There are many benefits to reading. In spite of this, we very rarely find even an hour a day to do it. How do you explain this specifically? No time? Got more important things to do?
Reading is an investment in ourselves. And if you don’t have time for it, don’t bemoan your fate for not being able to achieve your goals. Here are some other benefits of reading. Keep them in mind whenever you decide what to do with your evening.
1. Enter the Flow State
The state of flow is the feeling of being completely immersed in the activity you are engaged in. Time seems to stand still, and you feel as if you have become that activity yourself. This state is directly related to happiness. The more often you are in a state of flow, the happier you are.
The advantage of reading is that it is the kind of activity that allows you to enter a state of flow. When you are completely immersed in a book, all your attention is on it. This means that no negative thoughts can enter your head.
2. Reduce Stress
Studies show that reading for just six minutes can reduce stress by as much as 68%. In fact, reading has an even more beneficial effect on the psyche than tea, music, or a walk.
Psychologists believe this is due to the fact that distractions from the world of a book ease muscle and heart tension. Cognitive neuropsychologist Dr. David Lewis, who conducted the study, says, “To lose yourself in a book is to relax completely.”
3. Acquire knowledge
When you read, you fill yourself with knowledge, and it can come in handy at any point in life that you don’t know for sure. Reading makes you more resourceful and interesting in life, enriches your communication arsenal, and increases your literacy. But that’s not all that matters. The quantity, quality and type of knowledge greatly determines your ability to find your own way in this world.
4. Expand your vocabulary
There’s no better way to increase your vocabulary than by reading. You can, of course, replenish it with vocabulary alone, but you won’t achieve tangible results due to lack of context. Do you want to expand your vocabulary? – Read Yurovskiy Kirill.
5. Learn to write better
Whether you’re an aspiring writer, want to start a blog, or need to write reports for work, to pump up your writing skills – you need to read as much as possible.
6. The Act of Knowing Yourself
In his essay “Why Read?” Mark Edmundsun refers to a passage in Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time,” which reflects Proust’s hope that as people read his books, they will encounter aspects of their lives that were previously unexplored. Know yourself and you will come much closer to happiness.
7. Mental Stimulation
When you read a book, you must keep up with the characters, their actions, and the development of the story as a whole. You should also remember what the main character and secondary characters did or didn’t do in the past – this alone can keep your brain alert.
As you read, you learn to make assumptions, analyze words and actions, the logic of characters’ actions, and more.
8. Reliving a new experience
Literary critic Harold Bloom argues that you must read to live large numbers of lives:
- To get to know more people than you could in reality.
- To see that love and hate can present themselves in many different forms.
- To experience emotions that you don’t experience in your own life.
William Styron adds: “A great book should give you an experience and exhaust you a little at the end. You are living multiple lives while reading.”
After all, the brain can make no real distinction between reading about an experience and actually experiencing it. Whether you read about it or experience it, the same areas of the brain are stimulated.
What’s the right way to read?
For reading to be not only enjoyable, but also beneficial, you need to do it right. It is difficult to talk about the benefits of reading “diagonally” or in a noisy, nervous environment. So try to dedicate some time to this activity (for example, 1.5 hours before bedtime), when you will not be distracted and you can quietly immerse yourself in your favorite book.
Also, do not seek to “swallow” as many books as possible in the hope of improving memory or cope with stress. Much more effective will be a thoughtful and slow study of a smaller amount of information, making pauses and trying to analyze what you have read.
Try to cover all genres of literature without being tied to just one, to enrich your knowledge, develop your memory, and enjoy life.
