Medicinal Poetry

In case you feel guilty about frittering your time away here at Watermark, let me reassure you -- poetry is good for you.  From Scientific American, via dumbfoundry:

For this study [in Germany], healthy subjects practiced three activities: hexameter reading, controlled breathing at six breaths per minute and spontaneous breathing. They recited while walking, breathing and lifting their arms. The researchers found increased synchronization between heart rate and breathing during the poetry readings but not during the spontaneous breathing. Controlled breathing also boosted synchronization, though not to the extent of recitation. Also, subjects found poetry reading stimulating but controlled breathing boring.

Unfortunately:

Whether this recitation translates linguistically is another question. Rafael Campo, a poet and physician at Harvard Medical School, notes that hexameter in English is not one of the most appealing forms of poetry.

Still, one never knows . . . even free verse might be helpful.  So read, read, read.