People now-a-days tend to skim and scan. It’s easy to go a whole day or longer only having read one-liners here-and-there. A tweet, an update, a meme with less than ten words. We don’t tend to learn anything in depth any more. A whole paragraph seems like it will take too much time to read.
Occasionally we might watch a video or television show for thirty to sixty minutes. But learning from videos doesn’t have the same stimulating effect on our brain that reading does. Reading activates our brain.
1. Exercise. What jogging is to the body, reading is to the mind. An active brain can possibly prevent Alzheimer’s and Dementia as you age. Your brain is a muscle that needs to be stimulated.
2. Expands the Imagination. Reading inputs new ideas into your mind and those new ideas can spawn other ideas of your own.
3. Enhances focus. We often are doing more than one thing at a time—working, checking email, texting, etc. With a book, you can step away from our world of intense multi-tasking and just concentrate on one thing.
4. Improves knowledge and increases your vocabulary. This helps you with writing and public speaking. You must really know a subject before you can tell others about different subjects.
5. Books allow you to learn at your own pace. You don’t have to try and keep with the teacher. You can start and stop as much as it takes for you to absorb the information.
6. Teaches the art of living. Biographies of real life people can give you a new perspective.
7. Helps to fight bias and prejudice. You can step inside of someone’s head that is different than you.
8. Stress relief. A story can take you temporarily away from your present worries and transport you into another world where your tensions fade, and you can relax.
9. Improves discipline. Concentrating on the written word helps you with persistence and concentration.
10. Inexpensive entertainment. One story can entertain you for many hours—a lot more hours than a movie.
Reading…Try it…You just might love it!
I am old fashioned, I love reading since I was a kid. Now as an adult I want to write books and share my insights, inspirations and experience of my life journey so far.