What Reading Does To Your Brain

okay so today we're going to be talking about how reading affects the brain what's happening while we're reading the long-term effects of it and benefits of it this video couples really well with a video that i did not very long ago where i talked about why we love characters so much why we love fictional worlds and and characters and stories to such an extreme level that was more from the perspective of an avid reader that's really deep into reading this is more from the perspective of how reading affects our brains how it affects our emotions personalities kind of showing the merit behind reading for anyone that isn't so sure that it'd be worth it or maybe wants to get into it i find it so interesting how many times i've heard someone throughout my lifetime either say i wish i had time to read but i just don't have any time for reading or just completely write it off with something as simple as reading seems boring i don't know why i would spend my time that way i do find it really interesting because i would i would wager that the majority of people that say these things do spend their spare time somehow whether it be chilling with a tv show or just with another hobby like video games board games crafting knitting you know any variety of things where people like to chill out after a long day so arguably everybody has time for it people do spend their time in their down time in either hobbies or entertainment whether watching a movie at the end of a long day or just doom scrolling for hours i don't think any of these things are necessarily bad and i definitely am not trying to knock someone else's hobby in order to make my hobby seem superior i just find it funny how many people undervalue reading or kind of brush it aside or think that it doesn't have the same merit as other hobbies so i've spent a little bit of time looking into how reading affects the brain and i figured i would do a quick video kind of summarizing some of the cool things that i've learned one and this is a really big one to me is reading enhances attention span nowadays i'm 29 so i i'm of the age where entertainment and social media and these things haven't been a part of my life forever i mean my my childhood and middle school life was pretty chill as far as these things goes these things go but i still had tv i still had video games i still had you know dial up internet but the majority of my life especially the entirety of my adult life i have been saturated with all of these things i want things now i live in a microwave age and anytime a web page takes a minute to load i'm irritated by my internet and i live out in the middle of nowhere so i assure you my internet is terrible we also live in an age where entertainment is very flash it's very snap it's very constantly keep things moving it's really interesting i'm not really a movie buff but it is really interesting to kind of look at more classic movies and how slow-moving they are how more they they focus a lot more on character and on environment and on the experience and really helping you feel like you're there and a lot of modern movies are a lot more flashy a lot more like things need to be happening around every corner i find that happens with a lot of different things even the way youtube is now versus how it was is really different people want to be concise people want to get their point across immediately people don't want to ramble because someone will click away if they don't get to their point very quickly there's a lot of b-roll a lot of visual stuff to keep people staying on because a talking head for a long time will make people leave i mostly do talking heads it's i it's what i like to watch and it's what i like to make but it is really interesting to me how society does things very quickly we want nuggets of information we want ted talks as opposed to a novel or as opposed to a lecture and none of these things are inherently bad but when we live in a society that's constantly trying to get information faster constantly trying to get their entertainment faster our attention spans are just narrowing and narrowing and narrowing and reading is one of those things that actually expands that intention span a lot being able to sit still and hyper focus on one thing is something that we really struggle with today we may read a page or two and be really into what we're reading and then pick up our phones and suddenly we've been scrolling for an hour we may sit down to do a task and as soon as we sit down think why am i here what did i come here to do i'm gonna reference a lot of studies in this video and just for my own convenience sake they're gonna be linked in the description rather than me rattling off names and dates throughout this entire thing but studies have shown that reading consistently over a large period of time not only enhances attention span so that we can sit and focus on one task without needing to reach for a phone without getting distracted without thinking about something else and forgetting what we're doing actually having a solid sense of focus is expanded through more linear tasks like reading a book from start to finish there are obviously other ways to improve your attention span as well but reading is a really great one for that there have also been studies that show that reading engages and exercises the left temporal cortex that's the part of your brain that's associated with language facts and memory reading also helps you have heightened connectivity that means that readers oftentimes connect things a lot more frequently so maybe you learned something over here several months ago and you remembered it and now when you're learning something over here you're connecting them and you're melding them and being able to associate stuff with each other obviously everybody has this skill but this is something that gets increased that gets exercised a lot through engaging your mind through reading there have also been studies that have shown that reading can lower the risk of dementia increase emotional regulation and increase verbal recall now a lot of these things that i've just rattled off different things that that reading helps to engage the brain helps to increase these muscles a lot of these things are short-term benefits if you just read a little bit you'll start seeing results a lot of it is long term you have to be reading regularly for a while to get real results but i do find it really interesting the different ways that reading engages the brain and benefits things obviously reading isn't the only way to do these things but it is really cool that it benefits us on very specific and life applicable ways so many people consider reading to be a waste of time which is funny because we all waste our time with our hobbies and it's not a waste if it's something that you enjoy and relax to i have a lot of opinions around that but realistically not only is a hobby that brings you joy at the end of a long day is valid in and of itself but it also really really helps to exercise the brain that brings us real life daily benefits ideally as you're reading books you'll also be reading from different world views perspectives and cultures one of the reasons i love reading from morally gray characters is because i generally try to be a kind person in life and reading from the perspective of someone who's unlikable someone who is not making good decisions someone who's selfish and who's not benefiting the world definitely not the hero of the story i find it really interesting because when a morally gray character is written really really well i feel like i understand the perspective of someone whose head space i try not to be in but i can see the humanity in them i can see the the logic that they have the the rationalization that they give and reading from a perspective totally different from my own is fascinating to me i really love reading fantasy and i really love reading fantasy not set in a western culture reading from different cultures different beliefs different traditions that that the entire world is based on that the setting is based on that the people are thinking from is such a fascinating perspective to me it's such a cool way to explore other cultures it's such a cool way to experience the world from a different set of eyes there have also been studies that have shown that reading increases empathy reading from other people's perspectives from other people's beliefs from other people's world views and experiencing the world from another person's shoes a lot of times can help us to stop being so narrow-minded to stop being so focused on how we see the world and how we experience the world and really broaden that and help us to have a lot more empathy and a lot more care for others in humanity i primarily read fiction but i do enjoy nonfiction here and there as well when i do read nonfiction i tend to choose stories that inspire me i'm really into rock climbing so naturally reading and watching the documentary for the push was wonderful for me because it's something that i'm very passionate about something that i really care about and love spending my time doing and it's from the perspective of someone who is obsessed with it and someone who has pushed themselves to do something kind of unbelievable within the rock climbing world growing up in school my favorite historical figure to study about was harriet tubman so reading books like she came to slay was so fun for me getting to understand her story a little bit more getting able to get a little bit deeper into her personal life and into her accomplishments other than the underground railroad her most notable and wonderful thing that she did but there's so many little things that i got to learn so much more about i also really really like rescue stories like the deadliest sea and into the abyss because these are stories that talk about people who are in impossible situations who have to suffer so much as they're waiting for rescue and then you get to see the people that are risking their lives in order to save other people a lot of times reading true stories of what people have gone through in life what they've survived or what they've participated in helping really broadens my perspective i quit being so selfish or at least i like to think i do i quit thinking of the world from such a narrow scope and a lot of times it inspires me to really want to participate in the in bettering the world in small ways or in big ways it broadens my my perspective which i think is really really important for us being decent humans is to not view the world only from our own perspective but to see a lot more of what's happening in the world and to see how people have participated in making it better but i also get really similar things from fiction i get a lot of that from classics because classics typically usually have a greater message that they're trying to communicate but i also get that a lot from modern fiction as well there's tons of fantasy stories sci-fi stories literary fiction pretty much any genre there's tons of stories out there where the author is using the story as a means to have a conversation and i feel like i come away from those stories a lot of times with another perspective with a little bit deeper understanding of something and i i really really appreciate stories where i come away and i have a lot to think about as well as having had a great time and being entertained there have also been studies where they've looked at the brain activity of someone who's been reading since a very young age and how how different their brains are engaged versus someone who isn't an active reader or doesn't like to read at all and then they and then they've studied a brain of an adult who's just started reading and how how their brain is is showing as well and it's believed that the benefits that i've talked about in this video can start later on in life you don't have to be a childhood reader to get these benefits you can start accessing these benefits as an adult who's just now getting into reading which is really cool i just think it's really i think it's really cool that something that i'm this passionate about something that i love this much something that i genuinely enjoy on the level that i do reading stories not only adds tons of real life daily benefits but also it's something that we can start gaining if we start reading right now because we live live in such a microwave age because we live in such an instant and such a fast pace and such a entertain me for a little bit here then a little bit here then a little bit here because we've lost our our attention spans getting into reading can be really really challenging it can feel boring it can be easy to get distracted it can be really hard so starting with something as simple as planning to read 10 pages a day or 10 minutes a day or one chapter a day whatever goal you want to set put your phone on the other side of the room or even just in another room and say i'm not getting up until i read these 10 pages and doing that every day will start exercising the brain and start creating habits and very very quickly a lot of people have said when they've tried just setting themselves these little goals it becomes easier and easier to read more and more and reading becomes a delight anyway i really don't know how interesting this is to anybody else i think it's fascinating i know how much i love reading and i know how much joy i get from sinking deeply into a story but i also find it and and i will say i think that there's so much merit and just being entertained there's so much merit and just having a hobby that doesn't provide accessible or real-life benefits other than it makes me happy that's worth it that alone is worth your time but i also think it's just so interesting how many real-life daily benefits something that brings me so much entertainment and so much joy and so much peace it calms me down during a busy day something that gives me so many entertainment so much entertainment value also brings so much value for just benefiting the brain long term i think that's so interesting i don't know how interesting you guys find it but i find it really interesting thank you for hanging out with me and chatting with me a little bit about this video again i had another video that i think couples this one really well that's more about the passion of reading that's more about why we love reading so hard and why why we get really attached to stories and characters so i recommend checking out that video too if you haven't already i think that these two go really well together we have the more analytical video and then we have the more emotional video but i'd love to continue chatting with you about it in the comments are you an avid reader how does it affect your brain are you wanting to get into reading more actively i would love to discuss it more with you in the comments again check out those studies in the description that i referenced all throughout this video i post videos every tuesday through friday i'll see you again soon bye [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Merphy Napier

Views: 358,967

Keywords: what reading does to your brain, books, read, how to get into reading

Id: Lgc2T74quZI

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021