Reading out of pure passion is a mental “workout” that is good for any age: it reduces stress, enhances memory and “protects” from loneliness.
There is a medicine for the brain that can be taken from the first days of life, easy to obtain, economical and with a thousand benefits: it is reading for passion, a real mental “workout”, to be practiced without limits and at any age.
A new review of studies on the topic lists the benefits of reading for the pure fun of it: a series of benefits that protect against the diseases of our time – loneliness, mental health problems, dementia, endless scrolling on social media. Let’s see what the new work, published in the magazine, contains Psychological Medicine.
A declining habit that rewires the brain
Reading because you want to, and not for work, is a pastime that has lost popularity in the last 20 years: we say we don’t have time, but we would have it without those 2 hours or so a day that – in Italy – we spend on social media. Yet, according to research by Barbara Sahakian and her neuroscientist colleagues at the University of Cambridge, reading for pleasure (i.e. reading for leisure, in which it is possible to anticipate satisfaction with what we will read) is one of those modifiable lifestyle factors that offer benefits on brain function, cognitive abilities and mental health.
Scientists collected data on the effects of reading in five surveys and eight long-term studies, collectively involving tens of thousands of participants.
Reading strengthens the brain structure from early childhood. Despite the decline in popularity among children, reading is associated with the development of moderately larger brain areas and volumes in regions linked to emotional control, an important endowment to start from if we consider the mental health problems that increasingly affect children.
Even at an older age, reading is associated with both better connectivity between different brain regions and a greater volume of gray matter: for middle-aged adults and older people, this translates into a lower risk of developing forms of dementia and a slowing of cognitive decline.
Emotional alphabet and mathematical skills
Getting used to reading for pleasure starting from school years supports the development of literacy and mathematical skills, because it strengthens the same basic neural and cognitive mechanisms (such as information retrieval or procedural memory, that set of automatic steps necessary to carry out a task).
As an antidote to the poor propensity to read, the authors of the study suggest realigning it to the personal interests of children: green light for manga, graphic novels, books inspired by video games and TV series, as long as they arouse interest and anticipation.
Reading because you want to is in fact a guarantee of continuing this hobby for a long time, even when age, circumstances and interests change.
Reading strengthens empathic abilities and emotional control: thanks – also – to the training to assume and understand perspectives different from one’s own, which is also a way to counteract feelings of loneliness.
Reading encourages positive changes (such as traveling, changing jobs, getting out of a toxic relationship) and is a formidable anti-stress: in addition to boosting memory, attention and other executive functions, reading is a simple and economical way to prevent and combat mental health problems.
An accessible way to support brain health
There is every reason to encourage reading programs in all age groups, especially in populations most at risk of loneliness, low literacy and mental health problems, for example through schools, libraries, initiatives such as reading clubs or school libraries. Interaction with books, if learned from childhood, is a resource that accompanies throughout life, the basis for building the cognitive reserve – the treasure of resources that protects the brain when it is under attack, from aging or from diseases.
