Academic listening and note taking: Stress and the immune system

In this section you will hear and take notes on a two-part lecture given by Ellen Cash, a professor of psychology. The title of the lecture is Stress and the. Immune System. Professor Cash will present research supporting the idea that the mind can affect the body.

BEFORE THE LECTURE

1> Read the following description of the lecture from Professor Cash's course syllabus.

Lecture: Stress and the immune system

• psychosomatic disorders

• animal and human research

• classical conditioning (stimulus-response)

• implications for health care

Note taking: Using telegraphic language: Lecture note taking is a complex skill, and developing it requires a great deal of practice. One of the first things you have to learn is that when you listen to a lecture, it is not possible to write down everything. And even if you could, doing so would not be a good idea! Many lecturers repeat themselves, go off the topic, and tell unrelated personal stories. Good note takers can recognize what is important and what is not. They are able to get the important information down on paper in as few words as possible, using abbreviations and symbols.

At the same time, they organize the information on the page to show what is a main point and what is a detail or example. These are all important skills to develop, and as you study this book, you will practice each of them. The first step, however, is to learn to listen to several sentences of a lecture and quickly summarize the information in your own words. You must also train yourself to leave out unnecessary words, such as articles, prepositions, relative pronouns, the verb to be, and other linking verbs. In other words, you need to learn to use what is called telegraphic language.

1'>• Read the following sentences. Each one summarizes an excerpt from the lecture on stress and the immune system, and presents an important point in the lecture.

_ a There is research to support the idea that stress hurts the immune system.

_ b More doctors (etc.) now agree that learning to relax sometimes cures better than drugs.

_ c Many common health problems may begin in the mind (psychosomatic).

_ d Research shows that when sick people feel helpless, their health gets worse.

2> Now listen to the four short excerpts and match them with the correct summaries in Step 1. Write the numbers in the blanks.

3>- Using the blank lines in Step 1, rewrite the sentences in telegraphic language, as if they were lecture notes - that is, leave out words that are not needed. Be sure to leave enough information so that you can understand your notes. Here is an example of what to do.

The immune system recognizes foreign invaders and kills them.

immune system - finds and kills invaders________________

Lecture, Part One: Psychoneuroimmunology and animal studies on stress

Guessing vocabulary from context

1 Stress has real implications in terms of what it can do to the body:

a consequences b choices c experiences

2 to recognize foreign invaders, things that come into the body:

a animals b attackers c medicines

3 to inactivate the invaders and remove them

a eat b cause not to work c get rid of

4 The immune system is compromised, damaged, by certain stressors:

a improved b assisted c hurt

5 He was able to condition the rats' immune systems to malfunction:

a teach b assist c punish

6 If we can condition immune systems to malfunction, then it makes sense that we could also condition them to get better:

a speed up b work harder c not work correctly

Summarizing what you have heard: Summarizing involves reducing a long piece of text (written or spoken) to a few clear sentences, written in your own words. With something as long as a lecture, summarizing is the last of several steps. During the lecture, take notes in whatever way works best for you. After the lecture, go over your notes, reconstruct what you have heard, and decide which material is important. Now you are ready to write your summary. Summarizing is an essential skill because it shows that you have understood what is important in a reading or a lecture. It also provides you with a record for your own review purposes.

1> The following is an incomplete summary of Part One of the lecture. Read the summary and think about what kinds of words or phrases might go in the blanks. Do not write anything yet.

STRESS AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM, Part One

There is a lot of evidence to support the idea that our minds can affect our _______. Many of the health problems that people suffer, such as headaches, ____________, and _________, may be related to psychosomatic disorders - that is, they may be caused by the _______.

The new field of psychoneuroimmunology (PHI) studies the way in which our minds can affect our _____________. In a healthy person, the immune system protects the body against ________. Animal and human research has shown that stress - especially uncontrollable stress - can hurt the immune system.

Robert Ader did an important study with rats in which he learned, quite by accident, that the rats' ___________ could be conditioned to _________. This was an exciting discovery for science: if the immune system can be taught to _________, that probably means that it can also learn to _________