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    Modern fathers spend an average of six and a half hours a week playing with their children. A study said this equals 338 hours a year, or just over 14 days, three whole days more fun time than their own fathers spent with them.

    The report said modern parents are ''adventurous”, as many encourage their children to play outside. A third of parents also prefer family trips which encourage children to learn new skills, and most say that having fun together improves family ties. The study said the lack of time that today's parents shared with their own dads encouraged them to be more active with their children.

    Dr. Amanda Gummer, psychologist and founder of Fundamentally Children, a company which provides advice on child development, said being adventurous helps children. She said, “Being adventurous from an early age helps children develop important skills that will last throughout childhood and set them up for a healthy and successful adulthood.”

    Outdoor activities are a popular choice for dads and their children, with 40 percent choosing nature trails and 26 percent looking for wildlife, while 13 percent say their top outdoor activity is climbing trees. The simple things are the most popular, with 46 percent going to the park and 41 percent choosing to kick a ball around their children.

    Dr Gummer said, “Children are able to challenge themselves by being more adventurous, and they can be safe in the knowledge that their dad will be there to help if things start getting out of control. Parents can help encourage their children's adventurous, outdoor spirit with wildlife treasure hunts and adventure playgrounds. They can even do more exciting things, like going on camping trips.

    Icelanders have a beautiful tradition of giving books to each other on Christmas Eve and then spending the night reading. This custom is so deeply rooted in the culture that it is the reason for Christmas Book Flood, when the majority of books in Iceland are sold between September and December in preparation for Christmas giving.

    “Books get attention here.” says Baldur Bjarnason, a researcher who has written about the Icelandic book industry.

    The small Nordic island, with a population of only 329,000 people, is extraordinarily literary（文学的）. They love to read and write. According to a BBC article, “The country has more writers, more books published and more books read, per head, than anywhere else in the world... One in 10 Icelanders will publish a book.”

    It seems there is more value placed on physical, paper books than in North America, where e-books have grown in popularity. One bookstore manager said, “The book in Iceland is such an enormous gift —you give a physical book. You don't give e-books here” The book industry is driven by the majority of people buying several books each year, rather than the North American pattern of a few people buying lots of books.

    It sounds like a wonderful tradition, perfect for a winter evening. It is something that I would love to incorporate（吸收）into my own family's celebration of Christmas.

    In 2012 my wife and I decided to open our bookstore in spite of unfavorable situations. The challenges facing small bookstores were-and remain-significant. Apart from the obvious rise in online selling, the increase in the popularity of e-books has negatively affected independent providers.

    The question is why a new, small-scale（小规模的）provide would voluntarily enter such a challenging market? From a personal view, our reasoning was sound: we wanted to share our love of great books and reading for pleasure with as many like-minded people as possible.

    Having done our homework, one thing became clear. In order for us to succeed, we would have to offer something that none of our larger competitors already provided. And so we started the Willoughby Book Club. We set up our website in the summer of 2012, and we haven't looked back.

    The idea of service is simple. We offer a range of book subscription gift packages, available in three-month, six-month and 12-month options. Our customers choose a package, tell us a little about the person they're buying it for, and we use this information to send the receiver a hand-picked, gift-wrapped book once a month. We also recently decided to give one new book to Book Aid International for every gift subscription sold. These books are sent out to sub-Saharan Africa, supporting the educational work there. Within four months of starting out, we won the Young Bookseller of the Year Award at the 2013 Bookseller awards.

    Our brief journey from new booksellers to award receivers has been challenging and rewarding. The biggest thing we've learned is that, despite the pressures facing independent providers, there is a place for them in the UK market. It's just a question of finding it.

    Exercise is known to benefit people's mental health, but scientists recently discovered that too much exercise may have a negative effect on it.

    The researchers studied about 1.2 million people in the United States in 2013, 2015 and 2017. The participants, on average, experienced 3, 4 days of poor mental health each month. Those who did exercise experienced 1, 5 fewer days of poor mental health per month, compared to those who didn't exercise at all. The team found that people who exercised for 30 to 60 minutes three to five times a week had the best mental health, but those who exercised for more than three hours had worse mental health than those who didn't exercise at all.

    The scientists think that people who exercise so much may experience poorer mental health because that much exercise can be a sign of obsessive (强迫症患者) behaviors that have been associated with poor emotional and psychological outcomes. However, the only mental health disorder that the researchers looked at was depression.

    Among those who had been diagnosed with depression, people who did exercise experienced 3.75 fewer negative mental health days than those who did not, showing an ever greater difference, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 7, 6 percent of people in the U.S. age 12 and over have depression. While all types of exercise appeared to help with mental health, cycling, gym-based exercise and team sports were the most beneficial.

    The team also looked at more specific factors, like education. People with a college education reported 17.8 percent fewer days of poor mental health than those without that level education Additionally, people in a healthy BMI (体重指数) range reported a 4 percent reduction in poor mental health days thin those whose BMIs were high. Even salary was a factor: compared to people with bower salaries, those with higher salaries experienced a 17 percent reduction in poor mental health days.

    The study showed that exercise can help with mental health, but that in some cases, limiting it may be necessary.

    All of us spend a large part of our lives at home — eating, sleeping, relaxing and communicating with our family members. Our home is a shelter for us, away from the noisy, busy, and polluted world outside — a place where we can let down our hair and dress casually. Eco­friendliness (环保) is a hot word today and we all know we should make our environment as eco­friendly as possible. This is not only good for our health, but also good for the outward environment. Here are some easy and helpful tips to make your home eco­friendly.

    Kitchen

    Plan the kitchen to be bright and airy so that you don't have to turn on the lights at daytime. Don't make wasteful use of the gas. Keep all ingredients for cooking ready before lighting the gas. Turn it to low when not required — always using it on "high" burns a lot of gas.

    Indoor plants

    Plants are extremely eco­friendly and can be used to make your home look lively. Apart from adding life to home, they give out O_2, thus making the air inside fresh. You can keep plants in your home, but be sure to show them some sunlight regularly. Also, if they are kept outside, clean their leaves with a wet cloth, as dust may be added to them. A home decorated (装饰) with plants looks attractive. Plants are a natural home decorating gift that shows concern about the environment. A green plant is a wonderful gift which will protect the earth and is sure to be appreciated.

    Saving water

    Most of the time, we take water for granted — we keep water running while brushing our teeth or washing clothes. Needless to say, this is a huge waste of natural resources (资源). Try to recycle water. For example, the water used for washing vegetables can be used for watering plants; the soapy water used for washing clothes can be used to clean the bathroom and kitchen.

    People who like travelling have their reasons. They believe that travelling can help them expand their field of view, especially in the geographical and historical sense. They also think that touring will give them more chances to enjoy different kinds of food and experience new things that would never be brought by other activities. But those who dislike travelling also have some reasons.

    Travelling, in my opinion, does more good than harm. Most importantly, it broadens our mind. We can get in touch with other civilizations, cultures, customs and ideas.

Through history, most people travelled because of necessity (必要性)—not for pleasure. People travelled just in order to remain alive. They searched for food to eat or places to live in. They sometimes ran away from enemies. This is not to say that no one ever travelled just for the fun of it. In ancient times, for example, rich Romans travelled all the way to Greece to take part in the Olympic Games, and festivals. Of course, some people decided to travel just out of curiosity (好奇心). They wanted to find out what it looked like beyond the horizon (地平线). Also business travel has been going on for centuries. Traders could not only make money but also learn to speak several languages and be introduced to different cultures.

    So, travelling does enrich our mind and draw new ideas to us. There is no doubt that we can get much from it.