Contents
How reading can help promote your mental health
Psychology and mind
Reading a book exercises our brain and, at night, can help us sleep better
Since we are little we are all urged to read. The reason is usually cultural, since it is already known that “knowledge does not occupy a place.” But reading is not only the essential vehicle to learn, and to be able to give a satisfied response to our curiosity, but it also has benefits for our mind.
Dr. David Ezpeleta, neurologist and secretary of the board of directors of the Spanish Neurology Society, explains, to begin with, that language, writing and reading, is what most characterizes the evolution of the human species. “When you read what is produced in the brain is a kind of butterfly effect,” he says.
Talk about that in each
part of the reading process is a benefit for us. “When you choose which book to read, you already have an awareness of who the author is, what you want to read … you already have expectations that make your brain work,” explains the doctor. He comments that when the book is physically held, felt or sniffed, this is also part of the ultrasensory experience of reading. “The specific act of reading, from the moment you see the pages your brain is stimulated”, the professional explains and continues: “It is already stimulated previously, but here it is visually stimulated with what in principle is nonsense graphic information: it goes to the occipital cortex and there it begins to order, and it goes to brain areas that recognize that these signs are not random. The information ‘travels’, these letters come together and form words, and these go to other brain areas, where a meaning is given to that word, etc. ».
“With reading, just by the mechanical act of reading, paying attention, we start the whole brain,” he sums up.
Better to read on paper or on a screen?
Is there a difference between reading on a screen or on paper, if we talk about benefits? Says doctor Ezpeleta “The final benefit of reading is similar”, and insists on not demonizing the digital: “There are people who are not digital natives and who prefer reading on paper and many others who are digital natives and are already adapted to digital reading.”
Something similar happens with writing by hand (a very beneficial activity for the brain) or write on a computer. «We have lost the habit of writing by hand, but not of writing, as we do it on the computer or mobile. In fact, this writing area is managed by zones similar to manual. It can be as complex and enriching to write by hand as on a keyboard, ”says the doctor.
In addition to activating the brain, which helps us cognitively, reading can be a stressful activity that helps us sleep, if we include it in a habit. “Reading helps you fall asleep if it is part of the bedtime ritual,” says the doctor. The sleep specialist explains that the time to sleep is more than “turn off the light and fall asleep”Well, it actually means what you do during the hour before you go to sleep. “If at that time when the precama ritual begins, screens are not used, a dimmer light is put on, the mind is disconnected and one goes to bed with a book, that reading benefits sleep”, says the doctor Ezpeleta, who warns that, if we have a more impulsive use of reading, and we go to bed with a book that we really like and cannot put it down, it will take us a long time to sleep. “It all depends on how we use it. Reading will help you sleep if we have the reading habit and especially if we incorporate it into the night ritual, “he concludes.