Surely, on many people's New Year's resolution list, in addition to exercising, there's also the goal of reading more.
Reading is one of those goals that usually appear on New Year's resolution lists. Let's take advantage of the fact that at the beginning of the year we feel more motivated to talk a little about reading and its psychological benefits.
Reading has so much to offer. There are so many books on so many different subjects and thousands of different writing styles, that generalizations like "reading bores me" can be a bit hasty. If you're one of those people, maybe you just haven't found your favorite genre.
In addition to the obvious benefits of reading, such as informing and entertaining, the habit of reading has some psychological benefits that I would like to highlight.
Psychological benefits of reading:
1) Reading can reduce anxiety.
When we read something that really interests us, we immerse ourselves in the words and the images they evoke. Therefore, we give it a rest for our mind of worries, stress and ruminating thoughts.
2) Reading stimulates our creativity.
Reading is more than a distraction. It can also be a means to stimulate our creativity and imagination. Explore our creative side, in turn, also has psychological benefits such as knowing and dealing with our emotions.
3) Reading promotes empathy.
At the end of the day, reading is a way to learn about other ideas, cultures, and worlds. Several studies show that reading (especially fiction) can make us more understanding and empathetic. Learning about other people's worlds can help reduce our own biases. That seems like a huge benefit to me.
Another way of putting this appears in an article published in Verne:
(Reading) can lead us to a rule that we do not question (“this is how it is done”) become an explicit observation (“this is how we do it”), susceptible to reconsideration (“couldn't we do it another way?”).
Reading has many more benefits, but I think these are the most notable. As it must be said, Sometimes it is difficult to give ourselves the time and space to read.
That's why, inspired by challenges from many other pages, I have created a reading challenge, in my opinion, realistic.
This is a list of book theme ideas to inspire you so you'll have read at least 12 books by the end of the year.
Are you joining the realistic reading challenge? I certainly am, and I hope you are too.
And please share with anyone you think might be interested.
