When was the last time you read a book or a substantial journal article? Are your daily reading habits centered around tweets, Facebook and Instagram updates or just the instructions for that ready meal?
If you are one of the many people who have not (yet) made a habit of reading regularly, you are missing out on quite a bit.
Reading books is not only good for filling your head with knowledge, but it also makes your brain better, more active, and brings a significant number of benefits.
You can of course take extra fish oil supplements or eat a lot of turmeric. You can invest in a language class, puzzle books, or exercise for a few hours a week. There are numerous methods to improve your memory and cognitive functioning with brain training exercises. But one of the cheapest, easiest, and most proven ways to improve your brain is right in front of you: READ.
The fact that reading is good for your brain is not surprising - there is a reason why parents are often busy distracting their children from their devices and convincing them to get a good book. But there are amazingly more benefits to the ways such ordinary activity can improve your brain in so many ways. We list the 10 benefits of reading to encourage and get you started reading more.
Knowledge
Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to take on any challenge you may face.
Plus, here's a little food for thought: Should you ever find yourself in dire circumstances, remember that while you could lose everything else - your job, your assets, your money, even your health - your knowledge can never be taken from you .
Expansion of your vocabulary
In addition to the above, the more you read, the more words you get to know, which will inevitably find their way into the use of your everyday vocabulary.
Being articulate is a great help in any profession, and knowing that you can confidently talk to all types of educated or uneducated people can be a huge boost to your self-esteem. It can even help in you careeras those who are well-read, can speak well and are knowledgeable about a variety of topics tend to get promotions faster (and more often) than those with smaller vocabulary and lack of knowledge of literature, scientific knowledge and knows about global events.
Reading books is also vital for learning new languages because when you read in a non-native language you will be exposed words used in context, which will improve your own speaking and writing skills in that language.
Better writing skills
This goes hand in hand with the expansion of your vocabulary:
Exposure to published, well-written work has a remarkable effect on one's own writing, as observing the cadence, fluency, and writing styles of other authors will always affect your own work.
In the same way that musicians influence each other and painters use techniques developed by previous masters, writers learn to make prose by reading the works of others.
Stronger analytical thinking skills
Have you ever read an amazing mystery novel and solved the mystery yourself before finishing the book? If so, you could put your critical and analytical thinking to work by taking note of all the details provided and then already thinking about the outcome of the book.
That same ability to analyze details also comes in handy when it comes to criticizing the plot; determine whether it was a well-written piece, whether the characters were well developed, whether the storyline went smoothly, etc.
Reading helps the brain to work harder and better
The most basic impact occurs in the area related to language reception, the left temporal cortex. Processing written material - from the letters to the words to the sentences to the stories themselves - grabs the attention of the neurons as they begin relaying all that information. This also happens when we process spoken language, but the nature of reading actually encourages the brain to work harder and better.
“Typically, when you read, you have more time to think. Reading gives you a unique pause button for understanding and insight. In general, with spoken language - if you watch a movie or listen to a band - you don't have to press the pause button. ” , says Maryanne Wolf
And the benefits of reading continue long after you put down that great book. A study from 2013, showed that some of those benefits associated with reading lasted for as long as five days. This is also called a shadow activity, almost like the memory of a muscle.
Reading energizes the brain
Okay, of course, it's not surprising that the language part of the brain is trained by reading. But reading also energizes the region responsible for locomotion, the central sulcus. That's because the brain is a very exuberant actor. When it reads about a physical activity, the neurons that control that activity also get busy. Your brain has a vivid empathy, which increases activity in multiple areas of your brain.
Reduction of stress
No matter how stressful you have at work, in your personal relationships or because of countless other problems in daily life, it disappears like snow in the sun when you lose yourself in a great book. A well-written novel can take you to other worlds, while an engaging article distracts and keeps you in the present moment, allows tensions and stress to flow away and allows you to simply relax for a while.
Improved focus and concentration
In our internet-swept world, attention is drawn in a million different directions at once as we try to multi-task every day.
In the space of 5 minutes, the average person divides their time between working on a task, checking email, chatting with a few people (via WhatsApp, Skype, Instagram, etc.), checking Twitter, monitoring their smartphone, and interact with colleagues. This type of ADHD-like behavior causes the stress rises and our productivity decreases.
When you're reading a book, all your attention is on the story - the rest of the world just falls away for a moment and you can immerse yourself in every detail that you take in in that moment.
Improving your memory
Reading a book requires you to remember an assortment of characters, their backgrounds, ambitions, history and nuances, as well as the various plot changes and subplots that make their way through each story. That's quite a bit to remember, but brains are great things and can remember these things relatively easily.
Amazingly, any new memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways) and strengthens the existing one, helping to recall short-term memory and stabilize moods. Handy, right?
Not all reading is the same
It is important to note that not all reading is created equal. Preliminary findings from a series of experiments conducted at Stanford University indicate that literary reading in particular gives your brain a workout. MRI scans of people deep in a simple novel did show an increase in blood flowing to parts of the brain that control both cognitive and executive function - but this is compared to the limited effects seen in participants casually flipping through a paragraph in a bookstore.
Reading with dyslexia
If you (or someone you know) has trouble reading or even has dyslexia, you can still reap the benefits of reading. In an earlier study, researchers found that 100 hours of corrective reading lessons improved brain white matter quality in children between the ages of 8 and 10 who were below average readers. White matter refers to the tissue that carries signals between areas of gray matter. This is where the processing of information takes place. The researchers' conclusion: These children's brains began to rewire itself in ways that could benefit the entire brain, not just the reading-focused temporal cortex.
The effects of reading on a screen
The ability to read accurately is something that has value.
In the book “Reader, Come Home”, the writer concludes that even in someone who reads for her work, it is noticeable that reading information on screens makes it harder for us to focus on the written word in books. One of the disadvantages of our beautiful information age.
“Unfortunately, this form of screen reading is rarely continuous, sustainable or with complete concentration,” she writes. That creates a vicious circle. Without the constant exercise of our reading 'muscles', the brain loses its ability to control the complex processes that allow us to keep reading deeply.
There is, of course, an obvious solution. Turn off your phone and computer more often, limit blue light (especially before going to sleep) and make time for it - just by reading a book. Need help with focusing? Try this one brainfoods to help your brain concentrate better.
Sources including Brightside (link), Lifehack (link), Neuron (link), Penguin (link), TheHealthy (link)
