened to them and began making sense of it.
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Worth noting, the clearest gains showed up in physical health more than mood.
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And those because words also appear when people write in the third person, so it all connects.
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So that's four mechanisms, naming, offloading, distancing, and story.
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And you can do all of them before bed with just five minutes.
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Here's one template you can follow tonight.
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First of all, write a few lines on what happened today.
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and write it like a scene, not a summary.
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You don't have to write your entire day, just focus on one event.
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Number two, write one feeling and your best guess at why it's there.
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Three, just five things to handle tomorrow, specific enough that you can actually picture.
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And the final thing to write is one thing that you're grateful for, just one small thing that went right.
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Naming will cover the feeling, offloading covers tomorrow's to -do list, and the scene and the reasons are where distance and story can come in.
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You don't need anything else, just a pen and paper or a computer if you want.
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And one last thing, because it's one of my favorites, the most influential journal in history was never meant to be read.
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Marcus Aurelius wrote his journal during wars and plagues, leaving private notes to himself.
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about how to stay steady and act more righteously.
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He never titled it or planned to publish it.
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But now centuries later, we call it meditations.
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And people to this day still read it to feel less alone.
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He was doing exactly what we've been talking about, using a page to think more clearly and steady himself.
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And for me personally, I've kept a journal for years.
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And the science is only one part of the reason.
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The rest is that I love that I can open it up and revisit a version of myself I might have forgotten.
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The highs and the lows kept somewhere outside of my memory here.
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For me, that alone is reason enough to do it.
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You don't have to journal every single day or do it perfectly.
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Most of the benefit comes from showing up and when you can simply pay attention, naming what you notice and stepping back to reflect.
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So tonight, just give it 5 -10 minutes.
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Your brain and body might not thank you right away, but months from now, your future self almost certainly will.
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Also, let me know if you want more videos like this one about the benefits of journaling, writing, and how to do it.
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There's so much research and I'm happy to cover it if you want.
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And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next videos.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación se basa en el vídeo “The Best Journaling Habits for Your Brain, Backed by Neuroscience”. Las palabras que más se repiten: brain, write, writing, journaling, word. Este vídeo tiene 122 frases y 1668 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 11:29. El hablante mantiene un ritmo constante de unas 145 palabras por minuto, cómodo para el shadowing. El 86 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
15 palabras del vídeo que vale la pena aprender, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| researcher sustantivo | /ˈɹiˌsɝ.t͡ʃɚ/ | investigador, investigadora |
| mechanism sustantivo | /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/ | mecanismo |
| psychologist sustantivo | /ˌsaɪˈkɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/ | psicólogo, psicóloga |
| scan verbo | /skæn/ | escrutar |
| distress sustantivo | /dɪˈstɹɛs/ | distrés, distress |
| label sustantivo | /ˈleɪ.bəl/ | etiqueta, rótulo |
| solve verbo | /sɒlv/ | resolver, solucionar |
| reflect verbo | /ɹɪˈflɛkt/ | reflejar, reflectar |
| experiment sustantivo | /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/ | experimento |
| asleep adjetivo | /əˈsliːp/ | dormido, jato |
| scientist sustantivo | /ˈsaɪəntəst/ | científico, científica |
| emotion sustantivo | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | afecto, emoción |
| intend verbo | /ɪnˈtɛnd/ | pretender, intencionar |
| unfinished adjetivo | /ʌnˈfɪnɪʃt/ | inacabado, inconcluso |
| trick sustantivo | /ˈtɹɪk/ | truco, artimaña |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| write down verbo | apuntar, anotar | |
| fall apart verbo | despedazarse, desintegrarse | |
| fill out verbo | /fɪl ˈaʊt/ | rellenar, cumplimentar |
| follow through verbo | cumplir | |
| pay off verbo | valer la pena, salir a cuenta | |
| pick up verbo | coger, asir | |
| show up verbo | comparecer, personarse |
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | we've known · have found · has spent |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | People who journal · prepare, which was · People who tell |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | was intended · was never meant |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 25 contracciones y formas reducidas, como don't, you're, doesn't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, unfinished /ʌnˈfɪnɪʃt/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, influential /ɪnflʊˈɛnʃəl/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, psychologist /ˌsaɪˈkɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, legendary /ˈlɛd͡ʒ.ənˌdɛɹ.i/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: scan /skæn/, steady /ˈstɪdi/, stretch /stɹɛt͡ʃ/, stimulate /ˈstɪm.jəˌleɪt/, stumble /ˈstʌmbəl/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: solve /sɒlv/, cognitive /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/, vague /veɪɡ/, revisit /ɹiːˈvɪzɪt/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, afterwards /ˈæf.tɚ.wɚdz/, wisdom /ˈwɪzdəm/, amazingly /əˈmeɪzɪŋli/, wisely /ˈwaɪzli/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Haz shadowing frase por frase a velocidad normal, repitiendo cada una hasta que tu ritmo coincida con el del hablante.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como researcher, mechanism, psychologist.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.