Shadowing Practice: How Stress Changes Your Brain - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
15 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
Does stress make you more productive?
2
Yes and no. Adrenaline makes your heartbeat and breathing faster, while cortisol makes you more alert.
3
A little short-term stress can help you crunch through repetitive tasks, but for difficult ones, stress can work against you
4
because cortisol forces your body to prioritize your muscles and impulses over problem solving.
5
Over time, high levels of cortisol can leave your memory and decision-making weaker.
6
Being on high alert requires energy and you soon need to refuel.
7
As cortisol also affects hormones that make you feel full, you'll likely crave fatty and sugary foods.
8
At first, you may feel less stressed as eating meets your fuel demands and may even lower your cortisol levels.
9
But this can become a doom loop, eat more junk food or feel stressed.
10
Tweaking your diet can help.
11
Omega-3s found in fatty fish can make you less reactive to stress, while flavonoids in dark chocolate can boost your cell's defenses.
12
But the best way out of the cycle is sleep.
13
Your natural lowest levels of cortisol are around midnight when your stress response system resets.
14
Getting enough sleep also makes you more resilient to stress-related diseases.
15
So before stress becomes a deadly poison, get some rest.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B231
Your Skeleton Is Electric
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
1
How Caffeine Works
C136
Why Ebola Keeps Coming Back
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B237
Your Brain Peaked at Birth
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2136
Can Earth Run Out of Water?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1117
Could Humans Evolve Flight?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C111
Would You Upload Your Mind?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
The Beginning of Everything -- The Big Bang
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
Your Brain on Magic Mushrooms
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
The Most Complex Language in the World
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2560
What If You Never Slept?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
Let’s Steal a New Moon
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
What Happens AFTER Nuclear War?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Awesome! 3/3
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B252
Can We Stop the Extinction?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
YOU Own the Moon. And Mars. And Venus.
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2209
The True Cost of War
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C239
Nuclear Energy Explained: How does it work? 1/3
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B23
What Is Life? Is Death Real?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1149
How Antidepressants Work
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
C150 sentences
The Science of Stress: How Does Stress Affect Our Brains and Bodies?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2160 sentences
How to Get Your Focus Back (Trust me, You’re Not Cooked).
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C137 sentences
Your Brain Isn't Rotting. Here's What Doomscrolling Actually Does
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
18 sentences
Does Music Help You Study?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
253 sentences
How to Stop Procrastinating (Forever)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
75 sentences
6 Little Habits To Reduce Anxiety
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B24
17 sentences
A Psychologist's Secret About Your Brain (You'll Wish You Knew Sooner)
British AccentDaily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
44 sentences
Why Your Brain Thinks Resting is a Threat to Survival
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C11
271 sentences
Secret to a Stress-Free Mind (Lao Tzu + Psychology)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
39 sentences
Why Does Heartbreak Hurt So Much?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “How Stress Changes Your Brain”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: stress, cortisol, levels. This video has 15 sentences and 209 words to shadow. The speech runs for 1:10. The speaker talks fast, about 180 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 75% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| distress noun | /dɪˈstɹɛs/ | Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature. |
| cortisol noun | /ˈkoɹ.tɪˌsɔl/ | A glucocorticoid steroid hormone produced by the adrenal cortex that mediates various metabolic processes (such as gluconeogenesis), has anti-inflammatory and… |
| flavonoid noun | /ˈfleɪvənɔɪd/ | Any of many compounds that are plant metabolites, being formally derived from flavone; they have antioxidant properties, and sometimes contribute to flavor. |
| prioritize verb | /pɹaɪˈɒɹ.ə.taɪz/ | To value, do, or choose something first, or before other things. |
| refuel verb | /ɹiːˈfjuːəl/ | To refill with fuel. |
| resilient adjective | /ɹɪˈzɪl.jənt/ | Returning quickly to original shape after force is applied; elastic. (of objects or substances) |
| reactive adjective | /ɹiːˈæktɪv/ | That reacts or responds to a stimulus. |
| repetitive adjective | /ɹɪˈpɛtɪtɪv/ | Happening many times in a similar way; containing repetition; repeating. |
| crunch verb | /kɹʌnt͡ʃ/ | To crush something, especially food, with a noisy crackling sound. |
| heartbeat noun | /ˈhɑɹtˌbit/ | One pulsation of the heart; especially an irregular one, hence the emotion which causes it. |
| impulse noun | /ˈɪmpʌls/ | A thrust; a push; a sudden force that impels. |
| omega noun | /oʊˈmeɪ.ɡə/ | The twenty-fourth letter of the Classical and the Modern Greek alphabet, and the twenty-eighth letter of the Old and the Ancient Greek alphabet, i.e. the last… |
| doom noun | /duːm/ | Destiny, especially terrible. |
| hormone noun | /ˈhoɹmoʊn/ | Any substance produced by one tissue and conveyed by the bloodstream to another to effect physiological activity. |
| reset verb | /ɹiːˈsɛt/ | To set back to the initial state. |
Pronunciation to watch
- Long words — get the stress right: prioritize /pɹaɪˈɒɹ.ə.taɪz/, repetitive /ɹɪˈpɛtɪtɪv/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like distress, cortisol, flavonoid.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.