Study: Reading May Extend Lifespan

That reading is good for your brain has been known for a long time, but a new study shows that picking up a book regularly could lengthen your life.

Writing in the journal Social Science and Medicine,\r\nresearchers from Yale University said it doesn’t really matter what you read,\r\nas long as you read. The longer, the better.

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Researchers reached their conclusions by looking at data\r\nfrom 3,635 health survey participants. They were broken down into three groups\r\n— those reading up to three-and-a-half hours per week, those who read more, and\r\nthose who didn’t read at all.

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After factoring in age, gender, education and economic\r\nstatus, they found that readers lived two years longer than non-readers.

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Furthermore, they found that those who read up to 3.5 hours\r\nwere 17 percent less likely to die over the next dozen years, with those\r\nreading longer than that were 23 percent less likely to die.

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