It isn’t just children that benefit from reading. Reading is one of the best forms of self-education for adults too. While it can be easy to watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast, reading still takes the cake when it comes to comprehension and increasing your education. As you’ll see when you read on, there are plenty of benefits that you can get from reading.

So, what are the benefits of reading books ?

1. Increases intelligence –

Reading plays an important part in shaping the intelligence of an individual.

Exposure to vocabulary through reading newspapers or novels not only leads to higher score on reading tests, but also higher scores on general tests of intelligence. It helps to dive into a different dimension and helps to think from the character’s perspective. Plus, stronger  reading skills may mean higher intelligence later in life.

2. Increase vocabulary –

If you don’t know the specific word for something, then you will have fewer nuances of it’s meaning. When reading, you’ll expose yourself to more words which allows for understanding on different level. Reading an hour a day will expose you to four million words per year. These words when you learn while reading, can incorporate in your daily life as well.

3.  Improve concentration –

If you are looking for ways to improve your memory and concentration and also relieve stress, reading will help. The brain-stimulating activities from reading have shown to slow down cognitive decline in old age with people who participated in more mentally stimulating activities over their lifetimes. Reading helps to build patience and concentration.

4. Reading helps to cure depression –

According to a study in University of Liverpool, reading helped patients suffering from depression with their social well-being.

Reading helped build self-confidence, lessening cultural isolation, building a sense of community and fostering increased communication skills.

5. It helps us to understand people better –

Reading fiction has often been claimed to broaden the mind. Now scientists have found that enjoying a novel really does help us to understand other people’s points of view. It seems that the age-old tradition of story-telling has an important role in helping us to develop empathy.

6.  Improves communication skills –

Reading definitely helps in improving communication skills . It increases the vocabulary and gives you confidence while speaking as you have more knowledge.  Reading increases your exposure to world and expands your horizon which in turn makes you a better communicator.

7. Reading increases your general knowledge –

The more your read, the more exposed you are to new facts and ideas. This exposure helps you to understand, reconnect and come up with your own ideas.

8.  It sharpens the memory –

As you read, you take several pauses, create the scenes in your head and let your imagination flow as the book progresses. In a way, you are working out on the brain which could have been idle otherwise. You are rightly exercising the huge part of the human cerebrum which in turn keeps different parts active at the same time. As you read, you a picture, run videos of the scenes in your head. In this respect, many cells are exercised and this help to sharpen the memory.