Why You Should Read Every Day

In a world where information is the new currency, reading is the best source of continuous learning and if you’re one of the 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 to get you to start reading.

1. Reduce Stress: 

It is a proven fact that reading can help reduce stress. Many of us take this simple act for granted because we have so much “required” reading in our daily lives- the Tweets, Facebook updates, news sites, emails, and bills. 

But how often do we read for pleasure? Reading can be a wonderful (and healthy) escape from the stress of everyday life. Simply by opening a book, you allow yourself to be invited into a literary world that distracts you from your daily stressors. A well-written novel can transport you to other realms, while an engaging book will distract you and keep you in the present moment, letting tensions drain away and allowing you to relax. 

2. Mental Exercise:

'Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body’.  Reading puts your brain to work as it involves several brain functions, including visual and auditory processes, phonetic awareness, fluency, comprehension and more. 

Plus, fiction as a social experience makes you emotionally intelligent. Books in general, give us the freedom to roam the expanse of history, space, time, and offer a deeper view of ideas, concepts, emotions and knowledge. To add to that, researches suggest that reading books, writing and participating in brain-stimulating activities at any age may preserve memory. 

3. Natural Sleep Aid: 

As the saying goes, book-lovers never go to bed alone… but that’s not the only reason to read before bed. 

While hardcore bibliophiles who stay all night reading might disagree, there’s no sleep like the one that comes while enveloped in a book. As has been mentioned above, reading is a great workout for your brain and just like how going on a run makes your body feel good, reading makes gives your brain a healthy boost. When your brain is happy, it’s better able to do the things it needs to do to give you a good night’s sleep. Your body needs to wind down before you can get to sleep, so experts recommend you spend the last hour before sleep doing a calming activity — like reading! 

4. Improves your Focus: 

In this digital world that we live in, our attention is drawn in a million different directions at once as we multi-task through every day. In a single 5-minute span, an average person will divide their time between working on a task, checking email, chatting with a couple of people, checking the feeds on Instagram/Facebook, keeping an eye on twitter, monitoring handheld devices, and interacting with people. 

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 your absorbing. 

5. Increases Vocabulary: 

It’s no rocket science- 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 to higher-ups with self-confidence can be an enormous boost to your self-esteem. 

It could even aid in your 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 can ameliorate speaking and writing fluency. 

6. Boosts your Creativity: 

As much as most of us would like to, we can’t all take to the high road/planes and disappear into foreign places for experiences but, we can discover new worlds through reading books. Reading books uses the imagination and this, in turn, develops our creativity. 

We enter the world of the writer and live a different life for a short time, through the characters in the book. The more you are totally absorbed in a book, the more it will stimulate your imagination and help your creativity. Through using your imagination, reading makes you more creative and innovative. 

7. Increases your Knowledge: 

Reading is one of the primary ways to acquire knowledge. 

The knowledge you gain is cumulative and grows exponentially. When you have a strong knowledge base, it’s easier to learn new things and solve new problems. Reading a wide range of books will help expand your general knowledge. Specific knowledge can be acquired by taking a deep-dive on a subject or topic. Filling your mind with new facts, new information, and new ideas will make you a better conversationalist as you’ll always have something interesting to talk about.

8. Improves your Writing Skills: 

Although not all voracious readers are good writers, most good writers are serious readers. 

Reading involves two things, comprehension of the subject matter, and the memory to retain the material read, both of which are components of the learning process. In fact, a lot of studies have even suggested that writing skills improve from reading as a whole, rather than the separate learning of language and grammar. 

9. Decreases the risk of Alzheimer’s: 

Reading books and magazines, writing and participating in other mentally stimulating activities, no matter your age, can help to keep memory and thinking skills intact. There’s growing evidence that mental challenges like reading and doing crossword puzzles may help to preserve brain health and stave off symptoms of memory-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and Dementia. 

10. You become a more interesting person: 

If you have the time and money to travel the world, great! But even if you don’t, you can still learn about different cultures and historical periods by reading everything you can get your hands on. Books, magazines, blogs — expose yourself to as many new stories and ideas as possible. 

Read a lot — it opens up multiple universes, makes you knowledgable and a more interesting person altogether. 

Find books that pique your interest-a romantic paperback, books on personal development, or even a cookbook. Set aside at least 30 minutes to read every day in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted and you’ll be able to witness wonderful changes in your life. ?