Love reading? Enjoy a longer life

A study published in the journal Social Science and Medicine showed that people that love to read tend to live longer than those who think “books ain’t for them.”

Almost four thousand over-60s were surveyed by Yale University to find out about reading habits when they stumbled upon the results. The people were split into three groups, those that read a maximum of 3.5 hours a week, those who read more than that, and those that looked at books as if they were decorative door stops. After filtering out variables like gender, age, or wealth the analysts were able to credit reading as the factor that increased a person’s life.

To break down the results, those that read 3.5 hours or more a week were 23% more likely to live longer than those that did. How much longer? How about two more years on average! While books were the primary focus of the study, experts say that magazines and reading on a tablet or kindle also count as long as you are stimulating the mind.

So the next time that someone tells you that you are spending too much time reading tell them it’s for your health! If they are not impressed with the information that’s in this article you can always say that you did your own study with the conclusion “People who read live longer than those who tell them to stop reading.” That might shut them up, and you can get back to your book.

Are you an avid reader? What are you reading at the moment? You might want to join the others at Books at 60 for great book conversation.