What Are the Benefits of Reading
Reading is very essential to everyone. Benefits of reading stem from simply improving your day to day vocabulary to acquiring knowledge. Whether you are reading newspapers, books, blog posts, online news or magazines, you are exposing yourself to multiple streams of information which in turn shape your perspectives.
Here are a few lists of how reading can benefit you
Increases Knowledge
When you read an article, newspaper, or journals you are exposing yourself to a set of different ideas and perspectives of others. A lot of information that you previously have not been able to have access to are being exposed and consumed. For example, if you read a blog post on how to become a more disciplined person, you will learn about steps or habits that well-disciplined individuals are practicing on a daily basis and it might be an incentive for you to try those methods out and become a more disciplined person.
Similarly, if you read books about trending political issues, you will form well-rounded perspectives and opinions on a particular subject that you are fully informed about enough to make any decision that can affect your life. Reading will let you explore topics in greater depth than television or social media. It provides a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of a certain topic than a brief news from television or social media post.
Reduces Stress
One of the benefits of reading is it reduces stress. Everyday we are bogged down with a lot of activities — both mental and physical. Even if our body is resting, we cannot say the same about our brain. One of the hardest things to control is our thoughts. Not being able to control it can lead you to more stressful thoughts and to a more a depressing mood. Reading can, therefore, be a great way to unwind and put an end to all those ever-running and constantly emerging thoughts and provide an escape from the pressure of daily life. Personally, I do enjoy reading a print book rather than reading on a screen either before I go to bed or when I wake up in the morning.
At night it helps me sleep better since reading books takes away negative thoughts and relaxes my mind before bed. In the morning, it helps me start my day with a mindful and positive thought. How you start your day is just as important as how you end your day. If you start your day right, it will keep you in a good mood throughout the day. At the same time if you end the day right it will help you sleep better and get you ready for another positive morning.
Expands Empathy
Reading helps you develop empathy and understanding of others. Let’s say you are reading a book about Myanmar and you made a friend from Myanmar later that year . Sooner or later rather than questioning some differences in manners, foods, behaviors and habits that your friend displays, you start to look at those behaviors from a different angle and try to understand him/her. Because one of the benefits of reading is that it allows you to emotionally connect with other cultures. You will also gain access to the lives of characters in which you are reading. As we read, we tend to become more emotionally invested in the characters of the book. Therefore, it allows us to relate to the characters more and help us understand others even though we are not experiencing the same things that characters in the book are experiencing.
Boosts Brain Power
This is another benefit of reading that we tend to forget about. Just like our body needs a little bit of exercise, be it running or walking in a park to stay in shape, our brain needs the same level of exercise. That’s when reading comes into play. By reading you are giving a great workout to your memory system, the way you remember things in the books. It could be names of characters in the book, or places where the events occurred, or years when the main character died. The key is that reading gives your brain an activity which is to constantly familiar with facts you are reading. As we grow older, it is inevitable that we are going to experience a decline in memory. And the best way to slow it down or improve it is by reading books regularly.
Expands your vocabulary
It exposes you to a wide range of vocabularies and sentence structures. The more you read, the more you will encounter new words, phrases and the more you appear to widen your choice of vocabulary. It is called “Matthew Effect” from the bible, the more you begin with advantages, the more you accumulate advantages. The opposite also applies to those who did not have any advantages to begin with. The less will get lesser. You will find the significance of this in the early stages of young kids. Kids with wider literacy and reading levels tend to do well at school as they move up school grades.
When you encounter new words and phrases repeatedly, it tends to stay in your memory for a long time. It allows you to understand a sentence or context on a deeper level. There will be a variety of idioms and expressions that you can adopt and utilize when you write or speak. It builds credibility and creativity to your speaking. It will also helps you stand out in a setting where you have to speak to a large crowd.