By Maddie Kamp | Staff Writer
May 6, 2025
Reading is an activity that every person should be exposed to at a young age. Whether it be parents reading to their kids before bed, reading a book for school, or following the instructions to a recipe, it’s something you typically use in your routine. Even though the majority read constantly during the day, the abundance of benefits that come with reading often go unnoticed.
Life is typically stressful, especially when considering school, work, and extracurricular activities, such as sports or clubs. However, a way to relieve this stress is to engage in reading. Researchers at the University of Sussex conducted a study that resulted in participants experiencing a slower heart rate and reduced muscle tension after reading for just six minutes, according to "Health benefits of reading." Professor David Lewis, the cognitive neuropsychologist who conducted this study, introduced how reading can decrease your levels of stress.
“By losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stress of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination,” Lewis said. “The printed page [can] stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness.” Diving into a book can help readers escape from their worries and stress from their everyday lives, while also helping them to explore an author’s imagination.
One of the most important parts of the day can be when you’re not even awake. Getting an adequate amount of hours of sleep is extremely integral to maintaining your day-to-day health. However, engaging with digital devices such as cell phones and TV screens before bed can hinder one’s quality of sleep. In "Why is reading important? The lifelong benefits of reading," the author references that the blue light these screens emit often interferes with our body’s production of melatonin, which helps us to naturally become tired and fall asleep. Reading, on the other hand, slowly relaxes your mind and signals your body that it's time to sleep. Therefore, to gain back those hours of sleep, try reading at night to relax your mind and body.
Additionally, reading can help strengthen and stimulate your brain. Picking up that book and reading ignites your neural pathways, as said in "5 Ways Reading Can Change Your Life (And Best Practices). As your brain retains the information in these books—such as facts and details like characters, plots, and subplots—your brain is creating new memories. In turn, this improves your long-term memory and short-term memory functions. A lifetime of reading has been proven to decrease a person’s chances of developing Alzheimer’s, and those who engage in mental exercises like reading are 32% less likely to mentally decline. Furthermore, reading aids your cognitive processes and enhances critical thinking and analytical skills, as well as fostering problem-solving skills and creating better concentration.
If you’re ever feeling down, reading for a short time each day can improve your mood. Reading can remind people of activities they once engaged in, which can help to restore their sense of having a place or a purpose in the world, as reported by Dr. Josie Billington at the Centre of Research into Reading, Literature, and Society. Immersing yourself in a book can help take you away from anything upsetting or frustrating in your daily life. Moreover, reading can lead to learning about other groups of people who are going through similar struggles as our own, we can fight feelings of loneliness or isolation.
Although reading is proven to be beneficial, a majority of people find it not enjoyable or recognize that they don’t have enough time in their everyday lives. One way to ensure one experiences these benefits is by setting realistic goals for yourself. Aim to read a chapter or a certain amount of pages each week. Setting aside time for reading is as easy as carving out time for exercise or cooking. Also, creating a cozy and focused space for you to read in is important to help your engagement with reading. Joining a book club, keeping a reading journal, listening to audiobooks, and exploring different genres can contribute to creating a more satisfying reading environment. So, whenever you find yourself with some free time, try picking up a book. You never know what could become your new favorite hobby.