1. Reading can improve brain function

Believe it or not, psychology Today reports that approximately 42% of college graduates will never read a book again after graduating, but regular reading can have a positive impact on brain function. A research study conducted at Emory University that examined the correlation between brain function and reading a novel found that FMRI scans of study participants who read Robert Harris’sPompeii showed “heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language.”

The Daily mail also reports that reading can help to slow memory decline. The brain, like the rest of the body, requires exercise to remain agile and alert, and reading can help to increase focus and concentration.

2. Reading can improve empathy

According to the same article in Psychology Today, those who read regularly report an increased ability to step into someone else’s shoes and experience the world through alternative points of view. Books are portals into other worlds and other times, both real and fictional. We can’t, for instance, take a trip in a time machine back to Victorian London, but we can read Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist and experience a realistic account of orphan life during that period as only Dickens can tell it.

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