STATES CHRONICLE – I enjoy reading very much mostly because it is a form of entertainment and relaxation at the same time and also because the stories manage to get me to a whole new world. But besides these, let’s say, purely entertaining reasons, there are also some scientific reasons that make reading good for you and your health.

What reading doesn’t do is improve your eyesight or help you build muscle. For that, you can go to the gym. However, reading improves your cognitive abilities, and this has been scientifically proven.

First of all, reading can improve your memory. Unlike watching a movie, reading a book is different as it works parts of your brain such as language, vision, associative learning. In other words, people who read have a more complex brain than those who don’t read. Moreover, exercising your memory will also help decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s, as suggested by a study conducted in Chicago.

Reading can also reduce your stress levels. While we all feel relaxed when we get back to our book at the end of the day, scientists have proved that only 6 minutes of reading can actually reduce stress by up to 68 percent. So, reading works even better than listening to music or simply going for a walk.

Reading can also improve your attention span and help you to be able to focus more easily on a task. This is especially helpful for children as reading a story can help their brain process things as they happen, in a sequence: beginning, middle and end. The kids manage to link cause and effect and are less likely to mix things up, which will than transfer into real-life situations.

Some studies have also shown that reading can make you live longer. A study from Harvard Medical School suggests that reading helps you make a “reserve” which you can use later in life to prevent brain cell loss. Researchers from the U.K. suggest that a book club is the perfect solution to keep yourself young as not only will you be reading but you will also be socially interacting with people having the same interests as you.

All in all, reading does help a lot, so it is recommended that you replace watching TV with reading a book. And while you still have to exercise to keep your body as healthy as your mind, you should make sure you have a book with you wherever you go.

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