I’ve always been a pretty firm believer in physical activity to help boost your mood and keep yourself mentally stable. It’s worked for me for years, and is backed by actual science. But I also know that exercise leading to better mental well being is no big secret, so I started wondering about other ways that I could help myself keep control of my mood and mental health. This lead me to what should have been an unsurprising new discovery: reading and it’s connection with our minds.
When you read books, they can help keep stress away, and that’s not just a matter of escapism either. Books are entertaining, but they’re also very beneficial in keeping your mental health in line, and there’s science ot back it up.
How Reading Improves Brain Function
Neuroscientists have discovered that reading novels can improve your brain function on a variety of levels. The recent study on the brain benefits of reading fiction was conducted at Emory University. The study (link is external) titled, “Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain,” was recently published in the journal Brain Connectivity.
The researchers found that becoming engrossed in a novel enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function. Interestingly, when you read fiction, it was found to improve the reader’s ability to put themselves in another person’s shoes and flex the imagination in a way that is similar to the visualization of a muscle memory in sports.
“People are interested in escape,” says Carol Fitzgerald of the Book Report Network. “In a number of pages, the story will open, evolve and close, and a lot of what’s going on in the world today is not like that. You’ve got this encapsulated escape that you can enjoy.”
Other Reasons Reading Helps
One of the most obvious reasons I can point to is reading and it’s connection to de-stressing. Even when you’re just at home, stress can pile up. Whether it’s financial stress, family stress, or just life getting you down in general. Taking time to read, though, helps you decompress from the troubles of the world. Research at the University of Sussex conducted a study that showed reading was better for destressing than even listening to music, and even beats out a brisk walk on that front.
Reading also helps steel your mind against Alzheimer’s disease. Avid readers who commit an hour a day of reading force their brain into working. And it make sense, as you go through a novel you’re constantly having to remember characters, places, and other things that makes your brain to fire it’s synapses.
And quite possibly the best reason to read, it helps you sleep at night better. We all know that looking at our phones in bed tends to ruin our sleep. Well, reading a book will do the opposite for you. According to the Mayo Clinic, reading a book in bed can help you ease into sleep by making you more calm and restful.
Fiction tends to show more of these benefits than nonfiction, but either one is certainly worth the time to crack open a book and read.
