The Psychological Benefits of Reading

What's the point of reading? I've had a number of my acquaintances ask me as much. I've never had an acquaintance who was an English major ask me (with a serious face), but then again a lot of my better acquaintances are political science or philosophy majors. Go figure. Nonetheless, they ask me, reading is just staring at the words on a page, right? Memorizing little passages and fantasizing about them?

Bzzt. Wrong. There's much more to gain than just memorizing the words on a page. In this article, I'll give you five ways you'll benefit from reading regularly, and this is just a handful of the bigger ones.

Five Good Reasons to Read

1. Increased Focus/Attention Span

Those who read regularly will notice they can hold their focus significantly longer than their TV-junkie pals. This comes in handy when you need to force yourself to read critically or look for a subtle point, somewhere.

2. Bulk Up Your Vocabulary

You'll definitely be a better Scrabble player, that's for sure. Larger vocabularies enable you to understand more complex books/articles/etc., and give you more tools to use in the next point, which is....

3. Write Better

Do you learn more from reading bad fiction or good fiction? I'm on the fence, here, but Francine Prose, a brilliant woman who recently wrote a book titled "Reading Like a Writer," presses the notion that it's more constructive (and inspiring!) to read authors who've done it RIGHT. If you're well-read, you'll gain a lot, either way.

4. Reduce Stress

Ruminating and feeling anxious requires a significant amount of mental effort, believe it or not. It may feel effortless while we're sulking, but in reality a lot of inert energy is being spent. Don't you remember being so frustrated with something that you wore yourself out? Sitting down and reading a novel sucks up this negative energy, instead turning it into something useful.

5. Sharpen the Axe

I'm referring to your mind, here. It's not that "reading makes you smarter," exactly (although many testify that it does), but doing something like reading which requires mental effort gets the brain to work up a sweat. It keeps your mind flexible and in-tune, ready to work harder and easier to start up.

Doesn't at least ONE of these sound nice? Then get to it! Crack open that book and reap all the benefits you can. Even if the amount of reading isn't very intense, try to read on a regular basis. You may find yourself getting more sucked in than you expected, and craving more.