Why Become a Voracious Reader?
Posted By :Elena Difiore
Posted At : Monday, Aug 02, 2010
Want a good workout but don’t feel like going to the gym? Pick up a book!
The brain may not be a muscle, but it needs exercise just the same. Studies have shown that reading can have a positive impact on several significant aspects of our day-to-day lives.
Reading not only makes you smarter, but also helps keep you sharp as you age. Increasing your amount of reading each day helps to keep you focused and makes you less inclined to forget small details, such as a name or address or even the last place you saw your car keys. Studies have also shown that reading consistently on a day-to-day basis helps improve analytical thinking and our ability to detect patterns.
Reading helps beef up your vocabulary. The more we read, the greater the variety of words we come across-some that we’re familiar with, and others that we may have never seen before. Increasing our reading exposes us to these unfamiliar words and helps expand our vocabulary; and as every writer knows, the larger your vocabulary, the better able you are to convey exactly what it is you’re trying to say.
In addition to all of its positive intellectual impacts, reading also serves as a great mental “de-stresser” for the brain. Studies have shown that reading can have a soothing effect on even the most anxious or fidgety of individuals. At the end of a long, stressful day, reading is a great way to help calm the brain and relax the body.
Whether you’re curling up with Charles Dickens or perusing the Washington Post, you owe it to yourself to make reading a permanent part of your everyday life.
