If you enjoy reading a great book, I have some good news – it’s a wonderful workout for your brain, especially if you prefer fiction.
Any regular reading has a wide range of brain boosting benefits and they kick in from an early age.
Children who regularly read books from a young age develop and display extensive vocabularies and tend to carry this through their adult life.
This can increase their academic success and result in life chances when it comes to their employability due to a wider skill set and ability to communicate.
A good imagination combined with quality vocabulary tends to make us better speakers, able to construct more complex sentences which can be handy in a job interview.
If we start young, we are much more likely to carry on reading as adults and although this can continue to fuel our vocabulary and knowledge base, we also benefit from some under-appreciated attributes.
This is especially true when we read fiction or biographies as the brain gets a global workout.
Researchers have found that when we read fiction there is an increase in blood flow
across the entire brain as we become immersed in the setting, characters, sounds, smells and feelings described.
As we try to imagine these different aspects of the story, we activate the many parts of our brain that would process these experiences in real life.
Words such as ‘vanilla’, ‘smoke’ or ‘soap’ will cause a response in the language processing part of the brain and in the areas concerned with smell.
Reading works of fiction can also improve our inter-personal skills, as the parts of the brain we use to comprehend a good story overlap with areas we use to understand other people.
This allows us to create better models of real people in terms of understanding what they may think, feel or do.
Essentially, we can become more empathetic.
Research also points to the fact reading can be a great source of escapism for those suffering with long-term health conditions such as anxiety, depression or chronic pain.
Many of these conditions focus our attention inwardly so a good story can take us away from that mindset to a place where we are truly absorbed in another world.
This can also reduce cognitive decline as we age, improving memory function and enhancing sleep patterns.
Sleep researchers have proven we tend to get to sleep much faster and suffer less fragmentation when we read a book before bedtime as opposed to a kindle or other device with a screen.
It’s also less expensive if you drop a book in the bath.
It also appears the tactile nature of a paper book improves our mental workout when compared to an e-reader or audio book.
We also tend to remember much more about the plot of a novel or the subject of non-fiction when we read a physical book and don’t rely on modern technology.
If we want the best from our reading, old school is the way forward.
If you could benefit from more ways to train body and brain, self-refer to our Thrive programme by visiting www.lornhealthyoptions.co.uk
Rob Graham, lead exercise professional, Healthy Options.