Why You Should Read Every Day

When was the last time you read a book, or a substantial magazine article? Do your daily

reading habits centre around tweets, Facebook updates, or the directions on your instant

oatmeal packet?

If you’re one of countless people who don’t make a habit of reading regularly, you might be

missing out.

Reading has a significant number of benefits, and here’re 10 benefits of reading:

1. Mental Stimulation

Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the progress of (or possibly

even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia, since keeping your brain active and engaged

prevents it from losing power.

Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and

healthy, so the phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly apt when it comes to your mind. Doing

puzzles and playing games such as chess have also been found to be helpful with cognitive

stimulation.

2. Stress Reduction

No matter how much stress you have at school, in your personal relationships, or countless

other issues faced in daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story. A

well-written novel can transport you to other realms, while an engaging article will distract

you and keep you in the present moment, letting tensions drain away and allowing you to

relax.

3. Knowledge

Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it

might come in handy. The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle

any challenge you’ll ever face.

Additionally, here’s a bit of food for thought: should you ever find yourself in dire

circumstances, remember that although you might lose everything else—your job, your

possessions, your money, even your health—knowledge can never be taken from you.

4. Vocabulary Expansion

This goes with the above topic:

The more you read, the more words you gain exposure to, and they’ll inevitably make their

way into your everyday vocabulary.

Being articulate and well-spoken is of great help in any profession and knowing that you can

speak with self-confidence can be an enormous boost to your self-esteem. It could even aid inyour career, as those who are well-read, well-spoken, and knowledgeable on a variety of

topics tend to get promotions more quickly (and more often) than those with smaller

vocabularies and lack of awareness of literature, scientific breakthroughs, and global events.

Reading books is also vital for learning new languages, as non-native speakers gain exposure to

words used in context, which will ameliorate their own speaking and writing fluency.

5. Memory Improvement

When you read a book, you have to remember an assortment of characters, their

backgrounds, ambitions, history, and nuances, as well as the various arcs and sub-plots that

weave their way through every story. That’s a fair bit to remember, but brains are marvellous

things and can remember these things with relative ease.

Amazingly enough, every new memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways)[3] and

strengthens existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall as well as stabilizing

moods.[4] How cool is that?

6. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills

Have you ever read an amazing mystery novel, and solved the mystery yourself before

finishing the book? If so, you were able to put critical and analytical thinking to work by taking

note of all the details provided and sorting them out to determine “whodunnit”.

That same ability to analyse details also comes in handy when it comes to critiquing the plot;

determining whether it was a well-written piece, if the characters were properly developed, if

the storyline ran smoothly, etc.

Should you ever have an opportunity to discuss the book with others, you’ll be able to state

your opinions clearly, as you’ve taken the time to really consider all the aspects involved.

7. Improved Focus and Concentration

In our internet-crazed world, attention is drawn in a million different directions at once as we

multi-task through every day.

In a single 5-minute span, the average person will divide their time between working on a task,

checking email, chatting with a couple of people on social media, keeping an eye on twitter,

monitoring their smartphone, and interacting with others. This type of behaviour causes stress

levels to rise, and lowers our productivity.

When you read a book, all of your attention is focused on the story—the rest of the world just

falls away, and you can immerse yourself in every fine detail you’re absorbing.

Try reading for 15-20 minutes before school and you’ll be surprised at how much more

focused you are once you get to school.

8. Better Writing Skills

This goes hand-in-hand with the expansion of your vocabulary:Exposure to published, well-written work has a noted effect on one’s own writing, as

observing the cadence, fluidity, and writing styles of other authors will invariably influence

your own work.

In the same way that musicians influence one another, and painters use techniques

established by previous masters, so do writers learn how to craft prose by reading the works

of others.

9. Tranquillity

In addition to the relaxation that accompanies reading a good book, it’s possible that the

subject you read about can bring about immense inner peace and tranquillity.

10. Free Entertainment

Though many of us like to buy books so we can annotate them and dog-ear pages for future

reference, they can be quite pricey.

For low-budget entertainment, you can visit your local library and bask in the glory of the

countless tomes available there for free. Libraries have books on every subject imaginable, and

since they rotate their stock and constantly get new books, you’ll never run out of reading

materials.

There’s a reading genre for every literate person on the planet, and whether your tastes lie in

classical literature, poetry, fashion magazines, biographies, religious texts, young adult books,

self-help guides, street lit, or romance novels, there’s something out there to capture your

curiosity and imagination.

Step away from your computer for a little while, crack open a book, and replenish your soul for

a little while.