This Just In: Reading is Good for Your Brain!
In his article “10 Brain Reasons To Make Reading a Habit,” Jim Kwik reports, “Reading lights up your entire brain. A 2013 study out of Emory University measured readers’ MRI scans as they read a book. They found the deeper readers went into the story, the more areas of the brain were activated.”
Kwik continues, saying, “Research from Boston’s Children’s Hospital showed that reading can rewire your brain, create new neural networks, and strengthen the white matter in the corpus callosum…this allows you to process information more efficiently, helping you learn faster.”
Other reasons to read include the facts that:
• reading strengthens your brain,
• reduces stress,
• expands your knowledge, and
• enhances creativity and imagination.
If that weren’t enough, reading also improves memory, concentration, focus, and vocabulary!
But perhaps the most important reason to read: entertainment!
Reading a well-constructed story triggers the release of dopamine, the feel-good hormone in your brain.
No wonder book lovers crave good books.
In 2012, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a neuroscientist at Stanford University reported that reading ability in young children is related to the growth of the brain’s white matter—specifically, the arcuate nucleus, which connects the brain’s language centers, and the interior longitudinal fasciculus, which links these language centers with parts of the brain that process visual information. Strong readers, they discovered, start out with strong signals in both tracts that only get stronger over time. The opposite is true in weaker readers.”
While the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz thought what he needed was a brain—maybe he just needed to read!
