Read or die

How is your reading life?

One reading scene stands out from my journeys. This was in the late 90’s and I was in Quito in Ecuador on a Sunday and when I looked out from my hotel window, I saw the locals all dressed up strolling in the city park. Many were huddled over several carts that contained what seemed like books. I was intrigued so I went to the park to see for myself.

The cart turned out to be filled with Latin American novels, including the books of Nobel prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. There was a sign stuck on the cart that says “(amount) to rent a book for the day”. I do not remember the exact amount but I remember being surprised by the nominal value. And the locals, in groups of families, were seated on the grass and park benches, reading. That was one of the highest points of my travels ever and one of the lowest points I have felt comparing it to our own local scene in our own parks.

Those who know for themselves how much of an inner life you can cultivate and explore by reading, especially fiction, need not be given a bullet list of why reading is beneficial.  In fact, those who read know that you do not even read for happiness.

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” Franz Kafka wrote, orienting us to a shattering that should happen when we read. He said we could be perfectly happy even without books so we should not look to books for that. Books should awaken and there is nothing like an axe breaking open the frozen sea of your own insulated life or ignorance.

But for those who do not read fiction, you may be asking yourself:  why should I aggravate my own emotional life with heartaches and tragedies imagined by writers for me? Why can’t I just read real stories in newspapers?

For you, there is a now a scientific reason and it just came out recently. Reading books is linked with longer lives. This book and long life study studied the reading record of over 3,600 people and classified people who, in 12 years, read for more than 3.5 hours a week, those who read for less than that and those who did not read at all. Those who read for over 3.5 hours a week lived significantly longer than the two other groups. The ones who read for less than 3.5 hours a week lived longer than those who did not read at all.

Overall, those who read, lived about two years more than those who did not. The study took into account the variations in the age, sex, race, education, comorbidities, self-rated health, wealth, marital status, and even depression of the participants. This means that they made sure that none of these would eschew affect the results.

What is interesting is that those who read books significantly lived longer than those who read newspapers and magazines. The also inferred that the books more likely were fiction as a 2009 survey in the US revealed that 87% of book readers chose fiction. I think it is possible that the marked significance between the longevity of those who read books and those who read newspapers could be attributed to the deep and prolonged focus required in fiction. In fiction, complex characters are developed unlike straightforward newspaper articles. There are more nuances from fiction than the news.

It is important to realize that the study is not saying that reading books causes people to live longer. It is saying that reading books and having a long life are related. The scientists who did the study think that reading fiction braces up one’s character for survival – learning to navigate a range of situations without having to actually experience them. Through this “bracing” process that books engender within us, we become more adaptive to situations and can deal with a range of challenges which boosts our chances for dying some other day but not now.

Indeed, past studies have shown that reading fiction improves the brain’s connectivity and receptivity to considering someone else’s point of view, even if that “someone” is just a character in the book you are reading. Apparently, our brains get to trick itself that it is actually experiencing something it is not. And now we know that there is longevity value in that.

I used to know a local group of young people who advocated for more readers and more reading by the Filipino public. They will be pleased with the results of this study. The group was called Read or Die. And from this study, yes, indeed. – Rappler.com