Can Reading Improve Your Health?
Why we should read more to live a longer and happier life.
A great opening line can grab you and draw you into a story.
Like this one:
❝In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.❞ ༺༻ The Hobbit (1937), J.R.R. Tolkien
Or this:
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson (1971)
Or this:
❝All this happened, more or less.❞ Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
We know that a great book can entertain us, take us on a journey and build empathy with the protagonists. But is reading one thing we can all be doing to improve our mental and physical health? Does it matter what you read, when you read it or how long for? Is reading a magazine, blog post, or article the equivalent of reading a novel?
The fact is that multiple studies have shown what many have known for a long time. Reading is good for your well-being. In particular, it has been shown that reading fiction (or narrative nonfiction) provides the greatest benefits and leads to longer and healthier lives by creating new neural pathways and improving connectivity. Reading has even been shown to protect against dementia.
So what is it that stops people from reading more? It may seem like a chore especially when there are so many other distractions at home. But if we are able to switch of the TV put down the phone and resist checking that e-mail we may open up surprising benefits.
A recent Stanford University, the survey found that reading Jane Austen for 30 minutes a day participants’ concentration and increased the blood flow across the brain, and reading fiction has been shown to light up those areas of the brain normally associated with taste, sound, sights, and smells as the reader imagins the settings in which they are immersed.
Reading has also been shown to improve mental health coming out top in a survey to investigate which activities have the greatest effect on mental well-being. Well above other self-care strategies such as taking a walk or having a hot bath.
Studies in China and Taiwan have shown that reading can have a positive impact on depression, effects that are seen up to 3 years after the initial study. The reason for this is that reading generates empathy and experiences outside our own situation which in turn mitigates their anxiety and depression.
And it’s not just mental health but physical health that benefits. A study from Yale University showed that readers on average live an extra 23 months compared to non-readers and studies involving children with chronic illnesses have shown that those that read or are read actually suffered less pain than those that did not.
The benefits are clear. So how can we find more time in our busy lives to read?
Simple, find a book, settle back and enjoy all of the benefits that come with being immersed in a good story.
Dan writes regular pieces for Medium. Make sure to follow him right here. He lives in the City of Worcester, England with his wife and family and is writing and thinking about science, ecology, and teaching.
