Benefits of Reading Books: How It Can

Positively Affect Your Life

What exactly do human beings get from reading books? Is it just a matter of
pleasure, or are there benefits beyond enjoyment? The scientific answer is a
resounding “yes.”

Reading books benefits both your physical and mental health, and those benefits can
last a lifetime. They begin in early childhood and continue through the senior years.
Here’s a brief explanation of how reading books can change your brain — and your
body — for the better.

Reading strengthens your brain

A growing body of research indicates that reading literally changes your mind.

Using MRI scans, researchers have confirmed Trusted Source that reading involves a
complex network of circuits and signals in the brain. As your reading ability matures,
those networks also get stronger and more sophisticated.

Brain scans showed that throughout the reading period and for days afterward, brain
connectivity increased, especially in the somatosensory cortex, the part of the brain
that responds to physical sensations like movement and pain.
Why children and parents should read
together:

Reading with your children builds warm and happy associations with books,
increasing the likelihood that kids will find reading enjoyable in the future.

Reading at home boosts school performance later on. It also increases vocabulary,
raises self-esteem, builds good communication skills, and strengthens the prediction
engine that is the human brain.

Increases your ability to empathize

And speaking of sensing pain, researchTrusted Source has shown that people who
read literary fiction — stories that explore the inner lives of characters — show a
heightened ability to understand the feelings and beliefs of others.

Researchers call this ability the “theory of mind,” a set of skills essential for building,
navigating, and maintaining social relationships.

While a single session of reading literary fiction isn’t likely to spark this
feeling, researchTrusted Source shows that long-term fiction readers do tend to have
a better-developed theory of mind.
Builds your vocabulary
Reading researchers as far back as the 1960s have discussed what’s known as “the
Matthew effectTrusted Source,” a term that refers to biblical verse Matthew 13:12:
“Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does
not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

The Matthew effect sums up the idea that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer
— a concept that applies as much to vocabulary as it does to money.

Helps prevent age-related cognitive

decline
The National Institute on Aging Trusted Source recommends reading books and
magazines as a way of keeping your mind engaged as you grow older.

Although research hasn’t proven conclusively that reading books prevents diseases
like Alzheimer’s, studies Trusted Source shows that seniors who read and solve math
problems every day maintain and improve their cognitive functioning.

And the earlier you start, the better. A 2013 study conducted by Rush University
Medical Center found that people who’ve engaged in mentally stimulating activities
all their lives were less likely to develop the plaques, lesions, and tau-protein tangles
found in the brains of people with dementia.
Prepares you for a good night’s rest
Doctors at the Mayo Clinic suggest reading as part of a regular sleep routine.

For best results, you may want to choose a print book rather than reading on a
screen, since the light emitted by your device could keep you awake and lead to
other unwanted health outcomes.

Doctors also recommend that you read somewhere other than your bedroom if you
have trouble falling asleep.

Helps alleviate depression symptoms

British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton once wrote, “Consolation from imaginary things
is not an imaginary consolation.” People with depression often feel isolated and
estranged from everyone else. And that’s a feeling books can sometimes lessen.

Reading fiction can allow you to temporarily escape your own world and become
swept up in the imagined experiences of the characters. And nonfiction self-help
books can teach you strategies that may help you manage symptoms.

That’s why the United Kingdom’s National Health Service has begun Reading Well, a
Books on Prescription program, where medical experts prescribe self-help books
curated by medical experts specifically for certain conditions.
What should you be reading?

If you’re pressed for time, devote a few minutes daily to a blog on a niche topic. If
you’re looking for an escape, fantasy or historical fiction can transport you out of
your own surroundings and into another world altogether.

If you’re on a career fast-track, read nonfiction advice offered by someone who’s

already arrived. Consider it a mentorship you can pick up and put down when it suits
your schedule.

One thing to note: Don’t read solely on a device. Flip through print books, too.

Studies have shown repeatedly that people who read print books score higher on
comprehension tests and remember more of what they read than people who read
the same material in a digital form.

That may be, in part, because people tend to read print more slowly than they read
digital content.

The takeaway
Reading is very, very good for you. Research shows that regular reading:

 improves brain connectivity

 increases your vocabulary and comprehension
 empowers you to empathize with other people
 aids in sleep readiness
 reduces stress
  lowers blood pressure and heart rate
 fights depression symptoms
 prevents cognitive decline as you age
 contributes to a longer life

-- Reasons Why Reading Is Important

1. It improves your creativity and imagination. ...

2. It helps you learn. ...

3. It increases your vocabulary. ...

4. It improves memory. ...

5. It increases your concentration and attention span. ...

6. It improves your writing skills. ...

7. It reduces stress. ...

8. It could extend your life.

We make photos in our minds, even without being

prompted:
Reading books and other materials with vivid imagery is not only fun, it also allows us to
create worlds in our own minds. But did you know that this happens even if you don't
mean it to? Researchers have found that visual imagery is simply automatic. Participants
were able to identify photos of objects faster if they'd just read a sentence that
described the object visually, suggesting that when we read a sentence, we
automatically bring up pictures of objects in our minds.
Reading about experiences is almost the same as living it:
Have your ever felt so connected to a story that it's as if you experienced it in real life?
There's a good reason why: your brain actually believes that you have experienced it.
When we read, the brain does not make a real distinction between reading about an
experience and actually living it. Whether reading or experiencing it, the same
neurological regions are stimulated. Novels are able to enter into our thoughts and
feelings. While you can certainly hop into a VR game at the mall and have a great time, it
seems that reading is the original virtual reality experience, at least for your brain.

New languages can grow your brain:

Want to really give your brain a workout? Pick up a foreign language novel. Researchers
at Lund University in Sweden tested students from the Swedish Armed Forces
Interpreter Academy, where intensive language learning is the norm, and medicine and
cognitive science students at Umea University. Both groups underwent brain scans just
prior to and right after a three-month period of intensive study. Amazingly, the language
students experienced brain growth in both the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex,
with different levels of brain growth according to the amount of effort and learning
students experienced in that period of time.

Story structure encourages our brains to think in

sequence, expanding our attention spans:
Stories have a beginning, middle, and end, and that's a good thing for your brain. With
this structure, our brains are encouraged to think in sequence, linking cause and effect.
The more you read, the more your brain is able to adapt to this line of thinking.
Neuroscientists encourage parents to take this knowledge and use it for children,
reading to kids as much as possible. In doing so, you'll be instilling story structure in
young minds while the brain has more plasticity, and the capacity to expand their
attention span.

Deep reading makes us more empathetic:

It feels great to lose yourself in a book, and doing so can even physically change your
brain. As we let go of the emotional and mental chatter found in the real world, we
enjoy deep reading that allows us to feel what the characters in a story feel. And this in
turn makes us more empathetic to people in real life, becoming more aware and alert to
the lives of others.