The Health Blog

How long ago was the last time you looked through a good book or a magazine? If the most recent time that comes to mind was when you were in school or when you were considering new career opportunities, then it’s been far too long. Our brains are starving for new information – and so are you, even if you don’t know it yet.

For whatever reason, some people seem to love to read all the time, while others just don’t have an interest. The problem is usually the choice of reading material. Most people usually have their own favourite genres and magazines, and for every one of us, we generally think that everything else which is not in our area of interest is boring.

Try to make some time to find out what kind of reading you really enjoy. Reading a great book is like experiencing a new and exciting world for our senses. Our imagination creates the smallest details and we look on intently as the characters fulfil their purpose. Often, the experience can seem as real as a memory – and occasionally, even more so.

Everyone should have opportunity to experience reading an extraordinary book like this – at least once. Through reading we can visit new places, and we can even learn all sorts of real world facts too. How do you think those people on Jeopardy win so much money? Quite a lot of those seemingly insignificant bits of information can actually be life enhancing – not trivial, if they add to someone’s life in a useful way.

Pick up a magazine and scan the table of contents for an interesting story. Read it and see what you learn. Try to find something new to read each day. It could be an article in the newspaper, a magazine, or just flipping through a book by your favourite author.

With some unusual books, reading can also increase your vocabulary. They say that most books are written with eighth grade reading comprehension in mind, because if the words are too hard, people just skip over them or stop reading entirely. Either way, if you avoid reading, you’ll miss out on something potentially worthwhile.

Maybe there’s a stack of books in your room that you were meaning to get around to, but haven’t as yet taken the time to begin. Why not take control, and invest an hour or two this weekend to begin to read again, or perhaps in the evening as you unwind for bed? Let the words on the pages push away all of the pressures from the day. Open your mind to new ways of thinking – new possibilities.

Reading a little each day keeps the mind sharp, as without this work, our minds quickly atrophy from lack of regular stimulation. Getting those reading muscles going again can make – literally, all the difference in the world.

Have you ever been stuck for an answer and thought back to something you read? Whatever passage it was held the key to solving your problem. Without that essential knowledge which you discovered while reading, you’d still be waiting for someone else to help you out, but instead, you found a way to help yourself and all those around you.

Learning to read and then actively continuing to read stretches our minds in new ways, and with true perseverance, we may even learn to think quite far “outside the box.”

Alan Gillies is the CEO of Learning 2 Live, a comprehensive online Lifestyles resource which delves deeply into business and pleasure, covering a wide variety of Lifestyle subjects such as Relationships, Health, Wellbeing, Career, Travel & Coaching, and many more. Alan has considerable personal experience throughout a number of business fields including Coaching and Mentoring, Change Management and Neuro Linguistic Programming.