A group of researchers conducted a study to find out whether or not reading books could help with boosting longevity. The results were recently published in the Social Science & Medicine journal; the article is called “A Chapter a Day: Association of Book Reading With Longevity.”
The scientists collected data from a pool of 3,635 people (all of whom were over the age of 50). Each of the subjects were put into one of three groups: non-readers, readers who read books for up to 3.5 hours every week, and readers who read books for more than 3.5 hours on a weekly basis.
Here’s more from The New York Times: “Compared with those who did not read books, those who read for up to three and a half hours a week were 17 percent less likely to die over 12 years of follow-up, and those who read more than that were 23 percent less likely to die. Book readers lived an average of almost two years longer than those who did not read at all. They found a similar association among those who read newspapers and periodicals, but it was weaker.” (via The Huffington Post)