How Reading Fiction Affects Your Brain

oh is that your reading there oh fiction what's that yeah i don't really read fiction if i'm going to take the time to read i want to really learn something something that'll benefit my mind do i know you entertainment has this ever happened to you well me too i did a previous video where i talked about how reading affects the brain some of the studies that have actually dug deep into the neurological and psychological benefits of reading books i really really loved that video if you haven't watched it if you haven't watched it yet i'll link it here if i remember and definitely in the description so you can check it out this video is going to piggyback off of that one and this one is a specific emphasis on how fiction reading affects the brain it is funny to me that a lot of people discount reading as a whole but then you also have a lot of people who will discount fiction specifically nonfiction is beneficial fiction is not so i fell down a rabbit hole i did a whole bunch of research i read a bunch of studies to learn if fiction is really truly as beneficial to the mind as non-fiction is and the answer is yes and in fact there are some ways that fiction benefits the brain and our social and emotional benefits even more this isn't a video of me arguing that fiction is better than non-fiction frankly i don't care which one's better this is just me talking about the merits of fiction in case you need a little bit of validation in your life i'm gonna be citing a lot of studies throughout this video and just like in the last video which again i recommend you watch if you haven't yet it'll all be linked all the resources will be linked in the description for you to look into further but i'll also have some of the things oh this is i'll also have some of the things on the screen for you to see as i'm citing them the first way that reading fiction specifically affects our brain in a really positive way is language processing and vocabulary now both of these things were covered in the last video because both of these things are benefited through both non-fiction and fiction reading however this study that had more than a quarter of a million respondents showed a very clear line between fiction and non-fiction readers it showed that reading fiction actually increases vocabulary more than non-fiction which kind of makes sense if you think about it because fiction is going to use a much wider range of words to describe landscapes and to describe emotions and describe a lot of things that you're trying that that the author is trying to have you experience with the reader then a non-fiction would which is purely informational it also shows that the amount you read actually makes a significant difference readers who claim to read somewhat versus readers who claim to read a lot and they and they studied readers on on a lot of different scales of how much they read and it showed that how much they bumped up the amount of time dedicated to reading showed a significant change in this category i believe i talked in the last video about how reading lights up language processing in the brain but what's really interesting is the different types of reading and how that lights up different parts of the brain so for instance i could put a word on the screen and you may be able to instantly smell that word which i think we've all experienced and i think it's really interesting but what's also interesting is that when we're getting information a certain part of our brain the language processing part of our brain lights up but that's the only part that lights up whereas if we're hearing or reading a story then not only does the language processing part of our brain light up but also whatever part of the brain whatever whatever the story is saying that part of the brain will light up too let me explain there's a study that specifically talked about running so if you read information about running about the benefits it gives you about what's happening to the body just bullet points informational about running the language processing part of your brain is working but if you read a story about someone running then the part of your brain that lights up when you are physically running also lights up when you're reading about a person running that's so fascinating to me obviously i'm gonna get a lot more health benefits out of physically running than reading about a person physically running but as far as the neurological benefits our brains light up the same whether we're running or reading a story about a person running which leads me into the next thing that i want to talk about about how fiction benefits the brain there are many studies out there and i'll put several on the screen here that talk specifically about the social benefits of reading fiction specifically compared to not reading anything at all or compared to reading non-fiction fiction has a small yet statistically significant increase in social cognitive performance another study that showed that fiction readers outperform non-fiction readers on social cognitive tasks and another study that shows that fiction reading outperforms nonfiction reading for benefiting social cognitive measures what does that mean well it means a lot of things but a lot of it boils down to empathy again there are a lot of studies on this but time and time again research has shown that reading increases empathy in people increases our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes to not be so narrow-minded and to be able to actually see the world from another person's eyes or at least empathize with their position in life this can help us to be more compassionate more understanding to reduce subconscious prejudice to be a more kind person in general i love this quote one glance inside a book and you're inside the mind of another person maybe someone dead for thousands of years across the millennia an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head directly to you there have also been studies focused on art that say that art can cause significant changes in the experiences and the experience of one's own personality traits this doesn't surprise me at all and i think that most of us could probably say that yes we have seen a piece of art at least one piece of art in our lifetime that has affected us on a deeper level sometimes in a way that we can't even really describe in words it's just something that speaks to us same with music there are certain songs that seem to get inside our very being certain songs that have a physical and emotional reaction to us and sometimes that we feel understood by movies shows dance there's so many different forms of art that create an emotional and physical reaction in us and that also shape who we are and who we become this includes books and from experience i can say i have definitely been shaped by many fiction books as well as nonfiction and finally the last way that i want to talk about in this video that fiction reading affects the mind the person is in stress reduction research has shown that reading reduces stress better and more quickly than common other methods used like going for a walk listening to music drinking tea or coffee and that reading starts reducing stress as quickly as six minutes inside a story now while in this video i talked a lot about ways in which fiction affects the mind or the subconscious or the emotional benefits more than non-fiction every single one of these things are benefited through non-fiction too you get benefits no matter which method you choose to read and this video was focused on specific benefits for fiction reading but there are loads of other things that i could talk about where non-fiction gets more benefits than fiction so is one actually better than the other again i don't care i'm really not trying to debate that one is better than the other i use and enjoy both but fiction is discounted much faster than non-fiction very often in life so i wanted to dig into some of the benefits that fiction specifically provides us as i said in the previous video there are psychological neurological emotional benefits to just doing something that you enjoy it doesn't matter if it actually affects the brain in some great way just chilling out with a book with a video game with a movie with your knitting or your model airplanes i don't care what your hobby is just resting your mind and your body has so many benefits in and of itself but reading fiction also has a lot of educational and developmental benefits as well just like non-fiction does again this video isn't about saying one is better than the other it's about showing that both are very beneficial not just the one that people tend to think is beneficial personally when i'm wanting to learn more about a particular topic i like to pick a non-fiction and a fiction to help me process what i'm trying to work through or get better at for instance i'm very close with my grandparents and when my grandpa died it was really really hard on me and i was trying to figure out how to process my grief i picked up several non-fictions and several fictions with a particular emphasis on grief and while i learned so much about healthy coping mechanisms healthy processing and just validating that grief isn't something that you kind of get over or that goes away it's kind of always there it's just that over time it gets a little bit easier i learned a lot about grief through the nonfictions but easily the book that helped me to process my grief the most and feel like i was beginning to take steps forward out of being covered by it was pet cemetery by stephen king which is a horror book but it's a book that uses horror as a tool in order to deeply explore grief and when i loved this book and talked about it a lot people started reading it because of me and i got a lot of feedback of people being disappointed by the book because it really wasn't that scary and on reflection yeah it really wasn't that scary but i don't care because it it used that horror as a tool to dissect grief and its different layers and levels and i gained so much from that discussion that happened in that book and i could point you to so many non-fiction books where i've gained so much as well as so many fiction books where i have gained so much i don't discuss all the nonfiction that i read on this channel because a lot of times what i'm reading is very personal stuff that i'm trying to work through stuff that i'm trying to learn more about for myself so you know it's for me i don't always bring it here but i do some of them and i really think that there are great benefits that i get from both fiction and in non-fiction anyway that's the whole video i'm a nerd and i really like looking into this stuff i really love these research informational based videos i think they're so much fun i hope you got something out of it too if you were looking for some validation for this hobby that you love i hope you got some but be sure to chat with me more about it in the comments again all the research is also in the description i post videos every tuesday through friday i'll see you again soon bye same with music there are certain songs that seem to get inside our very being certain songs that have a physical and emotional reaction to us and sometimes that we feel understood by [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Merphy Napier

Views: 110,662

Keywords: how reading effects your brain, book, books, reading, fiction, non fiction

Id: VcFByUz83uI

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 08 2022