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Humans have been reading novels for more than a thousand years, with the first novel being written in Japan in the 11th century. Modern readers can either pick up a traditional paperback or read a book on their tablets and other devices. However you choose to read, it’s important that you regularly take time out to take advantage of the health and intellectual benefits of reading. The habit of reading regularly is one that you should form as early as possible, with the benefits of reading in childhood already widely acknowledged. Here’s everything you need to know about the benefits of reading, and how reading regularly can transform your life:
Why Read for Pleasure?
Reading for pleasure is a wonderful hobby and will bring a myriad of benefits. Some of these may seem obvious, such as improving your vocabulary, whilst others are less obvious, such as growing your empathy for others. So why should you read for pleasure? Here are just some of the wonderful reasons to do so:
- Expand your vocabulary. The more you read, the more new words that you will be exposed to. Reading can help to grow your vocabulary to an impressive extent. Aside from learning how to use new words in context, there are many benefits to having a large vocabulary. Individuals with large vocabularies tend to perform better in professional and academic environments. You’ll also have increased self-confidence when surrounded by other individuals with a large vocabulary.
- Readers are happier. Perhaps one of the most important benefits of enjoying the escapism of reading is that individuals who read regularly tend to be happier people. Studies have shown that regular readers show fewer symptoms of depression, have higher levels of lifelong well-being, and they also have increased levels of understanding and empathy too. In short, reading can help make you a happier and more well-rounded person.
- Improved social benefits. The main social benefit of reading for pleasure is that it makes readers feel more connected to their wider community. Reading increases a person’s understanding of their own identity, and their own place in the world, and also improves empathy and gives them an insight into the world view of others. Another social benefit is that reading can actually be a more social activity than you might think: from joining a book group or library to talking about your favourite books with others, you will find that it is a hobby that gives you a lot of opportunities to be social.
- Greater Academic Achievement. Children who read daily score higher in academic testing and examination than students who do not read for pleasure. Whilst reading in school is also important, it is actually the reading that children do outside of the school environment that is a big predictor of their long-term academic performance. This is a great reason to ensure that children are encouraged to read daily from an early age and read to daily before they are able to read independently, during their early years of development.
- Increased imagination. Reading fiction written by others often inspires readers to create fiction of their own. This is because reading increases imagination, opening a world of alternate possibilities. You will read about places, lifestyles, and adventures outside of your own reality, and being exposed to other lifestyles in this way can be incredibly powerful.
The Health Benefits of Reading
The hobby of reading may not be as physically active as other popular hobbies, such as playing football or marathon running, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still have many benefits to your physical health. Some of the most significant health benefits of reading include:
- Reduced stress levels. The results of a 2009 study found that reading could reduce stress levels in just the same way as yoga does. The study assessed the stress levels of students in demanding health science programs in the United States and found that reading for 30 minutes lowered blood pressure, heart rate, and feelings of psychological distress in just the same way as practising yoga for the same period of time. According to the authors of this study, “Since time constraints are one of the most frequently cited reasons for high-stress levels reported by health science students, 30 minutes of one of these techniques can be easily incorporated into their schedule without diverting a large amount of time from their studies.”
- Improved sleep quality. If patients present to their primary physician with trouble sleeping at night, then they are often advised to incorporate reading into their night-time routine. Whilst e-readers are considered just as beneficial in most cases, if you want to read to improve the quality of your sleep then a hard copy book will be much better for this purpose. You should also try reading somewhere other than your bedroom if your primary goal is to help you to fall asleep.
- Reduce depression symptoms. Reading is the ultimate form of escapism. If your life is stressful or difficult, or you are experiencing symptoms of depression, then you can disappear inside a book and leave the real world behind. People with depression often feel isolated and estranged from everyone else, which is a feeling that books can sometimes lessen. Whether you relate to the characters you are reading about or are simply enmeshed in finding out how their story ends, you can become swept up in your imagination and leave the real world behind. What’s more, nonfiction self-help books can teach you strategies that may help you manage symptoms, which can be incredibly beneficial in helping you to help yourself alongside the support of a chosen medical professional.
- Help you live longer. Who doesn’t want to live forever? Whilst only the good die young, reading could help you to improve your natural longevity. A long-term health study focusing on 3,635 retirees found that those who read books survived around 2 years longer than those who either didn’t read or who read magazines and other forms of media. The overarching result of the study was that individuals who read for at least three and a half hours a week were 23% more likely to live longer than those who didn’t ever read, showing the clear power of slowing down and picking up a book.
The Intellectual Benefits of Reading
Reading regularly is a great way to stimulate your brain and increase your mental activity. According to several well-regarded studies, reading regularly can help to slow down mental disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. This is because reading is a great way to exercise your brain that is accessible to everyone. Reading helps you to relax and allows you to engage in an activity that is good for stress levels and brain health. This means that whilst reading cannot reverse dementia or Alzheimer’s, it will put you in a better position to slow cognitive ageing, and perhaps prevent you from developing these conditions in the first place. Regular reading allows your brain to retain its capacity and power.
Your brain should be viewed in just the same way as any other part of your body and exercised regularly. If you don’t exercise your brain, then it will become lazy and sluggish in the same way your body would if you avoided physical activity. Reading is an incredibly beneficial form of intellectual activity and a great way of exercising your brain. Other forms of cognitive stimulation that can be valuable include playing games such as chess or solving puzzles such as sudoku or crossword puzzles, but you should view reading as your brain’s primary form of exercise. When you read a novel, you are forced to remember key plot points, the names of the characters within the story, and other elements of the story such as locations and personality traits.
Your brain is not a box with limited capacity: Instead, your brain is an incredibly powerful muscle that will grow the more that you use it. Your brain is designed to retain a huge amount of information, and every new memory that you form will enable your brain to create new brain pathways or synapses, making it stronger. Reading and learning new information will also help with your short-term memory, and recall skills, and will also help to stabilise your mood. There is incredible evidence of the impact that reading can have on your synapses. One 2013 study utilised functional MRI scans to measure the impact that reading a novel would have on the brain in real-time. Participants in the study read the novel “Pompeii” over a period of 9 days. As tension built in the story, with new characters and plot points emerging, more and more areas of the brain lit up with activity. The brains of the participants were scanned throughout the study and for days afterwards. These scans showed that, even after the reading period was complete and the novel was finished, brain connectivity increased, especially in the somatosensory cortex, the part of the brain that responds to physical sensations like movement and pain.
How to Start Reading More
If you’re convinced of the health benefits of reading but are not a regular reader, then here are some top tips to help you to start reading more:
- It doesn’t matter what you read. You can read anything that you get your hands on, or that interests you. There is a misconception that reading the classics will be more intellectually stimulating than reading science fiction or romance novels. This isn’t true: the best thing you can do is read something you enjoy, as this will ensure you’re more likely to keep reading. And the brain-boosting benefits of reading are universal across genres.
- Always carry a book. You don’t have to sit down and read for hours on end: many people lead busy lives and simply don’t have time for that! But by always carrying a book with you, you can fit reading into relatively small pockets of time. Reading on the bus or train to work, whilst waiting to see the dentist, or even whilst sitting on the loo will all help you to build your reading habit. And you don’t even have to carry a physical book with you if you find them inconvenient: downloading a book onto your smartphone, tablet, or other reading device will ensure you always have access to a book. This will be much better for your mental and physical health than scrolling through your social media feed in your pockets of downtime.
- Form a reading habit. Like any other habit, reading is easier when you do it every day. Schedule reading into your daily routine, even if this is only for five or ten minutes a day, and stick to this routine: by doing this, reading will become a habit. Something that you will naturally do every day. It is easy to form a reading habit if you commute, but even setting a timer and reading for a few minutes before you get out of bed, or before you go to sleep, will help you to remain focused on incorporating reading into your life.
- Create a reading list. Have you seen a film you loved that you know was a book first? Are there classics you’d like to try reading? Or a new release you saw a poster for on the bus? Keeping a mental or physical list of books you’d like to read will help to motivate you to keep reading. Sharing this list with friends and family will also help to keep you accountable, and may even encourage them to form healthy reading habits too. Perhaps you could read your favourite books together?
- Stop reading when the book gets good. This may sound counterintuitive, but if you’re reading a book that’s got you hooked and you can’t wait to get to the next page then put your book down. If you stop reading when your book gets good then you’re more likely to want to pick up your book and read again the next day. In fact, this is a great way to build the habit of reading regularly. Much like your favourite TV series, don’t binge-watch every episode, and spread each episode (or chapter) over a week or two.
- Create a reading-friendly environment. Finally, if the first thing you do when you get in from work is switch the TV on or play music then this is likely to deter a positive reading environment. Instead, you should make your reading environment free from distractions. In the summer this might mean taking a book out into the garden and in the winter, it could mean snuggling up with a book in bed.
