What would you do to live longer? Perhaps eat healthier food, exercise more and cut back on bad habits? Now you might want to add another task to this list: reading books.
A study by Yale University researchers, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, concluded that people who read books regularly live an average 23 months longer than those who don’t. And the more you read, the greater your life expectancy.
Why or how that’s the case remains unclear, but the findings fall in line with an earlier research pointing out that joining a book club can keep a person healthy.
Thanks to the Year of Reading initiative, a lot of people in the UAE are picking up books. And it's not just their physical lifespans that may benefit. As Game of Thrones author George RR Martin has noted, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies ... The man who never reads lives only one."