Four Studies Show How Reading Can Affect Your Brain in Ways You Can’t Even Imagine

Discover what reading can do for you.

Can read too much drive you crazy?

I always ask myself that question.

It’s something that worries me. Do you?

In 2020 I read close to 100 books.

That’s why I research the weirdest studies you can imagine around reading. And I want to share with you four of them. That proves that contrary to what one might think, reading is a powerful act.

If people knew this information, they would make reading a habit, like brushing their teeth or going to the gym.

Let’s start

1. Reading fiction improves your brain connectivity

A study at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, studied the impact of reading novels on the brain.

A total of 21 participants were studied. 12 women and 9 men between the ages of 19 and 27.

This possibility was tested by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track changes in the brain activity of individuals in the study who read an entire novel.

Each participant was subjected to 19 consecutive days of scans. The novel chosen for the study was Pompeii: A Novel. By Robert Harris.

Results

• The average arousal ratings of the study subjects increased steadily as the plot evolved, peaking at the climax of the novel.
• Three independent cortical networks demonstrated increases in connectivity as a result of reading the novel.
• The results suggest that reading not only strengthens language processing regions. But also affects the individual through semantics embedded in sensorimotor regions.
• Your brain remains active even after reading a book.
• Your brain activity increases the next day when you read the night before. This “shadow activity” is analogous to muscle memory and was shown in the left temporal cortex, an area associated with language.

The bottom line, reading novels increases your brain’s connectivity by enhancing language processing. So your daily data processing and comprehension capacity increase.

This is the same as saying that if you read novels, you will understand others better. And you will function better in the world.

2. Reading reduces the risk of dementia

Drs. ATC Lee, Richards, Chan, Lam conducted a mega study on the relationship between intellectual activities in adulthood (including old age) and dementia.

A total of 15,582 adults were included in this study. They were followed for an average of 5 years. A total of 1349 participants (8.7%) developed dementia during the study. The following conclusions were drawn from these data,

• The people most likely to develop dementia were people with low educational levels and medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, poor mobility, and depression.
• There was no significant difference in smoking prevalence between those with and without incident dementia.
• Those who remained free of dementia participated in more intellectual activities such as reading than those who developed dementia.
• No associations were found between maintenance of social or other recreational activities and lower incidence of dementia.
• Participation in intellectual activities in old age was associated with a lower risk of incidents of dementia several years later.

Summarizing

The study finds that engaging in intellectual activities in old age, such as reading, reduces the risk of dementia in adults. Therefore reading may prevent and delay dementia even in older people.

3. Reading Shakespeare stimulates positive brain activity

Research at the University of Liverpool has found that the language of Shakespeare stimulates positive brain activity.

Professor Davis, along with a couple of colleagues, conducted the following experiment. They monitored 20 people using an electroencephalogram while the participants read selected paragraphs from Shakespeare’s plays.

Shakespeare uses a linguistic technique known as a functional shift: he uses nouns as verbs. And this forces the reader to understand the words before knowing what function that word serves in a given sentence.

In other words, it allows you to make new connections between words and structures such as sentences and paragraphs.

The Liverpool researchers concluded that this reading process causes a spike of positive brain activity in the reader. Because it forces him to work backward, to understand what Shakespeare has written.

Professor Philip Davis said in this regard:

“The brain reacts to reading a phrase such as ‘he godded me’ from the tragedy of Coriolanus, in a similar way to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. If it is easy to see which pieces slot together you become bored of the game, but if the pieces don’t appear to fit, when we know they should, the brain becomes excited. By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity — a sense of drama created out of the simplest of things.”

4. Reading Jane Austen gets your brain in shape

A team of researchers from Stanford University asked a group of people to read Jane Austen novels while they were in an MRI machine.

The research aimed to study the relationship between reading, attention, and distraction.

The mechanism of the experiment was simple. The participants had to start browsing the book as if they were in a bookstore. And then stop at some point in the text to read more carefully, as they would do when studying for an exam.

The results were surprising.

It significantly increased blood flow in several areas of the readers’ brains (not just those related to executive function). This suggests that paying attention to literary texts requires the coordination of multiple complex cognitive functions.

Thus literary study provides A valuable exercise of people’s brains.

This study highlighted the possibility of using literature reading as a cognitive treatment to modulate concentration and activate new brain regions.

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