Book Reading Is the True Source of Knowledge
One of the basic reasons why reading is important is that it helps you grow mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. Every book provides you an opportunity to learn and explore new ideas. Reading books increases your knowledge and makes you smarter.
But the importance of reading is not limited to just these benefits. You will be amazed to know how beneficial reading books can be for you. And that is exactly what you will get to know here in this article.
Here are 17 reasons why reading is important for everyone!
1. It helps you discover yourself
Every good book opens up new dimensions of thoughts for the reader. When you read a book, you somehow try to connect the events, emotions, experiences, and characters in the books with yourself.
This not only keeps you engrossed in the book but also makes you realize how you would feel and react to those situations that have not yet occurred in your life.It helps you broaden your dimensions of likes and dislikes.
So, with every page that you read, you may have a chance to discover a new part of yourself!
2. Imparts valuable lessons from years of experiences
Books are not written in a day. For an author, it takes a lot of hard work, understanding, experiences, knowledge, and in many cases a lot of pain to come up with a single book. But we as a reader get to read them in just weeks or days thereby living years of experiences in considerably less time.
3. It improves your Focus and Concentration
The Internet has revolutionized our world. But there's a huge drawback too. For many of us, a large part of our day is spent surfing, chatting, watching videos, reading unnecessary memes and articles online. No wonder people are growing more impatient and losing focus.
However, reading books is one of those constructive habits that help us improve our concentration power. It helps us to train our brain to focus our attention and live in the present.
4. Reading improves your emotional health
Books are full of emotions. Sometimes they will make you cry with every turning page and sometimes they will leave a warm smile on your face.
Books can make you happy, sad, jealous, loved, betrayed, and so on! Books are thus an amalgamation of different mixed emotions that ultimately help us grow emotionally!
5. Importance of Reading in memory enhancement
There are a lot of things that we need to remember while reading a book. You need to keep in mind the name of the characters and their features, the name of the places, plots, and sub-plots, the sequence of events, important conversations, etc.
As your brain learns to remember the information from the storyline, it also becomes better at remembering other important things of your life.
So, by reading books, you are also indirectly training your brain for a better memory!
6. It's a great source of motivation
Life is tricky. Sometimes there are moments in our life when we feel down and discouraged. We may lose our hope and interest in life and feel like giving up.
Well, in times like this, sometimes, all we need is a little motivation, a little push in the right direction.
Reading a good inspirational book during such a period can change our way of thinking and give us hope and motivation.
Books are no doubt a huge source of motivation. We can derive great inspiration from them and transform our lives positively.
7. It expands your knowledge and makes you smarter
Books are a very rich source of information. With every book you read, you get to learn new things.
The more you read, the more you know about different people and their experiences. You also get to know about different places, different cultures, and facts that you would not have known otherwise.
Reading books somehow or the other increases your knowledge and enhances your capability of making better decisions and choices in life.
8. Broadens your Imagination and enhances your creativity
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen". This is the famous opening line from the book 1984 by George Orwell.
How do you interpret this line?
Standard Striking Clock strikes a maximum of twelve times. Similarly, we rarely have a day both bright and cold simultaneously. However, George Orwell tries to paint the gloomy yet hopeful condition of life by some imaginative references. (The interpretation can vary from person to person though.)
This is the beauty of books. It makes you imagine things beyond possibility – things that would not have come to our minds normally. Books give you a lot to think about.
Apart from this, different creative characters, plots, and approaches trigger your creativity as well. You become both creative and imaginative!
There are also many books on creativity that can particularly shape and boost your creative thinking.
9. It makes you more empathic
Another reason why reading is important is that it makes you empathic. Being empathic means being able to understand and share the feelings of others.
Books connect you with their characters and plots. You become a part of the book and feel what the characters are supposed to feel. You understand their pain and sufferings.
Books also somehow make you feel connected with the authors. You are constantly in some sort of conversation with the book.
When you are reading books, you are in a way listening to what the book has to say to you. This makes you a good listener as well.
10. Reduces stress and helps you sleep better
Reading is one of the best ways to relax your mind. According to a research by the University of Sussex, reading for even six minutes can reduce your stress levels by as high as 68 percent!
Psychologists believe that this is probably because when we are lost in a book, our mind is focused on reading and that little distraction from the real world and our problems into a literary world eases the tensions in muscles and heart.
So the ultimate way of relaxing your mind is by losing yourself in a book! Read more and you will realize that your stress level becomes significantly low with time.
Reading has a pretty positive impact on another important aspect of our life – a good night's sleep! Reading books calms your mind and helps you sleep better. You can check out my article on thebenefits of reading before bed to know more.
However, avoid reading thrillers, horror, and mystery or suspense genre books before going to bed. You might end up staying awake instead.
Read some calming, inspirational books that would give you positive vibes without making you impatient.
11. Importance of Reading in enhancing your critical and analytical thinking
While reading, a lot of information is being processed in our brain simultaneously.It opens up many different perspectives for your brain to comprehend.
If you are reading a mystery or suspense book, your brain constantly tries to guess certain outcomes and events. It also has to relate one event to the other to make sense in the story.
All this, in turn, sharpens our minds and enhances our critical and analytical thinking skills.
12. It gives you joy and pleasure
One of the basic reasons why we read is simply that we enjoy reading. Reading brings joy and happiness to our life. We don't have to depend on someone else to be happy.
It's true that sometimes reading can be a little challenging or even boring, but such conditions are very rare if you know your taste and choose your books accordingly.
13. It makes you humble
Reading books not only increases your knowledge but also makes you realize how much you do not know about the world. With each book teaching you something new, you can't help but think how limited your knowledge is.
Sometimes, you read a book because you know that it will add some new information to your mind which was so far unknown to you.However, it certainly does not mean that you are not smart. It simply shows that you have accepted the truth that what you know is not everything.
There are so many things you can learn and this would not be possible unless you are humble enough to accept this truth!
14. Improves your vocabulary, language command, and communication skills
If you are a reader, you probably know the importance of reading in enhancing your vocabulary. Reading books is one of the best ways to improve your vocabulary.
Moreover, the conversations in the books also help you to strengthen your command of the language. Your sentence formation becomes quick, better, and qualitative. You rarely get stuck for lack of words.
Once you have a richer vocabulary and controlled command over the language, your communication skills automatically become better.
15. Importance of reading in improving your brain functions
Books have tremendous power. It can shape our lives for good. It can also significantly improve our brain functions!
Research from Emory University in Atlanta Georgia suggests that reading a powerful work of fiction can make neural changes in your brain thereby improving your brain functions! The changes occur in the 'resting-state' of the brain and can last for days.
16. Being lonely will not bother you much
If you are a book lover, you are never really alone! You can always have a friend in the form of a book. And there's a reason why book lovers consider books to be their best friends.
Books don't complain, neither do they have any demands. They will stay with you no matter what.You can carry them wherever you want and read them whenever you want, provided you make time for reading.
If you are interested to know more about why book lovers consider books as our best friends, check out this article on 12 reasons why books are our best friends!
17. It makes you a better person
One of the most significant importance of reading is that it helps you grow as a person. As mentioned above, reading makes you empathic and humble.
You learn about the hardships in life from the experiences of others. You will learn to understand people and be kind and gentle. You will have better emotional health.
Your increased knowledge can also be useful for other people who may look up to you for advice and suggestions. With all this, you are bound to become a better human being!
Of course, these are just a few reasons to show the importance of reading in everyone's life. There can be many other specific reasons why reading is important.
For a person in the corporate world, reading may have different benefits than that of a person in sports. But the bottom line is that reading is certainly very important, no matter in what field you are.
And if you aren't reading yet, you should not wait any longer. The best time to start reading is today!
Book Reading Is the True Source of Knowledge
Source: https://gladreaders.com/importance-of-reading-books/