When was the last time you read a book? Was that in college or schools? Does it seem like your book reading days are long gone because all you must be reading today is social media posts. Does it ever feel like you are wasting your time?
I certainly did. I was in that mode of my life when I was frustrated and looking for answers as to what must be my motto in life. It took me few days to understand and eventually after some time I had started reading books. Even reading was like a punishment as it was never my first priority. It was all after few months when I realized some changes after reading books, newspapers and articles as I saw myself a changed person.
I started reading more and more not because I loved reading books but because I wanted to be addicted to them to learn, to grow, to develop skills, and gain all the amazing benefits it can provide and found the results in no time. It made me stronger physically as well mentally.
If you are one of those human beings who still makes excuses to read, let me tell you the 19 amazing benefits that reading books or magazine article can provide.
19 Surprising Benefits of Reading Books For Teens & Adults
Reading is an art and one of the good habits that all of us can have. It can help us in various situations of life. Even the school books that used to be boring helped us in our lives to solve numerous problems and help us grow. Now let’s talk about the benefits of reading books everyday.
1. Reduces Stress
When you start reading a good book, you dwell into the story engaging yourself with the story so much that the immediate worries regarding your work, relationship, and many different issues just slips away from your mind.
According to the researchers of University of Sussex, if a person reads regularly for 6 minutes, it reduces the stress of the reader by about 68% making it much more relaxing than listening to music or drinking tea/coffee.
It really never matters which book you read, if you dwells in the story of the book, you will be able to get away from your everyday worries by exploring the imagination of the author.
2. Entertainment
Books are one of the best sources of entertainment. Most of us choose social media, movies, web series as our primary source of entertainment when gets bored yet books are one of the best entertainers where you read a story and dwells into another world and imagination created by an author.
The more you read, more your vocabulary increases. If you compare a young child with an adult you will find that a young child captures new words at a much faster rate than an adult. This is not because children read dictionaries but they are accustomed to read newer words everyday and grab them immediately even with their unconscious mind.
3. Improves General Knowledge
Reading book makes you interesting as you come across a variety of topics. You will be an all-round human being and will be able to indulge in all kinds of topics.
It makes you an interesting person to talk to with which every person likes to talk and have a lot of things to talk about. I have seen a lot of people who read books regularly and some who never reads at all.
A person with equipped knowledge is always a better person. You may lose your job or money or get into worse circumstances, however knowledge will always remain with you and is the mode to success.
4. Improves Vocabulary
They can be fun as well for a cheap price. In this era, when everyone is looking for good entertainment and that too at low prices, books are one of those best options available.
Then suddenly as you grow adult your vocabulary decreases unless you are an exception. It was all due to the powerful urge among young children to learn new things.
If you recapture that urge to learn, you will again go on increasing your vocabulary at a higher rate and reading is one of the ways to recapture that urge and increase your vocabulary.
5. Tranquility
Other than decreasing stress level of a person, reading books also brings inner peace depending on the topic you are reading. Reading spiritual quotes, texts can help in bringing the blood pressure level down.
Whatever inner peace a person wish to attain, reading certainly has helped a lot of people to achieve that.
6. Improves Conversational Skills
As you read more and more, you get know about more situations, emotions, circumstances, etc. through the stories, plays mentioned in the book by the author.
You get to know about more interesting topics, vocabulary and helps you in starting and indulging in conversation with all kinds of people rather than staying away from the conversations.
7. Improves Sleeping Quality
Most of us can relate to this in this way that when we start reading, we often tend to sleep. It is because of the reason that reading exhausts your brain thus helping in a deep and peaceful sleep unless you are reading on an electronic device.
This is because of the lights emitted from the electronic devices suppress Melatonin in night time whereas reading books is relaxing and also improves your overall sleeping quality.
8. Makes You Empathetic
Empathy means the ability to share and understand the emotions and feelings of others. When you start reading book you become a lot more empathetic as you start feeling the situation, emotions, of others.
For example, if you read the story of a African in America or in South Africa in 1800’s you will surely become more empathetic.
Books open the world to you with different cultures, environment and harsh realities you have not known ever.
9. Improves Writing Skills
As you read you learn different words and the quality of writing of the author, the way author uses the words in his sentences. Reading more and more just gives you the practice in your subconscious mind and thus when you start writing that quality comes into your writing skills as well.
By reading books and magazines you will be focusing on the techniques used by the writers and soundly interact with the feelings, voice and the way they portray their messages to the audience.
10. Increases Imagination and Creativity
When you read something, your mind tend to create an image automatically in your mind.
When you start reading book, the imagination in your mind starts right away as the story goes on. The characters, action going on in the story is created in your mind thus matching your imagination with that of author.
It is not same in case of watching videos as the action, characters and story is all presented to you visually and you do not have to think, which suppresses your imagination and creativity.
11. Brain Exercise
As our body needs exercise to remain healthy and fit, our brain too requires some kind of exercise to be fit and healthy.
Reading books and magazines is one of the best exercises for our brain. It creates imagination, analytical thinking, creativity which are one of the good exercises.
This is not same as watching television because there is a difference between watching something visually and active reading.
While reading books actively, you mind trains itself to focus and concentrate to take the new information.
12. Increases Skills
As you read, you gather knowledge and imparts it in your brain so that it helps you to grow mentally and physically with different kinds of information.
Reading books everyday helps you to increase your vocabulary, writing skills, conversational skills and also imparts a lot of knowledge which might help you in your job, business, etc.
It also makes you fearless in all kinds of situations as you are focused and knows how to deal in every kind of circumstances.
13. Makes You Contagious
Reading makes you contagious in many ways. For example, when you are an avid reader you tend to read in front of any person who is already reading or you tend to make others read when you are reading.
This habit can be extremely useful if are a parent. According to a scholastic report, if you read aloud in front of your kids, your children are more likely to be inspired by you to be a good reader.
Children can become avid readers at a young age which can help them expanding their mind gradually.
14. Makes Relationships Stronger
As most of us may have witnessed that as time passes, the soreness in the relationships grow due to miscommunication or misunderstanding or mistakes or many different reasons.
What if I tell you that reading can help make the bond better?
Because while reading without knowing you were building an emotional person inside you and with good conversation skills you can actually make the conversations interesting making your relation stronger and stronger.
It has been found that reading fiction books can help you out in understanding more about other’s emotions and lends out ideas of important factors required to build a good relationship.
15. Increases Tolerance
Reading books makes you stronger and opens your mindset towards any kind of situation. You tend to like every kind of person, situation even though you hate it in real life. You might get frustrated at first but reading regularly will open your mind for literally everything.
Even if the story starts getting boring, you tolerate that part of story with a hope that it will get interesting.
One of the papers in the Applied Social psychology journal suggested that the young kids who read the Harry potter books improved their views on the stigmatized groups of people such as refugees, gays, and immigrants.
16. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills
You want to increase your analytical thinking skills, reading books is your mantra.
Have you ever read a mystery novel? If no, then you must read at least 5 of them. If yes, then you must have noticed how your mind revolves around the story plot and you yourself try to solve the mystery and see how the story turns out further up in the book.
This imagination improves your analytical thinking skills. The process of analyzing a book and giving a review whether being a critic or a supporter of the plot also helps in the same.
With analytical skills if you ever have an opportunity to discuss a book with others, you will be able to keep your opinions clearly in front of others in terms of characters, storyline, plot, etc.
17. Improves Mental Health
Study suggests that people who gets engaged in active reading and mentally challenging games are much less likely to get Dementia and Alzheimer’s diseases than those people who waste their life on less stimulating activities.
Just like any other muscle that needs exercise to remain fit, brain too requires exercise and playing games such as puzzles, chess, etc. and reading is one of the best exercises as your brain remains active and engaged thus improving you mentally.
Therefore, it is advised to the old people to continue reading to prevent any memory loss and maintain mental health.
18. Improves Memory
When you are reading you have to remember all the plots, backgrounds, actions, roles, etc. that makes up the whole story. As you know reading is a brain’s exercise, it also improves your memory.
While reading, if you don’t remember minute details of the story, reading won’t matter. Thus, reading keeps your memorizing ability in check.
19. Improves Focus & Concentration
As a reader, I can say that focus and concentration are the two important aspects of reading. While reading you needs to focus on each and every single information in the book or you won’t be able to follow anything you’re reading.
As a beginner, it is hard to focus and concentrate on a book to read because of the multi-tasking generation of this era. Examples of our multi-task include chatting while writing an email, checking instagram feeds regularly while studying, etc.
This multi tasking hampers our mind’s productive nature and ends up getting done very little of the work in more time.
Conclusion
There is never a better time to read and you must start reading as we have mentioned numerous benefits of reading everyday. Be a reader and be among those who reaps rewards and answers to their regular problems and inspire others among you to be an avid reader.
The importance of books can never be understated and therefore, most of the successful people are avid readers. Obviously, the benefits of reading are much more than the ones we’ve listed above.
To know and experience them, pick any of the books and start reading.
If you liked this, do look at:
- Difference Between Book & Magazine
- 10 Amazing Novels to Read at Midnight
- Best Vampire Romance Books You Should Read Atleast once
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How Is Reading Books Beneficial in Our Life?
Reading is one of the most essential abilities that we learn in our early times of life. From handbooks to novels, reading forms an integral part of our day-to-day routine. While some might argue that reading is simply a rest exertion, the benefits of reading go far beyond that. Reading helps us to gain knowledge, broaden our perspective, and ameliorate our cognitive abilities.
Reading is an important tool that can help us to develop empathy and emotional intelligence, while also enhancing our critical thinking and problem- working capacities. also, studies have shown that reading can also reduce stress, ameliorate sleep quality, and boost our overall internal health.
In this fast-paced world, where we’re constantly bombarded with information, reading provides us with a important- demanded escape and a chance to decompress. So, if you’re looking for a way to ameliorate your life, pick up a book and start reading!
2. Why is Reading Books Better Than TV?
Reading is a great way to expand your knowledge and understanding of the world. It can help you develop critical thinking abilities and gain perception of different societies, perspectives, and ideas. Compared to watching TV, reading has numerous advantages.
It can help ameliorate your attention and focus, increase your vocabulary, and stimulate creativity. Likewise, books are frequently more engaging than TV programs as they allow compendiums to explore their imaginations in ways that TV can not provide. Reading also allows you to take time down from defenses, which can be salutary for your physical health as well as internal good.
3. Why is Reading Better Than Listening?
Reading and listening are both important ways to pierce information, but they’ve different benefits. Reading allows you to absorb and reuse information at your own pace, while listening can help you more understand the environment of what’s being said. Also, reading can help you retain further information over time than listening alone.
It also allows for deeper analysis and understanding of complex motifs or arguments, which can be delicate than just listening. Eventually, both reading and listening are precious tools for learning new effects and should be used in combination to maximize the benefit.
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