Shadowing Practice: [TED - Vietsub] Cách giữ bình tĩnh trước áp lực - Daniel Levitin - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Reviewer Gopalco A few years ago,
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I broke into my own house.
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I had just driven home, it was around midnight in the dead of Montreal winter, I'd been visiting my friend Jeff across town,
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and the thermometer on the front porch read minus 40 degrees.
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And don't bother asking if that's Celsius or Fahrenheit, minus 40 is where the two scales meet.
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It was very cold.
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And as I stood on the front porch fumbling in my pockets, I found I didn't have my keys.
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In fact, I could see them through the window, lying on the dining room table where I had left them, so I quickly ran around and tried all the other doors and windows, and they were locked tight.
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I thought about calling a locksmith.
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At least I had my cell phone, but at midnight, it could take a while for a locksmith to show up and it was cold.
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I couldn't go back to my friend Jeff's house for the night
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because I had an early flight to Europe the next morning and I needed to get my passport and my suitcase.
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So, desperate and freezing cold, I found a large rock and I broke through the basement window, cleared out the shards of glass,
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I crawled through, I found a piece of cardboard and taped it up over the opening,
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figuring that in the morning on the way to the airport I could call my contractor and ask him to fix it.
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This was going to be expensive, but probably no more expensive than a middle-of-the-night locksmith, so I figured under the circumstances, I was coming out even.
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Now, I'm a neuroscientist by training, and I know a little bit about how the brain performs under stress.
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It releases cortisol, that raises your heart rate, it modulates adrenaline levels, and it clouds your thinking.
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So the next morning, when I woke up, on too little sleep, worrying about the hole in the window
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and the mental note that I had to call my contractor
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and the freezing temperatures and the meetings I had upcoming in Europe, and, you know, with all the cortisol in my brain,
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my thinking was cloudy, but I didn't know it was cloudy because my thinking was cloudy.
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And it wasn't until I got to the airport check-in counter that I realized I didn't have my passport.
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So I raced home in the snow and ice, 40 minutes, got my passport, raced back to the airport.
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I made it just in time, but they had given away my seat to someone else, so I got stuck in the back of the plane next to the bathrooms, in a seat that wouldn't recline on an eight-hour flight.
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Well, I had a lot of time to think during those eight hours of no sleep.
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And I started wondering, are there things that I can do, systems that I can put into place that will prevent bad things from happening.
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Or, at least if bad things happen, will minimize the likelihood of it being a total catastrophe.
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So I started thinking about that, but my thoughts didn't crystallize until about a month later.
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I was having dinner with my colleague Danny Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winner, and I somewhat embarrassedly told him about having broken my window and, you know, forgotten my passport.
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And Danny shared with me that he'd been practicing something called prospective hindsight.
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It's something that he had gotten from the psychologist Gary Klein, who had written about it a few years before, also called the premortem.
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Now, you all know what the postmortem is.
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Whenever there's a disaster, a team of experts come in and they try to figure out what went wrong, right?
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Well, in the premortem, Danny explained, you look ahead and you try to figure out all the things that could go wrong,
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and then you try to figure out what you can do to prevent those things from happening or to minimize the damage.
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So what I want to talk to you about today are
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some of the things we can do in the form of a premortem.
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Some of them are obvious, some of them are not so obvious.
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I'll start with the obvious ones.
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Around the home, designate a place for things that are easily lost.
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Now, this sounds like common sense, and it is, but there's a lot of science to back this up, based on the way our spatial memory works.
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There's a structure in the brain called the hippocampus
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that evolved over tens of thousands of years to keep track of the locations of important things, where the well is, where fish can be found,
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that stand of fruit trees, where the friendly and enemy tribes live.
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The hippocampus is the part of the brain that, in London, taxicab drivers, becomes enlarged.
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It's the part of the brain that allows squirrels to find their nuts.
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And if you're wondering, somebody actually did the experiment where they cut off the olfactory sense of the squirrels, and they could still find their nuts.
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They weren't using smell, they were using the hippocampus, this exquisitely evolved mechanism in the brain for finding things.
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But it's really good for things that don't move around much, not so good for things that move around.
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So this is why we lose car keys and reading glasses and passports.
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So in the home, designate a spot for your keys, a hook by the door, maybe a decorative bowl, for your passport,
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a particular drawer, for your reading glasses, a particular table.
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If you designate a spot and you're scrupulous about it, your things will always be there when you look for them.
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What about travel?
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Take a cell phone picture of your credit cards, your driver's license, your passport, mail it to yourself so it's in the cloud.
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If these things are lost or stolen, you can facilitate replacement.
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Now, these are some rather obvious things.
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Remember, when you're under stress, the brain releases cortisol.
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Cortisol is toxic and it causes cloudy thinking.
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So part of the practice of the premortem is to recognize that under stress, you're not going to be at your best, and you should put systems in place.
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And there's perhaps no more stressful a situation than when you're confronted with a medical decision to make.
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And at some point, all of us are going to be in
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that position where we have to make a very important decision about the future of our medical care
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or that of a loved one to help them with the decision.
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And so I want to talk about that, and I'm going to talk about a very particular medical condition.
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But this stands as a proxy for all kinds of medical decision-making, and indeed for financial decision-making and social decision-making,
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any kind of decision you have to make that would benefit from a rational assessment of the facts.
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So, suppose you go to your doctor and the doctor says, I just got your lab work back.
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Your cholesterol is a little high." Now, you all know that high cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease,
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heart attacks, stroke.
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And so you're thinking having high cholesterol isn't the best thing.
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And so the doctor says, you know, I'd like to give you a drug that'll help you lower your cholesterol, a statin.
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And you've probably heard of statins.
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You know that they're among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world today.
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You probably even know people who take them.
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and you're thinking, yeah, give me the statin.
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But there's a question you should ask at this point, a statistic you should ask for, that most doctors don't like talking about,
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and pharmaceutical companies like talking about even less.
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It's for the number needed to treat.
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Now, what is this, the NNT?
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It's the number of people that need to take a drug
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or undergo a surgery or any medical procedure before one person is helped.
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And you're thinking, what kind of crazy statistic is that?
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The number should be one.
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My doctor wouldn't prescribe something to me if it's not going to help.
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But actually, medical practice doesn't work that way.
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And it's not the doctor's fault.
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If it's anybody's fault, it's the fault of scientists like me.
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We haven't figured out the underlying mechanisms well enough.
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But GlaxoSmithKline estimates that 90 percent of the drugs work in only 30 to 50 percent of the people.
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So the number needed to treat for the most widely prescribed statin, what do you suppose it is?
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How many people have to take it before one person's helped?
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Three hundred.
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This is according to research by research practitioners Jerome Gruppen and Pamela Hartzband, independently confirmed by Bloomberg.com.
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I ran through the numbers myself.
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Three hundred people have to take the drug for a year before one heart attack, stroke or other adverse event is prevented.
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Now, you're probably thinking, well, OK, one in three hundred chance of lowering my cholesterol.
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Why not, doc?
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Give me the prescription anyway.
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But you should ask at this point for another statistic, and that is, tell me about the side effects, right?
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So for this particular drug, the side effects occur in 5 percent of the patients.
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And they include terrible things, debilitating muscle and joint pain, gastrointestinal distress.
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But now you're thinking, well, 5 percent, not very likely it's going to happen to me, I'll still take the drug.
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But wait a minute.
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Remember, under stress, we're not thinking clearly, so think about how you're going to work through this ahead of time to manufacture the chain of reasoning on the spot.
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Three hundred people take the drug, right?
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One person's helped.
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Five percent of those three hundred have side effects.
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That's fifteen people.
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You're fifteen times more likely to be harmed by the drug than you are to be helped by the drug.
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Now, I'm not saying whether you should take the statin or not.
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I'm just saying you should have this conversation with your doctor.
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Medical ethics requires it.
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It's part of the principle of informed consent.
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You have the right to have access to this kind of information
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to begin the conversation about whether you want to take the risks or not.
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Now, you might be thinking, I've pulled this number out of the air for shock value.
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it's rather typical, this number needed to treat.
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For the most widely performed surgery on men over the age of 50, removal of the prostate for cancer, the number needed to treat is 49.
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That's right, 49 surgeries are done for every one person who's helped.
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And the side effects in that case occur in 50% of the patients.
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They include impotence, erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence, rectal tearing, fecal incontinence.
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And if you're lucky, and you're one of the 50 percent who has these, they'll only last for a year or two.
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So, the idea of the premortem is to think ahead of time to the questions
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that you might be able to ask that will push the conversation forward.
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You don't want to have to manufacture all of this on the spot.
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And you also want to think about things like quality of life, because you have a choice oftentimes.
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Do I want a shorter life that's pain-free, or a longer life that might have a great deal of pain towards the end?
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These are things to talk about and think about now with your family and your loved ones.
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You might change your mind in the heat of the moment, but at least you're practiced with this kind of thinking.
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Remember, our brain, under stress, releases cortisol.
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And one of the things that happens at that moment is a whole bunch of systems shut down.
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There's an evolutionary reason for this.
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Face to face with a predator, you don't need your digestive system or your libido or your immune system,
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Because if your body is expending metabolism on those things and you don't react quickly, you might become the lion's lunch, and then none of those things matter.
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Unfortunately, one of the things that goes out the window during those times of stress is rational, logical thinking, as Danny Kahneman and his colleagues have shown.
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So we need to train ourselves to think ahead to these kinds of situations.
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I think the important point here is recognizing that all of us are flawed.
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We all are going to fail now and then.
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The idea is to think ahead to what those failures might be, to put systems in place that will help minimize the damage,
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or to prevent the bad things from happening in the first place.
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Getting back to that snowy night in Montreal, when I got back from my trip, I had my contractor install a combination lock next to the door with a key to the front door in it,
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an easy-to-remember combination.
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And I have to admit, I still have piles of mail that haven't been sorted and piles of emails that I haven't gone through.
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So I'm not completely organized, but I see organization as a gradual process, and I'm getting there.
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Thank you very much.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “[TED - Vietsub] Cách giữ bình tĩnh trước áp lực - Daniel Levitin”. This video has 147 sentences and 2215 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:15. The speaker talks fast, about 181 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| passport noun | /ˈpæspɔɹt/ | An official document normally used for international journeys, which proves the identity and nationality of the person for whom it was issued. |
| 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… |
| premortem adjective | Before death. | |
| statin noun | /ˈstætɪn/ | Any of a class of drugs, the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that lower the amount of cholesterol in the blood by inhibiting an enzyme involved in its… |
| cholesterol noun | /kəˈlɛstəɹɒl/ | A sterol lipid synthesized by the liver and transported in the bloodstream to the membranes of all animal cells; it plays a central role in many biochemical… |
| cloudy adjective | /ˈklaʊ̯diː/ | Covered with or characterised by clouds. |
| designate verb | /ˈdɛz.ɪɡ.neɪt/ | To mark out and make known; to point out; to indicate; to show; to distinguish by marks or description |
| hippocampus noun | /ˌhɪpə(ʊ)ˈkæm.pəs/ | A mythological creature with the front head and forelimbs of a horse and the rear of a fish. |
| locksmith noun | /ˈlɑksmɪθ/ | One who practices locksmithing. |
| prescribe verb | /pɹɪˈskɹaɪb/ | To order (a drug or medical device) for use by a particular patient (under licensed authority). |
| minimize verb | /ˈmɪn.ɪˌmaɪz/ | To make (something) smaller or as small as possible; shrink; reduce. |
| contractor noun | /ˈkɒnˌtɹæk.tə(ɹ)/ | A person or company that builds or improves buildings or structures. |
| squirrel noun | /ˈskwɪ.ɹ(ə)l/ | Any of the rodents of the family Sciuridae. |
| evolve verb | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | To move (something) in regular procession through a system. |
| porch noun | /pɔɹt͡ʃ/ | A covered entrance to a building, whether taken from the interior, and forming a sort of vestibule within the main wall, or projecting without and with a… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| move around verb | To relocate to new homes repeatedly; to not live in any one place for long. | |
| break through verb | To gain popularity. | |
| clear out verb | To completely empty. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| cut off verb | /ˌkʌt ˈɔf/ [ˌkɐɾ ˈɔf] | To remove by cutting. |
| get back to verb | Return to (an activity) | |
| give away verb | To make a gift of (something). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I'll start with the obvious ones.
- Remember, when you're under stress, the brain releases cortisol.
- We haven't figured out the underlying mechanisms well enough.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were locked · are easily lost · can be found |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've probably heard · haven't figured · I've pulled |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 52 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: locksmith /ˈlɑksmɪθ/, thermometer /θɚˈmɑ.mɪ.tɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: rational /ˈɹæʃ(ə)nəl/, dysfunction /dɪsˈfʌŋk.ʃən/, practitioner /pɹækˈtɪʃənəɹ/, spatial /ˈspeɪ.ʃəl/, evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/
- Long words — get the stress right: cholesterol /kəˈlɛstəɹɒl/, hippocampus /ˌhɪpə(ʊ)ˈkæm.pəs/, debilitate /dəˈbɪləteɪt/, gastrointestinal /ˌɡæstɹoʊɪnˈtɛstɪnəl/, olfactory /ɑlˈfæk.təɹ.i/
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 passport, cortisol, premortem.
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.