A Book a Day May Keep Your Mind at Bay. How Reading Has the Ability to Improve Your Mental Health and Overall Wellbeing

I have always been the one struggling to find the perfect way to stay focused and present within my life. I, like many other of my peers, have found myself in the habit of excessively scrolling through social media day in and day out with my attention span reducing by the second. My brain ends up being left too overstimulated and out of touch. It’s interesting because technology is all around us day in and day out whether it’s for our own personal use, academic or professional. So therefore, the burning question is how exactly do we take a step back, and more importantly will that remedy have positive benefits to us? One way that I have personally found to be incredibly helpful for me is to implement more reading into my life. Reading has beneficially impacted me psychologically in a numerous number of positive ways. When picking up a book, I feel less prone to going on my phone or going on any source of technology. It also helps me to not only rest my eyes from technology but my brain as well as reading carefully and actively unwinds my tangled up and hectic brain. Through reading each word in every line, I feel my brain relaxing and unwinding from its usual overworked self.

The mental health benefits of reading books are astounding, and research has shown it to be a beneficial addition to our lives. An insightful article written by Richard Sima and reviewed by Ekua Hagan discusses the effect of reading on mental health, how it provides positive cognition benefits to people as well as the use of bibliotherapy as a way to help treat mental health challenges.

Oftentimes, when we think of reading books, we imagine a kind of alternate world that we transport to or rather immersing ourselves within the story that we are reading. This immersion helps us to become fully present in the story and helps our minds to ultimately take a pause from our lives, just as you would think to watch a movie or tv show to get your mind off of a difficult and stressful day. Through reading, we are able to sharpen as well as strengthen our minds as reading provides a way to learn something new, reflect and improve upon our social cognition.

- Klaudia Wiacek, Blogger

Source:

Sima, Richard. “The Mental Health Benefits of Reading.” Reviewed by Ekua Hagan, Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 16 Mar. 2022, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-effect/202203/the-mental-health-benefits-reading.