B15: Books are dreams you hold in your hands

I was always a voracious reader.  From the age of 9 I devoured books without pictures…..borrowing them from my local Carrick public library.  Mrs. Galvin, the librarian, knew me and my friend, Catherine, well.  But I would read anything….magazines, Readers’ Digest, holiday brochures, even clothing catalogues.

That’s why it was such a shock, when I regained consciousness after my stroke, to find that I could no longer read.  Primarily, the words made little sense.  But also I found I couldn’t follow a sentence with my eyes….I would jump from the first word on the first line to maybe the fourth word on the third line….back to the sixth word on the second line.  I just couldn’t focus.  I also had a very short concentration span and would lose interest in the subject matter after a couple of minutes.
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Luckily, with the help of the nursing staff, who brought me the newspaper every day in the hospital, I relearned how to read.  Although, I’m still a long way off from devouring books the way I once did.
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So, for me, the 8 benefits of reading are:

1. It increases your vocabulary – if you come across an unfamiliar word you can look up it’s meaning in a dictionary. Then try to use it in a conversation.  This in turn allows you to communicate better with those around you.  And expressing your thoughts and feelings with better descriptive words avoids frustration.
2. It sharpens your mind – concentrating, following and understanding the story plot in a book trains your memory and logical thinking ability.
3. It lowers stress and decreases depression - reading can help you escape for an hour or two from your worries and woes.  It gives you a break so that you can tackle your issues with a clearer mind.  Reading self-help books may give also you some of the solutions you seek.  Even if books aren’t a solution to your own problems, reading can teach you empathy for other people as you read about theit trials and tribulations.
4. It allows you to travel without leaving home – it brings the world to you and enhances your imagination so that in your mind’s eye you can visualise a place or face.
5. It broadens your horizons – by reading a wide-range of non-fiction books on a wide-range of topics, it challenges your thought process and belief system.  Seeing that there’s as many ways of looking at things as there are people in the world, and that they are entitled to that opinion, can help you be more tolerant.
6. It can increase your knowledge – books have the luxury of going into subject matter in a bit more detail than a quick social media headline.  This allows you to explore and discover in depth. about a subject
7. It improves your writing skills – this can help in many a work scenario….whether you have to write a business plan for your bank manager (hopefully non-fiction) or a job application (usually some element of fiction 😊).
8. It provides relaxation & entertainment – so many of our lives now are so busy, busy….to sit or lie down with a good book can be so relaxing.  Not surprising that most people bring books on vacation.  Very few forms of entertainment are so portable and can be taken up/ left down as easily to fill a leisure gap.

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Related Blogs
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Blog 16: First 8/80 Books

Did you like reading?  Why? 

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