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The Relaxation of Regularly Listening to Songs or Drawing Pictures May Actually Slow Cellular Aging, New Research Shows
Key takeaways
- That’s according to a new study published in the journal Innovation in Aging by researchers from the University College of London.
- The researchers measured each participant’s “biological age,” which differs from chronological age.
- For the recent study, Fancourt and her colleagues used data from the Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, an ongoing survey of 40,000 U.K. households that began in 2009.
A museum-goer looks at a Vincent van Gogh painting Thomas Lohnes / Getty Images If you actively listen to music, read a book or look at art at least once per week, you may live longer than those who don’t.
That’s according to a new study published in the journal Innovation in Aging by researchers from the University College of London. The scientists analyzed blood samples and survey data from around 3,500 adults in the United Kingdom, and they found a correlation between arts and cultural engagement and slower epigenetic aging.
“We found in this study that ‘arts engagement’ was related to 4 percent slower aging rates, meaning people were about a year younger, biologically, if they were regularly engaged in the arts,” lead study author Daisy Fancourt, a psychobiologist at the college, tells Morning Edition’s Allison Aubrey. “This is actually the same reduction in biological aging that we saw for physical activity.”