Does reading a lot actually make you smarter, more insightful etc?

[cocoaero]

Recently I've been hitting a good reading streak reading on average 1-2 books a week since the start of the year. I read mostly contemporary (well last 50 years up to present day) literary fiction, some classics and a few non-fiction books.

I am enjoying it, I feel like it helps me relax and that I sleep better after reading for an hour than I do if I've been scrolling. I am enjoying less time online in general so that is good and I enjoy the entertainment of the books and I am not expecting it to do anything special other than that. I was talking to a family member the other day and they were saying reading is beneficial for your mind that it helps creativity and improves thinking and can even help protect against dementia.

Is this true do you think?

And you also automatically corrected to bear with me!

That's enough to justify reading in itself!

I think what reading gives you (especially lit fic but not exclusively) is a window into different lives, different emotions. We are so siloed in our own minds: I feel like this therefore everyone must feel the same. And we don't! We could all do with getting outside our own heads and losing ourselves in someone else's way of living, their way of thinking.

Funnily enough this is what will make my dh dislike book. He likes action-reaction and the atmosphere of a place as it's described to him. But I love emotions and motivations too.

I saw a study that found that reading fiction is helpful in staving off cognitive decline, because of the brain processes used and the concentration and memory required to remember lots of characters and various plots lines.

And you also automatically corrected to bear with me!

😆

@thecatneuterer the have was auto correct too'

I confess to sometimes reading the Daily Mail online (I know!) and some of the english is shocking, would defo see a bare there

I think it's a lot more common to hear mispronunciations etc on TV so maybe that drives some of the should of, restbite spellings?

Not trying to be snobby about it but I worked with a small group probably about 16 and only two of us read for pleasure. We went to a quiz and me and the other lady knew quite a lot more general knowledge than the rest of them ( some of them were astonished the different subjects I had knowledge of) bit of an insult I thought. We also can spell when most of the others can't. I honestly put it down to reading. I'm not clever by any means but I do know the difference between been and being, not that I would ever tell them.

Where did I say repeated puzzles?