My doorbell rang twice that morning. I had no idea my life was about to change.

At first I ignore the ringing, assuming it was just a HelloFresh box being delivered. Two rings seemed aggressive, but they’d just leave it by the door. Rolling over in bed, I set a timer for 30 minutes. It was already getting late, and I needed to get up, but I wanted a little more sleep.

The doorbell rang again. After quickly throwing on a pair of athletic shorts and scooping up a tank top from the floor, I open the door as I put on my glasses. Standing in front of me is my neighbour, hair wet, holding a cordless phone in one hand and looking panicked.

Six-inch-thick walls separate me from the other lives being lived in my building, but suddenly my timeline was merging with another.

“Nathan,” my neighbour stammers. “Something’s wrong… he’s not moving.”

I rush to the apartment next door – an apartment I’d never been inside before – and see her husband in his leather chair sitting completely still. The bearded man has some slippers on his feet, pyjama pants, a grey T-shirt and a pair of black round glasses. His mouth is slightly open, which makes him look asleep.

“We have to get him down,” she says.

Instinctively, I grab his torso while his wife momentarily puts down the phone – she’s still on the line with 911 – and grabs his legs, and together we begin to pull. His body is heavy, and his head flings back. Sliding him onto the cold, hard tile floor, I immediately start doing chest compressions to the beat of the Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive, like I’d been told to do years ago.

I- I- I- I’m- staying alive… staying alive.

Suddenly he convulses. His wife gasps. Was it working?

A few moments later his daughter, who had been at work, rushes in. We’re both in our early 30s, and she’s an only child, just like me. Her father (I didn’t know his name at this point) was in his early 70s, just like my father.

“Where the fuck are the paramedics? Are they lost?” she asks breathlessly.

“They said they’re coming,” her mother replies.

The daughter leaves the apartment to go look for them.

All I can think about is this man’s dignity and comfort. I ask for a pillow and put it under his head in case he convulses again. His mouth is still open. Is he breathing? Does he have a pulse? There is no time to check. I hear their little white dog barking in another room.

I- I- I- I’m- staying alive… staying alive.

I look over and see one of his slippers has fallen off. I want to put it back on, but don’t want to stop doing CPR. He convulses again. His arm smacks the tile. I want another pillow. I want to be gentle, hoping not to break any of his ribs. If you’re doing it right, the ribs will crack, I suddenly find myself thinking. Am I doing it right? His chest is going up and down with every press.

Just as I am getting tired, the 911 operator asks me to allow someone else to take over.

“Are you sure?” the operator asks.

I’m not about to subject his family to that.

“Have you done this before?” his wife asks me.

I tell her I’ve never done CPR before. I wish I’d lied. I’ve never been part of anything like this.

I flash back to when I was 16 and had the opportunity to see my great aunt die in hospice care but refused. I’m too afraid of death. It’s the boogeyman. My mom told me it would’ve been a good experience for me. Later I learned my aunt’s death had been peaceful, and that as she went, with family around her bed, her body made sounds as all the energy from a life well-lived left her body.

But what was happening in this room was not peaceful.

“You need to lift his shirt and make sure the palm of your hand is between his nipples, and lock your arms,” the 911 operator instructs. I don’t want to do it – I want to preserve what little dignity I can for this man – but when I do lift his shirt, his skin is warm. Is he still alive? After being so afraid of death my entire life, why am I so calm?

I do compressions for what feels like 20 minutes before EMS finally arrives, and five men calmly file into the apartment. They don’t immediately take over and begin compressions, which makes me angry. When they do, they are violent, and my neighbour’s whole stomach jiggles. Oh, God, I was doing it too softly, I think.

I move over to the couch where his wife and daughter are sitting, and his daughter grabs my hand and holds it tightly.

Lieutenant So-and-So comes over with a pen and notepad. “We don’t need this,” he says and hangs up the phone.

The wife begins to tell him what happened. Her husband had just had an Ensure, and she went to take a shower. When she got out, he pointed to his stomach. She asked him a question. He shook his head and… I stop listening.

The EMS officers take out a large device, strap it around my neighbour’s body, and velcro his arms to the sides. The centre of the contraption looks like a giant plunger, and when they press a button, the machine makes a cheerful sound as it begins forcefully doing compressions.

“I could’ve used that machine earlier,” I say with a grimace.

The family looks at me, and instantly I feel ashamed. Was I being cavalier? Was I trying to deal with the situation by using my trademark snark?

The team brings out an oxygen mask. They tap, tap, tap on his arm. They begin to administer medicine through an IV. They listen for a pulse.

Lieutenant So-and-So brings over a stethoscope.

“You have to use this, it’s better,” he calmly instructs as he pauses the machine.

He listens, then resumes the machine. I brace myself to hear if the man was already gone and, if so, if I am responsible.

“His convulsions are from his pacemaker,” Lieutenant So-and-So tells us. The wife mentions a prior stint in the hospital. She rattles off a list of medications and shuffles through her husband’s medical records, offering up various papers. Suddenly I remember something my mum often told me: “When you’re stressed, drink water.” My neighbours need water.

Stepping around the commotion, I find two mugs in the kitchen. Checking to make sure there aren’t any pictures of my neighbour on them, I fill the mugs with water and hand them to the daughter and wife.

“Thanks, Nathan,” the daughter says, smiling weakly.

She breathes hard like she’s blowing out candles. I’m worried she’s going to have a panic attack.

The mum’s knee is pulsing. “We knew he wasn’t doing well for quite some time, you know that,” she says to her daughter.

I didn’t know that. Suddenly my phone alarm goes off. Has it only been 30 minutes?

I want them to look away from the violence. I want to shield them. But am I even supposed to still be here? Do they want me to stay? I’m not family, after all, and this is so intimate.

“We need a bed sheet,” one of the EMS officers says.

I rush over to a closet and pull one out. I’m afraid they’re going to cover him – that this was the end. Instead, they use it to lift him onto the gurney.

“Don’t worry about the dog, I can take care of him,” I tell my neighbours.

“OK. You can take my husband’s keys.”

As they cart him away, all I can think is, I never got a chance to put his slipper back on.

Suddenly it’s just me and the dog. It’s quiet, except for the TV on the wall playing a reality show at low volume. I take the dog’s harness and fiddle with it. “How the hell do I put this on you?” I ask him, but he doesn’t reply. I finally get it on and attach the leash, and we walk out.

The paramedics are by the elevator. The dog steps out of the harness, and it falls off him. I can hear the music next door as the construction workers renovate an apartment nearby. Life is continuing for everyone else.

I grab the dog, head back into my neighbour’s apartment and watch a YouTube video on how to use a harness. I take one loop and the dog recognises it, gleefully pushing his fluffy face through the hole.

As I exit the building, my door lady says, “Nathan, he didn’t seem to be doing well.”

“No, no he’s not,” I tell her.

The dog leads me straight to the dog park. The sun is bright. The dog is happy. The dog leads me back home.

When I get back to my neighbour’s apartment, I look around and ask myself, What seems out of place here? I scour the room for any medical waste to throw out. The EMS team seems to have placed most of it in an orange bag in the corner of the room. I grab it and fold my neighbour’s pants, which they’d removed, and put them back on his chair. I place his slippers neatly by the chair, turn off the TV and take the dog to my apartment. I don’t want it to look like something awful had just happened when the family returns home.

The dog is the only thing keeping me calm. I’m grateful to have a responsibility – a task to keep me busy. I turn on my TV and sit down, and the dog sits on my lap. I wonder if that’s routine for him – if it was what the husband used to do.

The dog races around and grabs one of my socks. There’s so much to sniff. He makes me laugh, but I immediately question why am I able to laugh at this sweet ignorance after what I’ve just been through. I take a picture of the dog and post it to my Instagram stories with a caption that reads, “Emotional Support Pup.” The hearts and comments soon roll in, but they go unread.

I call my boss and tell him I need to work from home… if I am even in a state to work. Two Zoom calls later, I realise I can’t, and that none of my work seems to matter. I speak to my editor on the phone about what happened, and he tells me, “What you need is a stiff drink.” Another coworker calls and echoes his advice: “You need to get out of your apartment and go to a bar.” They mean well, but I’m newly sober, and that’s the last thing I need. Besides, dulling what I am feeling wouldn’t work because I’m not feeling anything. Why are there no tears?

A few hours later I got a text message from his wife: “He is gone.”

That poor family – and that poor man, whom I’d seen so many times before in the elevator but had never spoken to aside from a “Have a good day.”

A part of me wishes I’d struck up a conversation with him, but we don’t do that sort of thing in New York City. Yet I had just done something his friends and family never had to do to him, and never will.

My head begins to spin with a million thoughts. If something were to happen to my parents in Florida, would there be someone to help and treat them with respect while doing so? Could I have done more for this family? What if I’d answered the door sooner or done the compressions harder?

Later that day, the daughter comes to my apartment with some friends to pick up the dog.

“You’re a hero,” her friend says. I don’t feel like one.

“I wish I could’ve done more,” I tell them.

“You’ve done more than you know — you’re family now,” someone else says.

“Oh, I’m just the neighbour.”

The daughter seems to be doing OK, but I am a mess. Do I have a right to feel this way? Did they know this was coming? It’s not like he was a friend or a family member. Is that why I had been so calm? Is this how medical professionals feel? Or is it because I deal with high pressure work situations and panicked producers trying to get the news on TV? What will I feel the next time I hear sirens?

The building I live in on the Upper West Side is large and filled with many older people. Emergency vehicles arrive at the front door at least once a month, and I’ve never thought much of it before. It just seemed like a natural, though obviously sad, part of life.

Occasionally a poster noting the death of a longtime neighbour appears in our lobby. Will there be one for him? Will I soon hear construction in my neighbour’s apartment as it moves from rent-controlled to market rate with shiny new appliances and quadrupled rent? Is that how I ended up in my place? There’s so much I haven’t considered before, and suddenly all of it is rushing into my head.

I can’t stop thinking about the man I couldn’t save. The family’s apartment was covered with jazz posters – were they his? What about all of those CDs and vinyls? Is it weird to want to go to the funeral of a man I’ve never spoken to before in the hopes of learning more about him? Did he have a full life? Were there things he was looking forward to that he’ll never get to do?

Another neighbour, a cantor, comes to my door and gives me a long hug. Pressing her palm to my chest she says, “You did good, do you hear me? You did good. You performed a sacred act that’s called a mitzvah. She came to you because she trusted you, just like I did before when I needed help.”

The tears come. I’ve been holding it in, but thanks to my neighbour’s kind words, I am able to drop my guard.

She gives me her keys so I can pet her two kitties while she’s out at dinner. It helps. As I’m petting them, my mind continues to swirl. I hope my neighbour knew in his last moments that he was surrounded by people who cared about him. I hope he felt like he had some dignity. I wonder if he would’ve liked me.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. Is this where the story with my neighbours ends, or is it just the beginning for us? Will I ever learn his name? I’m just the neighbour, I remind myself.

The next day I wake up early. I had a hard time sleeping, and in the middle of the night, a panic attack caused me to imagine that the pillows on my floor were my neighbour. I can’t stop myself from wishing I could have done more. If my doorbell rang twice this morning, I’d already be awake. Maybe I would be quicker today. Maybe it would make a difference. I don’t know. I’ll never know.

Twenty-four hours have elapsed, but it feels like an eternity. My life hasn’t changed at all, but at the same time, I’m not the same person I was yesterday. I’m aware of how many people are waking up at this very moment in my building, in my city, in this country, and how many lives are starting and moving forward and ending around the world. I realise, more than ever before, how interconnected we are – or can be, if we choose to be or are suddenly made to be. It makes me want to pay more attention to everything and everyone around me. It makes me want to tell the people in my life that I love them. It makes me want to spend more time getting to know the people I see every day but rarely interact with.

My phone dings and a text from my neighbour pops up:

I am so thankful. This is a forever life connection with you. Simon was a man of few words but he was the kindest, gentlest person and you would have really liked him. Please feel free to come over.

I’m just the neighbour… at least, I thought I was. But that word means something different – something more – to me now. Perhaps being a neighbour is greater than just the necessity of 8 million people squished together with just 6-inch-thick walls separating them in this city. Could it even be sacred?

I head downstairs to go to work. A neighbour stops me.

“Nathan, you shouldn’t be upset. He was very sick and had been for a long time. They shouldn’t have put that on you.”

Note: Some names and identifying details in this essay have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals mentioned.

Nathan Rousseau Smith is a two-time Emmy, GLAAD, Murrow and Webby-winning producer, video editor and journalist at ABC News. The Florida-native has spent the last 10 years in New York City specialising in reporting on the most talked about cultural zeitgeist moments, minority communities, and the b-side of top headlines. In his spare time, Nathan loves traveling, studying languages and running. Before his career in media, Nathan was a high-level ballet dancer.

This piece was previously published on HuffPost and is being shared again as part of HuffPost Personal’s “Best Of” series.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.

Keir Starmer has slammed the organisers of a major music festival for booking Kanye West.

The rapper, who has sparked anger in the past over his anti-semitic remarks, including voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler, is due to headline Wireless in Finsbury Park, north London, this summer.

Speaking to the Sun on Sunday, Starmer said: “It is deeply concerning that Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism.

“Anti-semitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted clearly and firmly wherever it appears. Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe and secure.”

London mayor Sadiq Khan has also hit out at the festival for booking West – who is also known as Ye.

He said: “We are clear that the past comments and actions of this artist are offensive and wrong, and are simply not reflective of London’s values.

“This was a decision taken by the festival organisers and not one that City Hall is involved in.”

Groups including the Jewish Leadership Council, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism and Board Of Deputies Of British Jews all condemned the booking, with the president of the latter going as far as questioning whether the government should be “blocking” Ye from “entering the country”.

In 2025, Ye’s Australian travel visa was revoked in light of a single he released titled Heil Hilter, which was banned by YouTube, Spotify and Apple, among other music streaming services.

His online store on the platform Shopify had previously been pulled when he began selling a t-shirt emblazoned with a swastika and a slogan alluding to Hitler’s Nazi party.

Earlier this year, he took out a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal to apologise for his past antisemitism, claiming his actions came about at a time in which he’d “lost touch with reality” as a result of his bipolar disorder.

He also maintained that he’s neither a “Nazi” nor an “antisemite” (and, in fact, “loves Jewish people”) and apologised specifically to those within the Black community who feel that he “let them down” with his actions.

Following this, he dismissed the suggestion that this apology was a “PR move” to allow him to return to releasing music and carrying out his numerous businesses.

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

Technically, seagulls are not a bird of prey. But try telling that to the snacking tourists on my nearest beach; they start scanning the skies for chip predators, ducking for cover like voles facing the claws of a kestrel.

Some research has found that no matter what lifestyle they lead, seagulls seem programmed to dive-bomb at boxes of fish and chips.

But a new study might have found a surprising answer: painting eyes on chop boxes.

According to a paper published in Ecology and Evolution, “gulls were slower to approach and less likely to peck a takeaway food box with eye-like stimuli compared to a box without eyes”.

The researchers measured how often herring gulls approached boxes with eyes painted on them with their approach to plain boxes. They were slower to approach the more watchful-seeming containers and pecked them less often.

Overall, the step reduced thefts by as much as 50%. And that reduction remained even after the seagulls had been exposed to takeaway eye boxes multiple times.

Lots of animals are put off by the presence of eye-like markings, the study added.

Previously, the researchers wrote, a similar approach has proven successful in keeping predators from assaulting cattle, preventing birds from gathering in airports, and ensuring seabirds stop foraging near fishing nets.

However, the paper cautioned that responses to the eyes were “highly individual”; not all species of gull may react the same way, and even among herring gulls, about half didn’t seem to care about the change at all.

The University of Exeter has previously found that shouting at seagulls could keep them away from your chips.

And staring at them might work, too (they really don’t seem to like eyes).

Depending on how seriously you take your beachside fish and chips, you could try a painted box, yelling, and intense eye contact trio…

Deep sleep, which should make up about a quarter of your overall sleep, is crucial to feeling rested.

But about a third of adults don’t get enough consistent sleep to enjoy the necessary 120 minutes or so a night.

Speaking to HuffPost UK, psychologist Dr Bijal Chheda of Nos Curare said that’s far from inevitable, however.

She shared seven tips to help train your brain to enjoy deep sleep:

Some research suggests that sleep regularity – going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time – might be a better predictor of mortality than even sleep duration.

“Our circadian rhythm, or natural sleep-wake cycle, functions like a finely tuned clock. By going to bed at drastically different times each day, you’re essentially confusing your system,” Dr Chheda said.

“This interferes with the release of sleep hormones like ‘melatonin’, which rise in the evening and drop in the morning. As a result, you may struggle to fall asleep, wake up frequently at night, or feel groggy even after a full night’s rest.”

This could be especially common among those with ADHD, whose circadian rhythms are more likely to make them night owls.

Once you try to set stricter bedtimes, “It may take a few weeks for your body to adjust, but once it does, you’ll notice falling asleep becomes easier,” Dr Chheda said.

“Caffeine can linger in your system for longer than eight hours, subtly stimulating your brain and central nervous system, even when you don’t feel particularly jittery,” the psychologist said.

“If you find yourself constantly tossing and turning at night, I suggest cutting off caffeine after 2pm to give your body enough time to metabolise it fully. This allows ‘adenosine,’ or the chemical that promotes sleepiness, to do its job without being blocked by any caffeine lingering in your body.”

If you open emails or “doomscroll” in the sheets, you’re likely to “weaken the body’s automatic ‘sleep cue’” when you go to bed to sleep, Dr Chheda warned.

In fact, it might even “rewire your brain to start associating the space with wakefulness rather than rest” – an especially difficult scenario for those with anxiety, she shared, as racing thoughts are likelier to keep them up to begin with,

We sleep better in cooler rooms. Dr Chheda explained, “Cooler temperatures act as a natural trigger for sleep onset. When your core body temperature cools down, it signals to your brain that it’s nighttime, triggering melatonin release and making you drowsy naturally.

“Meanwhile, darkness reinforces this. Light, especially blue light, suppresses the production of sleep hormones, whereas darkness allows your body to fully transition into rest mode. Therefore, maintain a calm, controlled sleep environment by keeping room temperature at night to around 18 to 20°C.”

For me, it’s reading. However you choose to relax, it’s important to do it at roughly the same time before bed.

“Start by incorporating relaxing activities, such as reading or journaling, to help quiet mental clutter that can keep you awake. Add in a few minutes of stretching or breathing exercises to slow your heart rate and reduce stress levels, helping your body shift into rest mode effortlessly,” Dr Chheda told us.

Sleep expert after sleep expert has shared a similar sentiment to Dr Chheda in the past: “blue light emitted by smartphones and tablets suppresses melatonin production, delaying the onset of sleep,” she said.

“Set a bedtime schedule and aim to put your screen away at least an hour before.”

“While sleeping in until noon on the weekends may feel rewarding in the short term, doing this too often can make it harder to fall asleep the following night,” the expert said.

“Waking up at the same hour every day helps regulate your body’s circadian rhythm. A consistent sleep-wake cycle stabilises hormones like cortisol and melatonin, which are responsible for maintaining your internal biological clock.”

I think the clock change made it feel official: spring is finally in full swing.

That means busier backyards, blooming buds, and buzzing bees. But while these are welcome sights for many winter-weary gardeners, they do spell extra work, too.

Here, we thought we’d share some of the jobs to tick off your list this month:

Yes, technically, March was the best time to get the job done. But don’t worry if you’ve been too busy enjoying the (changeable, elusive) sunshine; you can just about get away with the task at the start of this month, too.

We’re all for keeping some, or all, of your garden wild. But if you’ve got some seedlings or small plants growing, it’s important to keep the area beside them weed-free to ensure they’re not crowded out – manually remove them instead of applying weedkiller to reduce any harm to your garden’s ecosystem.

Applying a layer of mulch to freshly weeded patches can prevent them from facing the same issue again. It helps soil to retain moisture, too.

Now’s a great time to get wildflower seeds and hardy annuals in the ground – all the better if they can fill in any gaps in your borders.

You can plant giant sunflowers in a sheltered, sunny spot now, too.

April is a great time to get ahead of any encroaching aphid populations that would otherwise plague your roses. Look at your flowers and manually remove any little insect gatherings you see before they become a real issue.

Re-sow your garden, using a “penguin shuffle” method, or lay down new turf to hide the damage winter may have done to your garden.

The weather has been all over the place recently. Don’t allow “false spring” to take you for a fool: newly-sown plants benefit from cloches or sheets of fleece, especially where frost is predicted.

Ponds are key to a thriving ecosystem in your garden. Plant aquatic plants now, and divide any unruly established ones before they grow further.

These will need feeding from now until about October. Give them a nitrogen-rich citrus summer feed if you can.

Support for Reform UK has slumped with barely a month to go until crucial elections across the country.

In a major blow for Nigel Farage, two new opinion polls suggest the momentum the right-wing party has enjoyed over the last year is stalling.

A survey for pollsters Norstat for the Sunday Times shows that Reform support has fallen by four points to 15% in Scotland, where the party is in a fight with Labour to come second behind the SNP.

Meanwhile, a poll by Lord Ashcroft for the Mail on Sunday suggests Reform has lost its outright lead across the UK for the first time in more than a year.

It puts the party on 21% alongside the Tories and Greens, with Labour trailing on just 17%.

The findings will alarm Reform bosses, who regularly boast about the party’s poll leads.

Voters in Scotland, England and Wales will go to the polls on May 7 in the biggest test of public opinion since the 2024 general election.

Labour is heading for “a total bloodbath”, according to one polling expert, with the Tories also expected to suffer major losses.

Both Reform and the Greens and on course to make major gains as voters drift away from the two main parties.

Nevertheless, the latest polling suggests the scale of the Reform breakthrough may not be as significant as previously thought.

The party has endured a difficult start to the election campaign, with a succession of candidates either quitting or being dumped.

HuffPost UK also revealed last month how the party is being forced to ask people – including a Lib Dem councillor – to be “paper candidates”, suggesting they are struggling to find enough recruits.

Meanwhile, the party was forced to sack its housing spokesman over comments he made about the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Simon Dudley, who had been in the post for less than a month, said “everyone dies in the end” and “fires happen” as he claimed there is now too much regulation in the building industry.

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

There’s no way to predict exactly how long any of us will live or precisely how well we’re ageing, but scientists have created a series of tests they think might give us a rough idea.

It looks, for instance, like the condition of key muscles might be linked to how we’re ageing overall. Your balance and even personality seem to matter, too.

Here are just a few of the science-backed challenges:

A recent study conducted with women aged 63-99 looked at unassisted sit-to-stand chair raises (going from a seated position to standing without leaning on something, as quickly as possible).

Scientists tracked participants’ speed in seconds for five of these raises.

“When it came to chair stands, moving from the slowest time to the fastest time in 6-second increments, researchers saw a 4% lower mortality rate,” the University of Buffalo, whose researchers were involved in the study, said.

A separate 2012 study called the sit-to-stand test a “significant predictor of mortality” among 51-to-80-year-olds.

The same study involving older women found that for every seven extra kilograms of pressure participants could apply to a hand dynamometer in a grip test, they saw a 12% lower mortality risk on average.

It’s far from the only paper to note such a link.

Described by researchers as an “indispensable biomarker for older adults,” weaker grip strength has been linked to an increased likelihood of diabetes, fractures, cognitive decline, depression, and low quality of life.

The amount of time you can stand on one leg serves as a “valid measure of frailty, independence, and fall status and… a useful tool in identifying patients with peripheral neuropathy,” researchers have previously said.

Even if that’s a walk (or hop) in the park for you, the NHS added, you shouldn’t stand on one leg for more than a minute.

“A slow walk is a problem sign decades before old age,” Professor Terrie Moffit, senior author of a 2019 ageing study, told King’s College London. The trait was linked to faster brain and bodily ageing among participants; their lungs, teeth, and immune systems also aged faster.

A “gait speed” or “four metre” test can help you work out where you stack up. For a four metre test, you’ll need a 10m path, with two metres for the person to speed up to their normal pace and two to decelerate; mark it out and get a timer.

Once you pass the acceleration zone and enter the four metres in the centre, time your walk, ending once you enter the deceleration zone. Then, divide the number of seconds it took you to complete the course by the number of metres you walked.

Less than 0.8m/s is considered a low gait speed, according to the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia.

Yes, cholesterol figures and your blood pressure can say a lot about your heart health. But the NHS has created a questionnaire to help you work out the approximate biological age of the organ, too (it’s only suitable for people aged 30-95 without an existing heart condition).

Questions like these were among those asked in a study looking at the link between ageing and curiosity.

Participants were asked how curious they were to hear the answer to the questions; their general curiosity was also assessed.

General curiosity among people who love things like reading broadly and exploring the world – far-reaching, or “trait,” curiosity – “has been shown to relate to better cognitive outcomes,” study author Dr Mary Whatley shared.

But older people tended to have more “state curiosity,” or temporary interest in a specific question or subject, with most people’s trait curiosity declining over time.