Reading Books Linked To Longer Life

New Research Links Reading Books with Longer Life

Thu-Huong Ha | August 10, 2016

Sitting for hours has gotten a pretty bad rap of late, and by now most people know that a sedentary lifestyle leads to all sorts of health problems. But new research shows there’s at least one thing you can do during all that time off your feet that’s actually good for you: read a book.
A study published online last month (July 18) in Social Science & Health shows that reading books has a significant relationship to increased lifespan.
A team of public health researchers from Yale University looked at data for 3,635 Americans over age 50 collected from 1992 to 2012. 

"Further, our analyses demonstrated that any level of book reading gave a significantly stronger survival advantage than reading periodicals. This is a novel finding, as previous studies did not compare types of reading material; it indicates that book reading rather than reading in general is driving a survival advantage."

Source: http://bigthink.com/laurie-vazquez/yale-study-people-who-read-live-longer-than-people-who-dont

(Yale Study: People Who Read Live Longer Than Those Who Don’t. August 9, 2016) Source: http://bigthink.com/laurie-vazquez/yale-study-people-who-read-live-longer-than-people-who-dont

In the paper, the academics write that there are two cognitive processes involved in reading books that could create a “survival advantage”. First, reading books promote the “slow, immersive process” of “deep reading”, a cognitive engagement that “occurs as the reader draws connections to other parts of the material, finds applications to the outside world, and asks questions about the content presented”.

“Cognitive engagement may explain why vocabulary, reasoning, concentration, and critical thinking skills are improved by exposure to books,” they write. Second, books “can promote empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence, which are cognitive processes that can lead to greater survival”, they say.

See: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/08/book-up-for-a-longer-life-readers-die-later-study-finds

<more at http://qz.com/754109/new-research-links-reading-books-with-longer-life/; related articles and links: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/read-books-live-longer/?_r=1 (Read Books, Live Longer? August 3, 2016) and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616303689 (A chapter a day: Association of book reading with longevity. Avni Bavishi, Martin D. Slade, and Becca R. Levy. Social Science & Medicine, volume 164, September 2016, Pages 44–48. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.014. [Abstract: Although books can expose people to new people and places, whether books also have health benefits beyond other types of reading materials is not known. This study examined whether those who read books have a survival advantage over those who do not read books and over those who read other types of materials, and if so, whether cognition mediates this book reading effect. The cohort consisted of 3635 participants in the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study who provided information about their reading patterns at baseline. Cox proportional hazards models were based on survival information up to 12 years after baseline. A dose-response survival advantage was found for book reading by tertile (HRT2 = 0.83, p < 0.001, HRT3 = 0.77, p < 0.001), after adjusting for relevant covariates including age, sex, race, education, comorbidities, self-rated health, wealth, marital status, and depression. Book reading contributed to a survival advantage that was significantly greater than that observed for reading newspapers or magazines (tT2 = 90.6, p < 0.001; tT3 = 67.9, p < 0.001). Compared to non-book readers, book readers had a 23-month survival advantage at the point of 80% survival in the unadjusted model. A survival advantage persisted after adjustment for all covariates (HR = .80, p < .01), indicating book readers experienced a 20% reduction in risk of mortality over the 12 years of follow up compared to non-book readers. Cognition mediated the book reading-survival advantage (p = 0.04). These findings suggest that the benefits of reading books include a longer life in which to read them.])>