Reading has been proven to have a variety of benefits for our mental health and the development of our thought processes. Through addiction recovery, we are working to strengthen our decision-making process and feel comfortable in the choices we make. Reading can help strengthen this skill in a fun way.
What Benefits Can Reading Have?
Reading has many benefits that can improve our overall well-being. Many of these benefits can be used through addiction recovery to ease the process and increase our ability to handle its challenges.
Increased Openness to New Experiences
Through reading, we are experiencing a variety of experiences that differ from our reality. When we read these stories, our imagination can explore the story as if we were living it. This helps open the mind to new experiences and viewpoints. You have an opportunity to learn about cultures across the world from you and hear the perspective of someone you will never meet. Books allow us to experience things that we typically would not get the opportunity to discover.
This can be beneficial during recovery to help you see the beauty in the world around you. Many people feel trapped and isolated when they are working through the recovery process, feeling that they cannot go out and explore the world. Reading is a way to discover new things while still maintaining your focus on recovery.
Improved Cognition
The act of reading requires many different aspects of your brain to work together. While it may seem like a simple task, your brain has to translate the words you are reading, put a meaning to them, understand the context, and store learned information. Our brain can function highly when reading by engaging in the following skills:
- Attention
- Planning
- Abstract reasoning
- Predicting
- Problem-solving
- Working and retrieval memory
- Visual processing
- Eye movement
By engaging all of these skills simultaneously, reading improves the cognitive function of our brains. Reading regularly can help strengthen these cognitive functions and improve your ability to process new information through the creation of new neural pathways.
Through this increase in brain activity, our ability to reason, regulate emotions, and make decisions can be significantly improved. These benefits can be extremely helpful during the recovery process. Improving these cognitive abilities through the simple act of reading can translate into your recovery skills with little effort.
More Longevity
Did you know that reading can make a difference in your longevity? Studies have shown that book reading regularly throughout life could add approximately four months to your life. By improving your brain functioning, reading can help your body retain cognitive functioning slightly longer than individuals who do not engage in book reading. This may not be very impactful during early recovery but is important to consider for your future. Working toward a lifestyle of self-care is a major goal of recovery.
Heightened Relaxation
Reading can also be used as a healthy coping strategy. If you feel overwhelmed with the process of recovery and are struggling to ground yourself, stepping aside for ten minutes and engaging with a good book can help to reset your mind. It provides you with a story and space to engage your mind that is away from your current problems.
Reading later at night can also promote falling asleep. During recovery, you may have a variety of negative thoughts coming to mind, keeping you up at night. Straying away from these thoughts and engaging in a book can help you relax your mind and fall asleep faster, setting yourself up for success the next day.
Learn to Love Reading
For some individuals, reading can be hard to engage in because it is simply not enjoyable to them. A lot of people go through this phase and find more enjoyment in watching television or playing a video game. Finding a book that is intriguing to you and relatable can help get you into the act of reading. Sometimes it only takes one good book to change your perception of reading and gain the desire to implement it into your everyday life.
Set a goal to read ten pages a day initially. You can choose to adjust this goal to your liking. You can practice this habit right after you wake up or right before going to bed. Setting a specific goal to complete each day will encourage you to engage in this act. At first, it may seem tedious, but after a while, it may be your favorite part of your day. Seeing the benefits reading can bring to your mental well-being helps reinforce the enjoyment of the act and encourages you to continue reading.
Reading is an enjoyable activity that provides you with many mental health benefits. By improving cognitive functioning, and increasing longevity, reading can have surprising health benefits. As well as improving our brain functioning, reading can open you up to new experiences and perceptions, and it can be used as a coping mechanism. These can be extremely beneficial aspects of reading for the addiction recovery process. Allowing this healthy practice to be used as a method of relaxation and enjoyment through recovery, you can gain these benefits with very little effort. Individuals who consistently read tend to have a more positive state of mind and improved emotional regulation. This can increase your ability to focus on recovery and overcome the obstacles that come your way. To learn more about the benefits of reading in recovery, reach out to Dream Recovery at (949) 732-1960.
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