Spending 30 minutes a day with a good book may add years to your life, according to a new study. Out of 3,635 people surveyed about their health and reading habits, bookworms were 20 percent less likely to die over the next 12 years—even after researchers controlled for factors such as gender, education, and cognitive ability.
The study, published
in the September issue of Social Science & Medicine, was
conducted by researchers at Yale University who wanted to see how
reading books and periodicals might affect longevity. They noted that
while most sedentary behavior—like watching television—is known
to increase the risk of death, previous studies have found that
reading either reduces that risk or has no effect at all.
That previous
research also combined different types of reading materials, and did
not suggest why, exactly, reading might be beneficial. So the Yale
researchers came up with a new hypothesis: Because books tend to
present themes and characters in greater length and depth, they wrote
in the paper’s introduction, “we speculated that books engage
readers’ minds more than newspapers and magazines, leading to
cognitive benefits that drive the effect of reading on longevity.”
They were right.
When compared with people who read none at all, those who read books
for up to three and a half hours per week were 17 percent less likely
to die over the course of the study. For those who read even more
than that, the reduced risk jumped to 23 percent. (Inspired? Check
out our list of the best new books to read this month.)
People who preferred
periodicals over books also had a slight advantage over non-readers:
They were 11 percent less likely to die, but only if they read for
more than seven hours a week.
The participants
were all over age 50 at the start of the study, and varied widely in
their economic, marital, employment, and education statuses. To help
ensure that reading was responsible for the difference in life spans,
the researchers controlled for many of these factors.
The study authors
also wanted to make sure that book readers weren’t living longer
just because they were smarter to begin with, so they gave
participants cognition tests at the start of the study and three
years later. The survival advantage persisted, even after adjusting
for these results.
It was also clear
that reading had a positive effect on brain power in those first
three years—further suggesting that the survival advantage was due
to the “immersive nature that helps maintain cognitive status,”
the authors wrote.
On average, book
readers lived 23 months longer than non-book readers. And the fact
that the findings held true for all types of book readers—men,
women, rich, poor—means that the results may have broad
implications.
The study, which
began in 2000, did not ask about e-books or audiobooks. It would be
interesting to include these in future research, the authors wrote,
especially since they are more likely to be read in a non-sedentary
manner. Future studies might also compare different genres of books,
or fiction versus non-fiction.
In their conclusion,
the authors point out that adults over 65 spend nearly four and a
half hours a day watching television. Redirecting their leisure time
into reading books may help them live longer, they suggest. And for
those who read mostly newspapers and magazines, switching to
books—even just some of the time—might be worthwhile.
This is a “novel
finding,” they wrote (pun intended), and good news for book lovers
in more ways than one: “The robustness of our findings suggest that
reading books may not only introduce some interesting ideas and
characters, it may also give more years of reading.”