12 Important Benefits Of Reading Books

Books are an essential part of an individual’s life. The habit of reading a book is a must to obtain many benefits coupled with it. Before we talk about the importance of reading a book, let us first know a brief of the chronology of books and how reading began.

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History of Books

Chronologically, a book was not actually a book in ancient times. The content was written on rocks, precious stones or on leaves. Later, when some developments took place, paper production started. The paper made was of a cheap quality as it was made through mulberry, fibers and other waste materials. It was treated as heaven in disguise. The people who were reading the pieces of writing of leaves and stones now started to read them written on paper. Other artisans used rag fibers to produce paper to make books as it was more easy to fetch for rag fibers at that time.

But then came an important development in the history of books. The mechanization of paper manufacturing was invented. People in 11th century developed the paper mill factory. This helped in producing huge amounts of paper for writing and producing books. As these were producing massive amounts of paper for use, the traditional method of producing paper through extensive work through handicraft method was replaced. But these books were produced like rolls which are known as codex. Later, by the medieval period when these paper mill factories came into play, the books were no more produced like rolls but they were produced like collection of sheets. In this way, books of today’s world emerged. To know more about it, click here. A better insight can be taken through this video given below

History of Reading

Now let us know a small brief history of how reading came into play. It is believed that in 4th Millennium BCE, people started to draw visual representations to communicate. As a coupled gift people started to read as well. Later, in 2600 BCE, people start to read from the scripts. Earlier when reading was discovered, it was read loudly as there were many illiterates. With gradual developments, people started to include punctuation marks while reading. As times passed by, people shifted from reading loudly in their villages and Olympics to reading silently in every place of the world. To know more about it, click here. To have a better insight of the history of reading, click on this video.

Now that we know brief history of reading and books, let us jump directly to the importance of books. The further article will talk about all the benefits that you obtain by reading books regularly. Let us start. Continue reading till the end to know a bonus point!

Importance of Reading Books

Improved Brain Strength

It is proved that reading books can increase your brain strength. This means that people can voluntarily make their brains function more effectively. As the reader continues to read it through the suspense, the brain of the reader undergoes a process of immense thinking. The more it thinks, the more areas of the brain come into action to assist the action. This, in turn, puts many parts of the brain into the process and this increases the strength of the brain.

Just as we know, our brain is a collection of many circuits, signals through neurons. Each and every neuron connected by tip to tip form a circuit among themselves and pass signals about a thought to our brain. A research conducted by 7 people from California proved that reading books is directly related to the strength of neurons and their networks. It said that if a person is more into reading, then there are stronger networks and circuits formed in their brain. It also stated the fact that with continuous reading, the parietal lobe of a person functions better as its connectivity increases at a great percent. To read more about it, click here.

Reading Books and Better Analytical Power

Reading books helps to connect the analytical side of the brain. Reading any genre book typically activates the analytical side of your brain. Also, brain analyses the content you are reading and also look for the future predictions.

For example – if person A is reading a suspense thriller novel. His mind does process what he is reading but analyses the future prediction. What would happen next? What evidences he might collect? Drawing conclusions from the previous events read. Such things happen while reading. It improves a person’s analytical power and it helps further in life.

Enhanced Focus

We all know that focus is the most lacked thing these days among individuals. Things such as advertisements, movies, music and phones distract our focus.
But books are one such thing that can help regain your concentration back to its place. Since reading books requires more than usual concentration, it quickly helps in restoring your focus on things. One study showed that there is a strong correlation between reading skills and that individual’s ability to stick their attention.

Since we are talking about reading and focus, another point is important to mention. Reading with focus makes your brain behave in a different manner. A study was conducted by researchers at Stanford University where they took MRI scans of the minds of the people who were engaged in reading books. The people reading were all PhD students. They were asked to read a book of a particular author in two different manners. First was the pleasure reading while the latter was the close reading. Close reading was as if they were reading for an exam.

They took the MRI scans during the two types of reading. The neuroscientists found out that brain responds and functions differently for varied types of reading. While the participants were pleasure reading, the blood flow in the brain increased in different areas of the brain. In the closer reading, the blood flow indicated that it was more than just learn and play. To know more about it, see here.

Unlimited Knowledge by Reading Books

Whenever you watch the interviews of the people who are greatly successful and are known for their best contributions in the contemporary world, the common phrase among all of them is ” I read books”. Reading books gives a deeper insight into the world of knowledge. Reading books can provide you with what any ordinary video cannot. It is of no relevance to what you read and how you read. When you start reading daily, your mind adapts to it accordingly. Even if you read something which is not of much use to you, it would be useful somewhere in your life. The information will be held by your mind and thus prevent you from situations of not knowing anything about a topic. Even if you are reading a novel, it contains certain useful information in between where the authors usually informally explain about their own experiences.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go.

Whenever you watch the interviews of the people who are greatly successful and are known for their best contributions in the contemporary world, the common phrase among all of them is ” I read books”. When you start reading daily, your mind adapts to it accordingly. Even if you read something which is not of much use to you, it would be useful somewhere in your life. The information will be held by your mind and thus prevent you from situations of not knowing anything about a topic. Even if you are reading a novel, it contains certain useful information in between where the authors usually informally explain about their own experiences.

Enriched Vocabulary

As we all know reading is a process where brain involves in multiple functions. Typically every book has certain amount of words which an individual would not be aware of. When the individual reads such words, it creates a curiosity in his/her mind to know the meaning of the word. Another explanation to this can be, that the person would not be able to comprehend the successive lines if he does not understand the previous ones. So, due to these two reasons, a person searches the meaning of that word.

As said before, once you develop daily reading habits, your mind is trained accordingly to retain the information and thus, reading the meaning of the word once would be enough. In this way, the vocabulary gets enriched.

To explain the effect of reading on vocabulary growth, researchers conducted a study in which Matthew’s effect was also involved. Before knowing the effect, let us first understand what Matthew’s effect is. In the educational sense, it is based on the principle of “rich gets richer and poor gets poorer.” It simply means that the person who reads more gains knowledge in abundance whereas the person who reads less gets no knowledge. For example – when a student “B” fails in an exam, he develops a disliking towards reading and thus reads less compared to the other students on average. As a result, the other students will have more knowledge than “B”. To know more about it, click here.

Now let us understand the case study. Researchers conducted a word reading test on students from different grades. The multilevel modeling study proved the Matthew effect right. The students with above average reading habit had better vocabulary than the students having below average reading habit. To look into this study, click here.

More Memory by Reading Books

By now, we know that a lot of circuits and network functioning is involved in reading. The Story and Science of the Reading Brain involve a thought “Typically when you read, you have more time to think. Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language – when you watch a movie or listen to a tape, you don’t press pause.” To look into it, click here. These complete lines indicate that when you read a book, your mind undergoes a process that involves intensive thinking. With every line, you get more time to think about those lines and comprehend them. By reading, you get better insights into a topic rather than a movie or a tape.

Reading compels you to connect to the narrator and imagine. All this activities taking place in your brain at the same time helps in boosting your memory power.

Better Communication Skills

Communication is one of the main skills required for an individual to acquire a good position at the job in his life. It plays an important role in an individual’s personal life as well. This is because the way an individual communicates solves most of the problems in their life. It increases the mutual understanding between people and meeting of minds can happen among individuals which is a healthy sign.

The Morning Consult for Cengage conducted a research study in which they surveyed more than 650 employers and 1500 currently studying and former college students. The survey analysis revealed that soft skills are the most demanded skills among all the skills by the employers. The percentage was above sixty five percentage. To know more about it, check here.

Reading books affects a person’s communication skills in a very efficient manner. For better communication skills, a person must have a good way of putting their opinions. It does not matter whether your opinions are the same as that of the other individual but it is important that the person must know the way of conveying their opinions in front of others. Reading books daily introduces the person to a world of different opinions and thought processes and also specifies the way to convey it. This way the individual can form their own opinions and also learn how to place them among people.

Empathy From Reading Books

Books are always an escape for people from the real world into a world full of emotions. As we all know that empathy means putting yourself into the shoes of the person suffering pain or problem and sharing the misery. Reading books can help you connect to other people in a more easier way. The best read is when you can totally understand and feel what the narrator is going through. There are many books, especially fiction, that talk about emotions. Involving yourself completely into that book will help you get closer to the narrator and his life experience and connect better. In turn, it increases your ability to understand others better than the rest in a sad situation and connect and empathize better with them. Two research studies can be considered important when talking about the relationship between reading and empathy.

Research Studies

Oatley and his other fellow mates conducted a survey to study the strong relationship between reading fiction and increasing power to empathize. Three types of tests were made in this study. In the first one, the participants were supposed to choose the fiction author names. The more authors they chose, the more they read and know about fiction books. The second test involved an individual’s different dimensions of empathizing, which was known as Interpersonal Relative Index. The third test was to understand the thoughts and emotions of other people by just looking into their eyes. The result was that the people who read more, were able to empathize more with people. To know more about it, click here.

Several studies have shown that literature has a greater impact on our interpersonal relationships than other forms of books. In a 2013 paper published in Science, for example, researchers randomly assigned people to read literary fiction, genre fiction, non-fiction, or nothing at all. The researchers next used “Theory of Mind” exams to see how much the participants had improved. The theory of mind, which is linked to empathy, refers to our ability to recognize that other people have views and desires that differ from our own. The empathy tests improved the greatest for those who were assigned to read literary fiction. People who were given the option of reading nonfiction, popular genre fiction, or nothing at all did not receive a bump in their ratings. To look into the details, see here.

Might Help Fight Alzheimer

Reading keeps your brain active as it activates analyzing parts of brain. It was found in a research study that people who read books or solve arithmetic problems are less likely to develop cognitive problems than people who do not read do such activities. To know more about it, see here.

Those people who engage in reading or do activities that include brain activity are 2.5 times likely to cognitive problems later than compared to people who don’t put their brain into activity. The paper makes an attempt to make the audience understand that giving sufficient exercise to brain prevents it from going inactive which in turn prevents Alzheimer disease. To look into it, check here.

Reading – a Stressbuster

Reading any books is recognized as a stress buster by many researchers. It has been scientifically proven that reading brings down the stress levels of an individual. Engrossing yourself completely in a good book will help you rise above your stress.

One study conducted in 2009 compared the reduction of stress levels when an individual is involved in yoga, humour or reading a book, especially for students. The survey gave out the results that reading a book for 30 minutes is equally effective as doing yoga or listening to humour. It lowered the blood pressure, heart rate and psychological distressing feelings. To look more into it, click here.

Another research was conducted by Sussex University trying to find the link between reading and reduction of stress. It was found that a six-minute reading session can reduce stress levels by as much as sixty-eight per cent. It was also found that it relieves muscle tension. To know more, check here.

Reading Puts you to Sleep

Reading a book at night sends signals to your brain that it is time to wrap up the day and rest. It helps you to get a good sleep as well. See here to know more about it. It is recommended to read a actual printed book than a softcopy or screen based book. Screen light makes your body to stay awake for longer time and drains your energy more than other activities. It may also cause other problems like eyesight issues. Thus, a real book is recommended to read before sleeping.

Chances of Depression are Less

Thomas Warton once said, ” An hour spent reading is one stolen from paradise.” British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton once said, “Consolation from imaginary things is not an imaginary consolation.” Depression is not an ordinary problem as people understand it to be. It is a serious problem which really needs to be addressed. Even though it is a common mental disorder yet it is dangerous enough to take away one’s life. According to studies, it is estimated that globally 3.8% percent suffer from it. 5.0% of adults and 5.7% of adults above 60 years of age are affected by depression. Even when there are effective treatments to depression, estimated 68 -75% of people residing in low and middle income countries go for no treatment. To know more about it, click here.

Reading books can alleviate depression to a certain extent. Depressed people can find their listeners and motivators in books. Fictitious books can give an escape to those people from the world. This would give a sense of relief to them. Whereas reading self-help books or motivational books help people to relieve their stress and motivate them to rise above the depression.

FAQS

Question 1: How to start reading?

The first step to start reading is to make a reading routine. If you are a person who does not take much interest in reading books, then start by making a reading routine of 15 minutes per day which is the recommended must read time. Once you manage well with 15 minutes and build interest in it, you can increase the time by your choice.

Question 2: What to read as a beginner?

There is no such restriction to read a particular type of genre as a beginner. Whichever genre builds your interest better, pick it up! But as a matter of fact, people usually recommend to choose suspense or mystery novels as they keep their readers glued to the story which encourages them to read more.

Question 3: Which book is more recommended, Hardcopy or Softcopy?

It is usually recommended to read a hardcopy of a book. This is because apart from building up your interest more, it also helps you to comprehend better. The flipping of pages helps your brain in creating a deep understanding of the context of the book whereas softcopy can be easy carry but sticking your eyes all the time to the screen might cause strain and irritation to the eyes.

Question 4: What are some books to read as a beginner?

Here is a list of books you can start reading with:

• The Hound of Baskerville by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• Silence in the Library by Katharine Schellman
• The Girl Who Knew Too Much by Vikrant Khanna
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Bonus Point

Since you made it to the end of the blog, we have an interesting fact about reading books for you! It is a bonus point for you reader! Reading is Contagious! A report from Scholastic found out that reading out loud to your children in their elementary level of schooling might boost their interest in reading and inspire them to read more! Here is a list of some of the best children books ever written-

https://learn.podium.school/books-and-movies/