The Mental Health Benefits of Reading

[Montero]

Well, heck, I think we all already know this instinctively, but it's nice to have some scientific data to back us up when someone wants to know why you are wasting time with a book, or says fiction is frivolous.

Get Reading: This Is How Books Can Impact Your Mental Health

We’ve long known that we can find comfort, solace and help in the pages of a book, and now research has confirmed that reading can be good for our mental health.

getpocket.com

 

[Foxbat]

Listen well accusers of frivolity, I fart in your general direction.

I think you’re right that those of us who read regularly already sense the good that it does us.

But I’ll go a little further: I also believe reading can benefit your overall health. You can exercise a muscle to improve its performance and I believe you can do the sane with your brain. Just like different exercises target different areas of fitness, different mental disciplines (reading, writing, listening to or playing music as examples). There are even areas that can develop both mind and body (sports activities and dance spring to mind). Unfortunately, my two left feet leave those last options closed to me.

Getting back on topic, I often wonder if mental activities like reading truly can combat the probability of suffering from dementia. My grandmother was ninety seven when she died. She was a bit forgetful but still pretty much aware of who she was and the world around her. She was an avid reader all her life.

 

[Montero]

Interesting on grandmas. Both of mine retained marbles to the end, one at 93 and the other at 100 - but they were both blind for at least the last ten years of their lives. However they had both been readers and both loved listening to audio books, so that had continued. I spoke with my 100 year old grandma once a month on the phone, and right to the end she could remember our previous conversation and ask me about it. She spoke slowly, and you had to wait, but it was all there. She said to me once she'd had a good life, and she didn't mind being blind at the end of it as she had plenty to think about.

 

[AlexH]

I didn't think this was a new thing. I remember an online course/workshop where David Farland talked about the benefits of reading in this sense and how it releases dopamine, serotonin and more that helps with our body and its healing process. All I could find online was this article:

Why People Read Stories

From author and master teacher Dave Farland: Many people will tell you that they read for “Entertainment,” which is a vague and unsatisfactory answer. After all, one person imagines himself laughin…

web.archive.org

I'm actually going a course of his at the moment, and he quoted Aristotle saying something like reading stories "cleanses the soul," though maybe it was difficult to scientifically prove that back in Aristotle's time.

 

[Hugh]

Aristotle saying something like reading stories "cleanses the soul," though maybe it was difficult to scientifically prove that back in Aristotle's time.

Do you know if he was comparing reading to drama (both involving a cleansing catharsis)?

 

[AlexH]

Do you know if he was comparing reading to drama (both involving a cleansing catharsis)?

I think it was stories in general actually - I was mistaken to write "reading."

 

[Montero]

Huh. Both my grandmas were story tellers as well, especially the 93 year old one.