Can books change my life?
Reading Helps With Empathy As it turns out, reading can actually help improve empathy. When people read stories about other people’s lives, it helps them develop the skills to understand the world through another person’s perspective. This is a key element in being empathetic toward others. Reading helps in improving memory by increasing mental stimulation and allowing new neurons to be produced in the brain. The more one reads, the easier it becomes to recall certain things. This is because reading exercises the brain. Reading is also essential in decreasing stress and improving concentration levels. A person who reads everyday gets better at it over time. Not surprisingly, daily readers also gain more enjoyment from it than those that read less often. It can even improve memory and critical thinking skills. And activities like reading have been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease. It can reduce stress. “Reading can even relax your body by lowering your heart rate and easing the tension in your muscles. A 2009 study at the University of Sussex found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68%.” Reading fact-filled nonfiction books can increase your intelligence by boosting your vocabulary and expanding your mental arsenal of interesting facts and knowledge. And there’s several benefits to reading. Acquiring “book smarts” can also raise your emotional intelligence, fluid intelligence, and brain connectivity. It increases intelligence. Exposure to vocabulary through reading (particularly reading children’s books) not only leads to higher score on reading tests, but also higher scores on general tests of intelligence for children. Plus, stronger early reading skills may mean higher intelligence later in life.