Is Reading Good for You?

Do you ever get it when you are having a rough day and all you want to do is sit down with a good book? Well, this happens to a lot of people, and that got us thinking, why is it that we read to make us feel better? and is reading good for us? In short, the answer is yes and in this blog, we are going to be delving into how. We'll look at the benefits that reading has, not only on your mental health but how it can affect other aspects of your well-being too.

So, without further ado let’s look at how a little bit of reading each day can have big payoffs for your health.

Before we begin, it’s important to note that we are in no way medical professionals, and all the information contained within this blog is the result of internet research and should be treated as such.

Why is Reading Good for You?

From lowering your stress levels to helping you sleep at night, there are many health benefits associated with reading. We all know that books are an essential tool for learning, but what else can picking up a good book do for you? To answer that question, we have scoured the internet to see what we could discover, and here's what we found.

Is Reading Good For Your Mental Health?

Just picking up a book and losing yourself in its pages has been proven to help reduce stress levels and help ease the symptoms of anxiety. According to a 2009 study conducted at the University of Sussex, reading can actually reduce stress by up to 68%, unless of course you’ve just got to the Red Wedding in George R. R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords.

Reading can provide a healthy escape for your brain, temporarily transporting you to another world free of all the pressures and stresses of your day-to-day life. Not only does this process help you escape the stresses of your daily life, but reading could also help promote a healthy mindset and refocus your thoughts.

Like many hobbies, reading lets you forget about your worries, but unlike watching TV, reading encourages you to bring the words to life and build a new world by stimulating your imagination instead of just blasting your brain with brightly coloured images and videos. A quote by bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud touches on this - “With a film or TV show, you’re given the visuals whereas with a novel you’re inventing them yourself, making it a much more of a powerful event because you’re involved,”

Can Reading Improve Memory and Focus?

Reading not only acts as an escape to let your mind relax but it simultaneously exercises the complex circuits and signals in your brain. Whenever you create new experiences and memories, like the ones that you create when you read, new signal networks are forged and old ones are strengthened, which, in turn, helps improve short-term memory and helps you to absorb new information more effectively.

Does Reading Improve Your Physical Health?

It is clear to see that reading has the potential to have a profound impact on your mental health, but let’s stop for a second and talk about the impact that reading can have on your physical health. According to BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy), a study from 2009 showed that reading can lower your heart rate and blood pressure. You could argue that this is simply a knock-on effect of the reduced stress levels but either way, it’s a win.

Can Reading Help You Sleep?

Switching off at the end of a busy day can be hard, and trying to get a good night's sleep while your mind is still busy from the day before can be a challenge. Luckily, reading can help with this – as we touched on earlier, reading can help you achieve clarity of mind, calming your thoughts and giving you a healthy escape to put your mind at rest. Unless of course, you start reading an intense horror, which will more than likely have the opposite effect…

Is Reading Good for Early Development?

As we all know, reading is an integral part of growing up, as children we spend hours in the classroom learning how to read and perfecting the skill over the 12 or so years. Without our education would look very different because not only does reading allow us to take on all the knowledge in order to succeed in later life, but the act of reading itself helps younger minds to develop both brain and memory function. Even after school, when your job takes up the majority of your day, reading can still help you learn new things, maintain brain function, and improve your memory.

To summarise, we think it’s safe to say that reading can have a positive impact on your health both mental and physical. The benefits are clear, whether you are looking for a healthy escape from the stresses of your day-to-day or want to fuel your brain development, picking up a book for an hour or two can have a pretty significant impact. We sincerely hope that this short overview has helped you in your search and if you have any examples of how reading has helped you, let us know on our Instagram page!

If you want to learn more about mindfulness and how you can overcome the obstacles to achieving it, head over to our top 5 books about mindfulness blog. We all know that a good night’s sleep is important for good mental health, that’s why we have collated a list of our favourite books to help you sleep, see it for yourself.