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My husband says people who read my books will live longer, so I must be doing something special for them! Wasn’t it sweet of him to share this article with me?
Do Great Readers live longer? by DR. BARBARA GOLDER
The information is announced with great enthusiasm: Readers live longer! For a culture self-obsessed with health and longevity, it’s good news indeed. Here is a magic bullet available to pretty much everyone, at no substantial cost apart from time and with few, if any, noticeable side effects when it comes to the measured outcome of length of days.
In a landmark study, Yale scientists found that readers outlived nonreaders by almost two years. It was a substantial study of over three thousand subjects, and well controlled for the obvious competing variables: age, socioeconomic status, depression, physical health, sex, and race. Moreover, the authors discovered a dose-response: The more one read, the greater the advantage, and books were better than periodicals or newspapers, presumably because their depth and complexity required more sustained attention and more analytical thinking.
There are at least one hundred good reasons to read, and dozens more lists collecting them. Reading those lists, one is struck by the self-interest of most of the reasons. Reading increases one’s knowledge. It reduces stress. It facilitates imagination. It stimulates critical thinking. It forges new neural pathways. It staves off dementia.
Saint Anthony of Padua tells us to search for God
in all things and in all things we will find him.
