Indeed loneliness is now widely recognized as a major public health problem. What is perhaps less obvious is one answer to the problem: the healing power of poetry to make us feel more connected to others.

Here things get personal. I first got involved in how poetry can support our emotional wellbeing after I wrole a memoir, Black Rainbow: Hone Words Healed Me—My Journey Through Depression, in 2014 about how poetry helped me through two serious periods of depression. Since then, I’ve been running Healing Words poetry sessions for mental health charities and prisons, and have discovered first-hand the lovely feeling of companionship which poetry can bring.

Poetry lets us connect with other people who have experienced similar emotions. We’re not alone in our despair or delight. When we have a poem by our side, whether tucked into a bag or on a bedside table, it feels like we’re being accompanied by a friend: an authorial arm is wrapped around our shoulders.

I remember one woman starting to cry as she read Derek Walcott’s poem “Love After Love” during a workshop held at my local hospital in West London. Fighting through tears, she eventually said, “I feel understood.” Everyone in the room knew exactly what she meant.

She had, in Walcott’s phrase, struggled to “love again the stranger who was yourself”. The poet’s invitation to “Sit. Feast on your life” was the comfort she needed, in a language which spoke to her, to imagine loving herself in a way she had always found hard. Poetry had worked its magic, unlocking a feeling of inner connection, and in turn a connection to all of us sitting in the workshop.

Given my own experience, I think having a poem to keep us company can help us all feel a greater sense of belonging.

Using the health records of more than a million Swedish conscripts (应征入伍者), a recent study revealed that keeping cardiorespiratory (心肺的) fitness in their late teens and early twenties can cut the risk of developing nine types of cancer by 40% when older. The research team from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden said, “These results could be used to further strengthen the promotion of interventions aimed at increasing fitness in youth.”

Almost a third of people aged from 16 to 24 in England aren’t physically active, without meeting guidelines of at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week including walking, riding a bike and dancing.

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) measures how well the heart, lungs and linked systems work to get oxygen to muscles during constant activities. The conscripts, aged between 16 and 25, had tests of CRF on exercise bikes between 1968 and 2005. The researchers used Swedish health data to see who went on to have cancer during an average follow-up of 33 years. The study found that increasing fitness was beneficial, regardless of body weight. However, they also found that higher fitness was linked to a higher risk of skin cancer. The researchers explained that this trend might be driven by exposure to sunlight.

Findings from those observational studies provide much evidence for a link between higher levels of physical activity and a lower risk of cancer. However, these studies cannot fully rule out the possibility that active people have lower cancer risk because they engage in other lifestyle behaviors. The researchers cautioned that they had no access to full data on factors such as diet, alcohol intake and smoking and so couldn’t fully account for those.

Dr Claire Knight, of Cancer Research UK, said, “The NHS recommends 150 minutes of activity a week, but it’s fine to build up activity over time and there are lots of ways to be more active. You don’t need to run a marathon or join a gym. Anything that gets you warmer and slightly out of breath and your heart beating faster counts.”

Lions are often incorrectly called the “king of the jungle”. These days, the giant cats are not feared as much as another “super predator (捕食者)”—the animals living in South Africa now fear humans more than lions, according to a study published recently. 【小题1】

The study focused on Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa. Scientists set up speakers and cameras around 21 waterholes in the dry season between June and August. The researchers chose the site since waterholes are known as a small pool of water where animals drink. 【小题2】 This makes waterholes a popular hunting spot for both lions and poachers (偷猎者).

During the experiment, the researchers played different sounds. These included lions roaring, and humans speaking calmly in local languages. The study found that animals were twice as likely to run away from a human voice than a lion sound. 【小题3】 The results suggest that animals have learned that being close to humans can be dangerous because they might be poachers. This could pose a problem to national parks that depend on making money from safari tourism. 【小题4】

【小题5】 Endangered species, such as the southern white rhino (犀牛), could be protected by using recorded human voices. For instance, rhinos abandon waterholes much quicker when they hear human voices over other sounds, which could help to drive the frightened species away from places where poachers are known to lie in wait.