The surprising benefits of reading before bed
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We’re all commitment phobes. We scan, we skim, we browse, but rarely do we read.
Our eyes pingpong back and forth from Facebook posts to open chat boxes, unclicked emails to GIFs of dancing cats, scanning for keywords but barely digesting what we see. Average time spent on an online article is 15 seconds.
In 2014, the Pew Research Center revealed that one-quarter of American adults hadn’t read a single book in the previous year.
And that’s a shame because those who read consistently exhibit significantly greater memory and mental abilities at all stages in life. They’re also better public speakers, thinkers and, according to some studies, better people in general.
Cracking open a book before you go to bed could help combat insomnia, too: A 2009 study from researchers at University of Sussex showed that six minutes of reading reduces stress by 68% (more relaxing than either music or a cup of tea), thus clearing the mind and readying the body for sleep.
The reasoning, per psychologist and study author Dr. David Lewis is that a book is “more than merely a distraction, but an active engaging of the imagination,” one that “causes you to enter an altered state of consciousness.”
It doesn't matter if your book of choice is by James Patterson or James Joyce, fiction or fact, so long as it you find it fully absorbing.
Because when the mind is engaged in a world constructed by words, tension evaporates and the body relaxes, paving the way for sleep.
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