Shadowing Practice: THE BEST TIME TO EXERCISE - Learn English Speaking with Video
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You want this peak in cortisol as high as possible in the first 60 minutes of your day.
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Everyone thinks you want low cortisol, but here's the deal.
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High cortisol in the early part of your day is what provides for elevated mood, focus, attention, your ability to learn.
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It's also what establishes low cortisol in the afternoon and at night, which is a requirement for falling and staying asleep.
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This peak sets up this trough.
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You want high morning cortisol, low nighttime cortisol.
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What's very interesting is that when you spike your morning cortisol, and you do that within the first hours of your day, you also establish a case where these little blips are stress, but they're brief.
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We always hear that cortisol is bad, but our ability to have big inflections in cortisol stress out
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and then they come back down to normal is very, very good.
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If this peak is not as high and this is kind of like a medium or flat, you see shorter lifespan, less recovery from every kind of illness,
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and these stress bouts last a very long time because they're riding on a higher baseline.
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So if your morning cortisol level is lower or flat, if I get that stressful text during the day, it will be a longer cortisol spike, more stress.
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Bigger and longer.
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Most people's morning cortisol is too low and their afternoon and nighttime cortisol is too high.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 14 sentences and 240 words to shadow. The speech runs for 1:07. The speaker talks fast, about 216 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| distress noun | /dɪˈstɹɛs/ | Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature. |
| establish verb | /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/ | To make stable or firm; to confirm. |
| spike noun | /spaɪk/ | A sort of very large nail. |
| mood noun | /muːd/ | A mental or emotional state, composure. |
| illness noun | /ˈɪl.nəs/ | An instance (episode) of a disease or poor health. |
| asleep adjective | /əˈsliːp/ | In a state of sleep; also, broadly, resting. |
| requirement noun | /ɹɪˈkwaɪɹmənt/ | A necessity or prerequisite; something required or obligatory. Its adpositions are generally of in relation to who or what has given it, on in relation to whom… |
| bout noun | /ˈbaʊt/ | A period of something, especially one painful or unpleasant, like an illness. |
| stressful adjective | /ˈstɹɛsfəl/ | Irritating; causing stress. |
| baseline noun | /ˈbeɪslaɪn/ | A line that is a base for measurement or for construction. |
| 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… |
| nighttime noun | /ˈnaɪtˌtaɪm/ | The hours of darkness between sunset and sunrise; the night. |
| blip noun | /blɪp/ | A small dot registered on electronic equipment, such as a radar or oscilloscope screen. |
| elevate verb | /ˈɛləveɪt/ | To raise (something) to a higher position. |
| inflection noun | /ɪnˈflɛkʃən/ | The linguistic phenomenon of morphological variation, whereby terms take a number of distinct forms in order to express different grammatical features. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| set up verb | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | To make ready for use. |
| stress out verb | To become stressed. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | night, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/, inflection /ɪnˈflɛkʃən/
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, establish, spike.
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.