What Are The 5 Benefits of Reading?

As an author of two books, I have come to greatly appreciate the benefits of reading. In fact, it was due to my time at college that I picked up the habit of reading.

At that time, I must admit, I use to spend 6–7 hours a day in the library going through a lot of books as I was required to write essays on particular topics and I had to demonstrate critical thinking as well.

Although at that time it was no fun, but I managed to get good marks on my papers. When my final exam finished, I was greatly relieved but to much of my surprise, the appetite of reading came back way stronger than I had expected.

Since then, I have been an avid reader of personal self-development books and soft skills. I usually spend about 30 minutes per day for reading and this helps me to progress through a book easily. With this consistency, I can finish reading a book.

Whenever I finish reading a book, it gives me great satisfaction and not only that, I have greater appreciation for the knowledge that I have gained from reading the books. I just recently finished reading the book titled “The Magic of Thinking Big by Dr David J Schwartz.”

In this article, I aim to enlighten you with what are the 5 benefits that you receive when you read. These 5 benefits, I have personally experienced them, and I also wanted to say, I do also listen to audiobooks while I’m driving.

1. New Knowledge

   
   

I remember the first time I picked up the book by Robert Kiyosaki titled “Rich Dad and Poor Dad” I was greatly captivated by the ideas that he talked about in that book. I stumbled upon that book, while I was a cleaning an office room.

The book belonged to my boss at that time, and I always wanted to know what made him to be successful in terms of finance. I could see that he had underlined certain sentences and so on. Since then I have been a fan of Robert and have read some of his books.

The knowledge that I gained from reading his first book helped me to make better choices in life in terms of my finance whereby it gave me an interest in terms of investing. If I had not read that book, I’m not sure whether I would have put much time and effort into investing.

2. Helps You To Focus

It can be said that we are living among one of the most distracted generations today, according to the article highlighted by Victoria Barret in Forbes.com. It is no surprise because of the many gadgets that we have around us today

In the article we are made aware of two findings, where both group of teachers agrees that digital technologies are hurting attention span and are also creating easily distracted generation with short attention span.

I believe the above is also applicable to adults because of the time that we spend on social media and short videos. Recently, I also read an article titled short video addiction in the Star paper. It talked about how adults are spending longer time watching short videos.

Whenever you read, you are sharpening your focus whereby you concentrate on a particular point, idea or a sentence longer. When this happens, you are training the mind to stay with a particular task longer as oppossed to changing the reels if it’s not interesting for you.

I have disciplined myself to not spend a lot of time watching reels but rather use that same amount of time for reading. Whenever, I do that, I realize my focus gets better and I’m no longer easily distracted

3. Helps You To Relax

This has been my experience sometimes my mind can be completely absorbed with the pressures of life, however reading helps me to switch off those pressure thoughts and helps me to unwind.

Every night before I go to bed, I make it a habit to read because I would like to sleep well and wake up refreshed. When my mind is completely absorbed with the pressures of life, I’m not able to sleep well, however when I read, my mind is relaxed, and I get to think about other positive things.

I believe this is a bit similar to mindfulness or meditation, whereby you take charge of your mind, you tell the mind what to think instead of the mind taking control and thinking about things that can make you to be stressed.

4. Improves Your Vocabulary

Reading helps you to become aware of new words. I remember the times where I use to read books that were written many, many years ago and as such I had difficulty understanding certain phrases and words. I would usually take some time studying those words.

The dictionary became very helpful for me and when I completely understood the words, the entire text became more meaningful for me and not only that I started using those new words in my essays and in my daily communications.

The new words and phrases helped me to become more expressive and I started to teach others about the words that I learned and the meanings contained in them. The study of words is really fun and I really enjoy and of course reading exposes me to new words and terms.

5. Transforming Perspective

I remember reading the Magic of Thinking Big as part of my reading. During that time I was about to decide on something important, I was quite emotional about it because I was quite disappointed about a particular outcome.

The book helped me to look over the disappointment and to focus on the bright side. It was quite strategic for me, if it wasn’t for this book at that time, I would have allowed disappointment to control me and close the door on a particular friendship at that juncture.

So for me, reading helped me to have a better perspective about what I was going through at that time. In other words Dr David helped me to see what I was not seeing in that particular situation and sometimes we all need another person’s perspective to help us make good decisions in life.

Depending on what book you are reading, it may help you to develop a better perspective about life, challenges and so on. The more we read, the better it is for us because we are stimulating the mind to think better.

Conclusion

Reading is a great habit to have in life because it helps you to reinforce positivity. The more time that you are able to allocate for reading, the better it can be because of its

benefits.

I believe I have outlined some of the benefits and there are other benefits associated with reading as well. What I have done is, I have talked about the ones that have greatly impact me in terms of the benefit of reading.

So, if you are thinking about reading today, I encourage you to set up a particular timing every day and be consistent with it. The time spent on reading is well spent and will give you good returns in life depending on the books that you are reading.

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