8 Surprising Benefits of Reading Every Day for Mental Health
Muhammad Anas
Girl reading a book with the smiling face Photo by Irina Leoni on Unsplash
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R.R. Martin
In the to and fro of life, it is very easy to feel like we are lost in a sea of duties. We struggle to finish our work on time, obligations of family follow us all the time, and of course, a daily routine sucks the energy out of us and leaves us exhausted and restless.
That’s when a friend, bless her soul, suggested something unexpected: “Why don’t you give reading a go before you get into bed?” she recommended. “It is an excellent method for helping the tiredness and stress.” Eventually, I concluded that it did not work. Reading? Really?.
I found myself with a question. Is it possible that a novel or fiction book can calm my mind? It wasn’t possible. However, my curiosity wouldn’t let me ignore it.
And guess what? It worked! I found that reading fiction for just 20 minutes before going to bed helped me get in a better mood. It also provided me with great relief from depression and anxiety.
That experience lit a curiosity within me: Did reading really improve my mental health, or was it just a way to mood booster for the moment?
My travel into the science of ‘reading as a cure’ for mental treatment disclosed some wonderful facts. I discovered a lot more than what I started with.
Who’s reading books these days?
Hold on a second! Don’t let the stereotype fool you. Reading is alive and well, and it is not only for nerds in old libraries. E-readers are almost weightless, and audiobooks will no longer keep you from “reading” while you stand in the kitchen preparing a meal or outside running.
Why do so many people still choose to read books in this modern era? Its simple reading is a way out, a moment to relax and even travel to a new place without leaving your room. Also, reading can be a helpful tool for learning new things, increasing your knowledge, and questioning yourself.
Those who love to hold physical books are attracted to their unique experience by the soothing scent of old paper and the absorbing stories that travel people to other worlds.
What happens in your brain when you read?
Now let’s examine neuroscience to see how reading impacts our brains. When you pick up a book, your neurons activate in different parts of the brain like a spectrum of colors, and the various areas that light up like disco balls. The brain networks engage in a complex dance of neural activity, like different musicians in an orchestra playing varied instruments.
Here’s the basic breakdown:
Visual Processing: Your brain is engaged in decoding the letters on the page into words and then into shapes, which in turn impart meaning. The auditory cortex also helps out if you are reading aloud or just trying to read the words in your head.
Language Processing: The left hemisphere quickly gets into action to process words, sentences, and grammar, as well as develop the meaning of a little more detail.
Imagination Station: When you are reading, your mind shapes pictures and scenes after every word, Pretending it’s like a film in your mind. You go through a mental journey of empathy, thus enabling you to feel the characters' emotions and view the world through their eyes.
Memory Lane: The brain keeps drawing on your existing memory and life experiences to make multiple associations with the story. This is a way to gain knowledge of the events, people, and entire setting.
Hence, the next time you read a book, don’t think you are having only fun, you will also be exercising your mind.
What are the secret benefits of reading books?
1. Reading for Stress Reduction and Mood Enhancement:
Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
Think about the end of a hectic work week for instance. Your mind seems like chaos, thoughts swirl like a leaf does in a storm. So, you take a chair, open a book capturing a character and a plot.
Going through one page after another, the whole world dissolves within you. You instantly find yourself in the most exciting, passionate romance or mystery. For a while it does not matter what your worries are, you only care about what is happening around you.
That’s the magic of reading with you. This serves as a mental escape from your daily problems that helps you relax profoundly. This is a bit like packing your brain and heading for a soothing holiday where you can explore exciting prospects (both physical and metaphorical) and recondition yourself for future challenges.
A study by The Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine shows that too much relaxation, such as reading, can lower stress levels and blood pressure.
Research conducted by the University of Sussex revealed the impact of performing a variety of activities, including reading, listening to music, and taking a walk, on stress levels. The participants were found to have calmness restored by 68% only after 6 minutes of reading.
2. Reading for Empathy and Emotional Intelligence:
You may have encountered the expression, “walk in the shoes of someone else,” many times. It is like imagining being in their positions to realize how they feel. When we read, it’s as if we’re entering the worlds of the characters, that are different people. We become part of them, their failures are ours, and their victories burst with pride. It’s a way for you to go into their mind, see things from another perspective and feel their feelings more deeply.
One article reveals the fact that reading emotional short stories encourages emotional expression, leading to a more thorough comprehension of reading material and an increase in emotional intelligence scores in those students who are taught without emotional emphasis.
There was a time when a book made me aware of a point I had never thought of earlier.
I was reading a classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee. I read in Scout Finch’s eyes how it was to experience racial inequality in the American South. My father, dear Atticus Finch, is both a character from the book, and the role model who taught me empathy and the integrity of the truth.
Atticus was assigned to defend Tom Robinson, an innocent black man who was falsely accused. He taught me that one person has the power to overcome one’s prejudices and fight injustice with a human inside, not by weapons.
My worldview was broadened, I discovered something fresh and it encouraged me to analyze my perception of life and the entire world. It is a story of power that tells us about the importance of sympathy and justice in a cruel world.
3. Reading Ignites Motivation and improve Concentration:
Imagine reading as going to the gym for your brain. Through the act of reading, your brain interacts with information and conducts the processes of decoding words and making sense of text.
It is like working out at the gym: Each page turn gives a little FEEL of doing reps, which helps to test your brain abilities and challenge your mental boundaries.
Think of your brain as a stronger muscle the more you work out. This is similar to the way to go with the weights you put muscle mass, challenging your brain, and creative activities, such as reading, formulation of ideas, and developing mental capacity and power.
Whatever textbook you crack up every day, your brain is getting its muscles toned and then setting out to explore beyond its boundaries. As each page you turn, you find that your cognitive muscles grow stronger, your mental focus sharper, and your mental abilities more polished.
According to an article in The American Journal Of Geriatric Psychiatry, reading can slow the deterioration of memory and mental abilities in elderly people.
4. Reading Fuels Creativity and Innovation:
Did you ever hit a creative dead end? Do you have the feeling that you are stuck in a design?
Reading a historical fiction novel that appears in another past may stimulate the imagination for unique design elements. Trying to build a unique marketing slogan? A good biography might show you a compelling and thought-provoking statement or an idea. The possibilities are endless!
Consider traveling through your mind on a journey of infinity. Reading works as your magical navigator, taking you to fascinating worlds, bringing imaginary people to you, and coming up with amazing things and concepts that are unknown to you.
Notice that research published in the journal “Psychology of Aesthetics”, Creativity and Arts revealed that readers who regularly take fiction books display creativity and their imaginative ability at a higher level than those who mostly read non-fiction literature.
Final thoughts:
Read more!! Concentrating on words and stories will calm your mind, leaving your mind ready for a nighttime sleep. So ditch the screens!
Start with about 15–30 minutes a day. Taste every genre with your interest e.g. mysterious thriller, a heart-touching short story, or a deep and thought-provoking biography. You might feel like a lone adventurer in search of a world that exists within a book and end up uncovering the treasure of mental health in the process. Do not forget that fewer and simpler actions mean much too.
So, if you are asking yourself, why not give yourself a chance to read and see how it changes your mind and your mood, do it as soon as possible. Perhaps, for you very first time, you will become astonished at what happened in the book world.
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Posted Apr 29, 2024
The Science Behind Why Reading is Like a Workout for Your Mind
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