Ahh…Autumn in New England. It’s the perfect time of year to fall into the pages of a good story. 

What’s your reading pleasure? Is it a heart-pounding thriller or a poignant romance? A perilous adventure story or a hilarious whodunnit? Maybe you’re one for historical fiction or true crime? 

No matter the genre, stories are a powerful vehicle for transporting you out of real time and into imaginative places and encounters. But there’s more power in reading than just spurring the imagination: Older adults who are avid book readers are doing a lot to support their health—and they may live longer lives as a result! 

Spoiler alert: Don’t miss the book list—featuring dynamic older adult characters, provided at the end of this post!

Book Reading Supports Good Mental and Physical Health

Reading books can enhance both the mental and physical health of older adults in a variety of ways. The benefits presented in the list below come from research that focused on reading books. Magazines and newspapers are a different type of reading experience; while that type of reading has its own benefits, it is not necessarily the same as when reading books. In fact, when comparing people who read books to non-book readers studies show something very interesting:  Book-readers have a 20% lower risk of mortality compared to non-book readers. Essentially, book reading adds years to your life span! Here are some of the other important ways reading supports older adult health:

• Reduces stress. When there’s less stress, your body produces less stress hormones and that has a cascade effect on the entire body. Muscles relax. Tension is released. Heart rate and blood pressure are lower. 
• Promotes a good night’s sleep. Reading within an hour or two of bedtime helps the body settle down and prepare for sleep. Now, you don’t want to be reading on device as screen blue light negatively affects sleep quality. Also, stick with reading something enthralling, which won’t generate worrisome thought. So, keep work-related reading, the daily news, or financial reports off your nighttime reading list.
• Enhances neural activity. Reading helps the brain forge new neural pathways and strengthen existing neural connections. When you are reading, you’re not away of just how highly active your brain is: The brain is building vocabulary, interpreting context, interpreting characters and their relationships, making connections between the storyline and real life, etc. This neural activity produced while reading promotes brain health.
• Protective against cognitive decline. By supporting neuroplasticity, the brain and mind stay healthier that means reading can be protective against brain changes in older adults that lead to cognitive decline.
• Boosts Creativity. Reading is a creative pursuit in itself. It also helps promote your own creativity by way forging new perspective, inspiring new ways to problem solve, or introducing you to a new creative outlet to try. (How often do you read about something before you decide to sign-up for a class or try it out on your own, at home?) 
• Reduces symptoms of mild depression. Reading can promote problem solving, perspective sharing, understanding, and help an individual foster new associations with difficult emotions. As reading helps enhance positive emotions and reduce negative emotions, it has been shown to reduce symptoms of mild depression. 

Reading Books as Therapy: Bibliotherapy

You might have heard from someone, or even stated yourself that reading is therapeutic. Now, there is research to back-up the therapeutic value of book reading. 

Bibliotherapy is a creative arts therapy devoted to helping an adult or child move through challenging emotional and life experiences. Using books, primarily, but also poetry and picture books; fiction and non-fiction alike, bibliotherapy provides therapeutic, educational, and developmental support with the goal to improve wellbeing, both overall, and in specific situations (school, work, home, social situations, etc.). It can be used when people are recovering from illness, surgery, a traumatic event, as well as when learning to cope with changes to emotional or physical health.

Five Types of Bibliotherapy

1. Therapeutic bibliotherapy is used along with psychotherapy and mental health treatment.
2. Developmental bibliotherapy is used in schools, homes, and organizations to teach and guide.
3. Prescriptive bibliotherapy is used in medical and mental health settings to educate, inspire hope, support behavior modification, and help with acquisition of new skills.
4. Creative bibliotherapy is used in groups, such as book clubs or support groups in which literature is discussed for its transformative, educational, or inspirational power.
5. Informal bibliotherapy is what we all do when we choose a book because we believe that reading it will help us learn something new or cope better with a given situation.

You might find yourself engaged in informal bibliotherapy upon learning about a new medical diagnosis, or if you are part of a support group for a loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease, or if you are part of a reading group or other type of interest group in your community.

The benefits of bibliotherapy go beyond the benefits of book reading, in general, including but not limited to: helping to reduce clinical symptoms, improve social functioning, reduce loneliness/isolation, instill hope, foster creativity and problem solving, and support recovery.

Books Featuring Older Adult Characters

Having the opportunity to read books that feature characters similar to ourselves as well as those with life experience different from our own is one of the unique features of the reading experience. We asked a few librarians, and we discovered some terrific online resources, to curate this book list—all featuring older adult protagonists, villains, and sidekicks. 

Happy Reading!

Romance

• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson.

An unlikely friendship—and something more—blossoms between the retired Major, a proper Englishman and Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. But can it survive village gossip and the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?  NY Times Book Review

• Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure, by Courtney Milan

Mrs. Bertrice Martin—a widow, some seventy-three years young—has kept her youthful-ish appearance with the most powerful of home remedies: daily doses of spite, regular baths in man-tears, and refusing to give so much as a single damn about her Terrible Nephew. Then proper, correct Miss Violetta Beauchamps, a sprightly young thing of 96 (ahem, “nine and six”), crashes into her life. When you’re of a certain age, your take on life looks a lot different and Mrs. Martin is going to have the adventure of a lifetime doing things and exploring relationships on her own terms. Author’s Website

Comedic

• The League of Pensioners (series), by Catharina Ingelman Sundberg

In this series, Oceans 8 meets The Golden Girls! The Senior League—five residents of the Diamond Retirement Home—Martha, The Genius, The Rake, Christina and Anna-Greta—turn to a life of crime. You’ll be laughing all the way to the end as you follow this cracker-jack gals through three books in the series. Learn More

Suspense

• Before She was Helen, by Caroline B. Cooney 

As the story in this book opens, there’s a retirement-community caper in process. A missing neighbor. A shiny, mysterious object left in place. A photograph that goes viral and an identity long kept hidden faces risk of being exposed. And the dead body pops-up eventually. Things are not always as they seem, and this story quickly evolves into a deceptively dark mystery.
More at Foreward Indie Book Reviews

Horror

• Ghost Story, by Peter Straub

Written by one of the masters of the genre, this gothic-horror tale centers around a single question asked by the four elderly men of the Chowder Society: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” The question drives the men as they meet to share intensely chilling ghost stories and consume expensive cocktails. But are these stories more than fiction? A chain of mysterious events and death hangs over the Chowder Society. But whose to blame for the suicides and “accidental” deaths that surround them…is something sinister at work? Or is the past finally catching up with the men of the Chowder Society? More books like this at Nightfire 

Mystery

• An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good, by Helene Tursten

There’s no other way to describe this book of connected stories than to repeat what Kirkus Reviews wrote: “Five connected stories about a murderous old Swedish lady.” Each tale of main character, 88-year old Maud’s misdeeds (murder, even!) doles out a dose of “senior justice”. 

• The Senior Sleuths (series), by Laurien Berenson

Dick and Dora Zimmerman from are sixty-something crime solvers, specially those of the murderous type. You know, like when a dead body body turns up in an ice box with a note that says, "contents rotten." The Zimmermans are lovable characters with the time, money, wit, and "chutzpa” to get involved despite warnings from police and criminals to stay away. There’s a cast of characters-- residents of the condos where the Zimmermans live in Manhattan and Vegas, who all to eagerly seek Dick and Dora's help whenever foul-play is suspected. *adapted from the author’s website)

Resources for Finding Books with Older Adult Characters

We were impressed that across these lists there were very few duplicate books, So if you haven’t found a book you love among our resources, be sure to talk to the staff at Everbrook Senior Living Community about their book resources, book clubs, and special interest groups.

25 Books with Older Adult Protagonists. This list encompasses books written by authors from various backgrounds and featuring different cultural settings, storylines, and genres. You’re bound to find a few to suit your interest.

Midlife BookList on Facebook. Books that show what makes older adults get fired-up, ticked-off, and maintain their sest for life. These books (and there are a lot) reveal the many perspectives that seniors have on the second half of life—their hopes, fears and challenges, and all of it is weaved into a wide variety of storylines, settings, and dilemmas. From humorous to horrific, from all-to-close to real life to purely fantastical, there is something for everyone in this book list. 

Must Read Books Featuring Mature Characters. This list features heroes and heroines having incredible adventures that will make you want to celebrate and empathize with them as you reflect on your own life’s journey. From feisty senior ladies and gents to salty old dogs and timeless romantics…there’s a character in these stories for everyone to love!

Learn More about the Health Benefits of Reading

Reading for Stress Relief

Why Reading Books Makes You a Better Person, According to Science. Inc Magazine 

Benefits of Reading Books: How It Can Positively Affect Your Life 

When you were a kid, did you have a hobby? Whether you collected stamps, dolls, or comic books, repaired bikes or dabbled in model cars, you can probably recall your hobby ‘getting you in the zone’. Being so fully immersed in what you were doing that it was hard to break away to even eat dinner. When your former hobby comes to mind, it may bring up feelings of joy, satisfaction, and accomplishment. No matter your age, the positive feelings that arise from being engaged in a hobby contribute to emotional and physical well-being. Even if you haven’t had a hobby for many years, it’s never too late to find a new hobby and experience the health benefits.

Hobbies are a simple yet profound way to support an older adult’s health and happiness. A hobby can provide an outlet for creativity, an intellectual challenge, pure fun, and social engagement. When engaged in a hobby, we are immersed in a state of pleasure and detachment from the drama of daily life.

Some of the ways hobbies contribute to an older adult’s well-being include:

• Boost feelings of personal accomplishment, which supports self-esteem
• Foster connections with others, which reduces loneliness
• Reduce stress by providing an outlet for creativity and emotional management
• Mental engagement, which protects brain health
• Lower risk for depression and anxiety
• Contributes to meaning & satisfaction in life

4 Tips for Finding a New Hobby in Older Adulthood

Now that you know hobbies are good for your health—what if you haven’t engaged in a hobby in a while—where do you begin? There are some very simple ways older adults can discover a new hobby. Before we tell you how to find a new hobby, let’s talk about your mindset with starting something new: The key is to not be afraid to experiment or to try new things. Step outside your comfort zone. For example, if you tend to be a homebody, consider a book club to get you out of your home and engaged with new people who share a common interest. Additionally, keep an open mind. Don’t give up after one try—remember that a hobby should be about the process, not the outcome or product (that would make a hobby feel like work!) Finally, don’t put pressure on yourself; give yourself permission to fail, and to start over again. Give it the good ole "college try" before you walk away from a hobby that just doesn’t feel like a good fit for you.

1. Consider the feeling or experience you’re missing in your life. Ask yourself how you want to feel when engaged in your new hobby. Is it a sense of calm, exhilaration, curiosity, mental engagement, or social connection? A combination? Identifying your needs particularly emotional needs, can point you toward your next hobby.
2. Start with simple steps, slowly taken. If you’re on budget, as most older adults, don’t jump into the deep end with a new hobby. If you’ve always wanted to learn to oil paint, don’t invest in the most expensive set of brushes and paints. Take a class where you can use materials, learn about products, and be sure it’s something you really like and can have fun with.
3. Keep a hobby interest list. This can be an index card posted on your fridge or a notebook you carry with you—where you can jot down things that are interesting to you, that you want to learn. Maybe you read an article about
   keeping bonsai trees and add that to your list. Every month check your list—what still interesting to you on that list? Why did you put bonsai tree on that list? Does it still resonate with you? If so, is now a good time to learn what’s involved? Then get started researching online or...
4. Talk to your local librarian. Librarians aren’t just a wealth of knowledge about books. They can help you research new hobbies—from books to online resources to local classes. A librarian can help you take those first small steps on the path to a new hobby.

If you happen to live in an older adult community such as Everbrook Senior Living—or if you are thinking of moving to such a community—you’ll be glad to know there are many resources available to help you discover a new hobby in later life. From board game clubs to yoga classes, art studio to music or film appreciation... you’ll be amazed at the opportunities offered by a senior living community. And, as a bonus, if you’re already proficient with a particular hobby then make sharing your skill your next hobby! Many senior living communities love to have a resident volunteer to introduce and teach a skill to other residents with the same interest.

Are you looking for a senior living community with a robust social community, wellness program, and affordable luxury? Come visit Everbrook Senior Living to see all that we offer—and the sense of belonging our residents experience as they live, play, and thrive in our older adult communities across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

Resources

National Institutes of Health: Participate in Activities You Enjoy As You Age

Penn State University, “Social Trends”: How Hobbies Boosty Your Health