Column: Dr's Casebook" Dr Keith Souter: A Hobby May Add Years to Your Life
Do you have a particular hobby? Well, it is worth cultivating one if you don’t already have one, since research suggests that having a hobby, something that gives you a sense of purpose, adds years to your life.
The word hobby seems to have lost much of its meaning these days, but essentially, if you spend a lot of your spare time at something you enjoy and you are not earning a living from it, that is a hobby.
I recently returned from a week on the Isle of Wight. While there I went to see Farringford, the home of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the Victorian poet laureate. Poetry is a hobby of mine, and a first edition of his poetry take pride of place on the poetry shelf in my bookcase. At Farringford you could listen to him reciting the Charge of the Light Brigade, which he wrote in 1854, and which was recorded by none other than Thomas Edison on his early phonograph. It sounded as if he was underwater wearing a diver’s helmet, but it is the poet himself nonetheless.
Another shelf in my bookcase contains my collection of magic books. I am a member of the British Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, as magic or conjuring has been a another lifelong hobby of mine. Indeed, if I give a talk or a talk or a book reading I tend to pepper it with two or three magic tricks.
Research from collaborative studies by universities here and in the USA looked at the impact of hobbies as a contribution to wellbeing. Wellbeing is a complex subject, but it seems to relate to health. They found that over the eight year study that 30 per cent of the people with the lowest measure of wellbeing died during follow up, compared with less than ten per cent in those in the highest wellbeing group.
They also discovered a definite U-shaped relationship between life satisfaction and age. That is, at the time of the study younger people and older people generally were more satisfied and had better wellbeing than the middle aged. The lowest levels of wellbeing occurred in the 45-54 age group, when there seems little time for self or hobbies.
The thing about having a hobby is that it adds purpose to life and focus, which seems to enhance wellbeing. You could say that at the ages of 45-54 there is plenty of purpose. Yet that purpose may effectively take ‘self’ out of the equation. A hobby may put it back in there.