10 Benefits of Reading:

Mental Stimulation

Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated could slow down or even prevent Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, as keeping your active brain active helps preventing you from losing brain cells. Like other muscles of the body, you need to exercise the brain to stay healthy and responsive. Therefore, the comment “Use it or lose it”  is particularly appropriate. Also doing puzzles and playing games such as chess and cards have also been found to be helpful with mind stimulation.

Stress Reduction

Whatever your level in business, stress at work in or in your personal relationship or the many other problems that you face in everyday life, reading can help you you to escape. A well-written novel can transport you to other realms, while an engaging article will distract you from your surroundings and let you relax if only for a short while from the rigours of your everyday life and this in turn helps to reduce your stress level.

Knowledge

Everything you read fills your head with new information and you never know when it can be helpful. The more knowledge you have, the better you will be able to cope with all the challenges you have to face and no can take th that away. That is your gift to yourself and remember the saying that knowledge is power an the more knowledgeable you are the more powerful you become.

Expansion Of Vocabulary

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, it could even help you climb the career ladder, 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 Reading books is also vital for learning new languages, as non-native speakers gain exposure to words used in context, which will assist in their own speaking and writing fluency skills.

Memory Improvement

When you read a book, you have to recall an assortment of characters, their backgrounds, history, and how it all fits together as well as the various arcs and sub-plots that wind their way through individual stories. That’s a fair bit to remember, but brains are marvellous things and can remember these things with relative ease. Amazingly enough, every new memory you create forges new cerebral pathways and strengthens existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall and helps by improving the memory function of the brain.

Stronger Analytical Skills

Have you ever read an amazing mystery crime story, and solved the mystery yourself before finishing the book? If so, you were able to put logical and analytical thinking to work by taking note of all the facts provided and sorting them out to determine “whodunnit”. That same ability to analyse details also comes in handy when it comes to critiquing the plot; determining whether it was  well-written . This is also a good skill to develop in your business and your daily life and will determine if you want to read more of the same author’s work.

Improved Focus & Concentration

In our crazy internet driven world, our focus is drawn in a many different directions at once as we multi-task through each and every day. In a single 5-minute span, the average person will divide their time between working on a task, checking email, chatting with a couple of people on the web,, keeping an eye on twitter, monitoring their smartphone, and interacting with co-workers. This behaviour causes stress levels to rise, and decreases our productivity.

When you read a book, all of your attention is focused on the story—the rest of the world simply disappears and you can immerse yourself in every little detail you take in. Many people are now absorbed in reading on their daily commute as it helps them to become more focussed when they arrive at their place of work. Try reading for 15-20 minutes before work it will really help you feel more relaxed.

Better Writing Skills

This goes hand in hand with the expansion of the vocabulary: Exposure to a published and well-written work has a notable effect on his own writing, because observing the speed, fluency, and writing styles of other authors always influences your own. Just as musicians influence each other and the painters use techniques introduced by earlier masters, the authors also learn to produce prose by reading the works of others.

Peace & Tranquility

In addition to the relaxation that accompanies the reading of a good book, it is possible that the subject on which you read can achieve immense calm and inner peace. Reading spiritual texts can lower blood pressure and create an immense sense of calm. It has been shown that reading personal help books helps people with certain health conditions and mild mental illnesses.

Free Entertainment

For low-budget entertainment, you can visit your local library and enjoy the myriad volumes available for free. Libraries have books on every conceivable topic, and with the rotation of their collections and the constant supply of new books, there is always a useful reference section.  Though many of us like to buy books so we can re-read them at our leisure or loan them out to friends and families, especially if the book is well written.

If you live in a region without a local library or if you have mobility issues and can not easily access them, most libraries have their books available in PDF or ePub format so you can read them. in your e-reader, iPad or your computer screen. There are also many online sources that allow you to download free eBooks. So, look for something new to read there is always a good book out there waiting for you and new authors for you to discover.

Author Leona Schumac ©