adminFredrick Qaphelani Mabikwa Successful Solutions
In my article last week, I was lamenting the demise of a reading culture in our children. This week I just want to share a few benefits of reading both to the adult and the child.First reading is a great relaxer. When you read you take away your focus of attention of your everyday troubles and worries for a while as reading transports you to places, dream worlds and cultures that you may know little about or you were not even aware they existed. The mind is thus relaxed when it is allowed to divert and wander. No matter how much stress you have at work, in your personal relationships, or countless other issues faced in daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story or immersed in great ideas in a book. Research has shown that of all mind relaxers reading ranks among the top. In stress, books make you feel better and can make you change the manner in which you were looking at things.
Whenever you read something, you add to your already existing knowledge. Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever face. Knowledge is a very effective tool to conquer challenges and that is why we have the old adage “knowledge is power.” When you acquire knowledge it’s yours no one can take it away from you not even a seasoned thief cannot steal it from you. I was saying to a friend “knowledge is one aspect of our lives that we own in the real sense of the word”. Other things in life can be lost, your possessions, your money, your job even your health — knowledge can never be taken from you. Without new information we become stagnant, we are designed to grow and expand. To prevent us from growing stale we need to nourish our brain with new information.
When you don’t stimulate the mind with information or engross it in a compelling and captivating story this can sometimes lead to boredom and a mundane way of life. Most people who don’t read become addicted to things that are very naïve and some of which are dangerous to their lives, like abuse of alcohol and womanising for men. Reading feeds your hungry mind with an endless supply of knowledge and information which it seeks.
Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia, since keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing power. Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy. Not many people have achieved success without knowledge and learning.
The best way to absorb and acquire knowledge is through reading. Reading helps you to expand spiritually and mentally, it can increase your intellect, improve your focus of concentration thus making you wiser. Reading can make you more analytical and more creative.
You don’t always see things the ordinary way, you “think in other terms”, as the logo of one of our local universities says. Reading improves your analytical skills. When you read a book you critique the plot; determining whether it was a well-written piece, if the characters were properly developed or if the storyline ran smoothly. These analytical skills you can still employ in other spheres of life.
Like I did indicate in my last article, reading improves your vocabulary. The more you read, the more you are exposed to new vocabulary. You are exposed to more words and they’ll inevitably make their way into your everyday vocabulary. The new words you have been exposed to, you can easily use in your writing and speaking. The wider your vocabulary, the more articulate you are. When you listen to people like President Barak Obama speak you can really experience the depth and width of the vocabulary of a good speaker.
Being articulate and well-spoken is of great help in any profession, and knowing that you can speak confidently can be an enormous boost to your self-esteem. It could even aid in your career, as those who are well-read, well-spoken, and knowledgeable on a variety of topics tend to get promotions more quickly (and more often) than those with smaller vocabularies and shallow speech.
Through reading you will find a vast array of new found knowledge will help you to become more involved in discussions. You will be more able to instigate much more variable and interesting levels of conversations. Obtaining more information will give you a distinct advantage over the others because you will have gathered a much wider understanding of many subjects and topics of conversation.
Ultimately this will make you a very much more interesting and refreshing person to be around. Limited knowledge can seriously hold you back and leave you feeling left out in some social situations.
Reading also improves your memory. This is why you can recite a story you read even 15 years ago. The mental strength with which you remember the characters and plot of that story you read 15 years ago is the same mental strength you call upon to recall scientific formulas. I read an article on the net which was saying that every new memory you create in your brain through reading forges new synapses (brain pathways) and strengthens existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall as well as stabilising moods.
It has also been proved that reading improves focus and concentration. In our internet-crazed world, attention is drawn in a million different directions at once as we multi-task through every day. We tend to lack concentration and this even affects even things like driving. I guess you have seen some drivers drive through a red robot in broad daylight, this is lack of concentration. In a single 5-minute span, the average person will divide their time between working on a task, checking email, chatting with a couple of people, keeping an eye on twitter, monitoring their smartphone, and interacting with co-workers.
This type of behaviour causes stress levels to rise. When stress levels rise our productivity is lowered. When people are hyperactive nothing much is achieved. Reading will come down the nerves and settle the mind. Try reading for 15-20 minutes before work and you’ll be surprised at how much more focused you are once you get to the office.
I am yet to see ardent readers who are loud. Ardent readers are normally calm. In fact reading even makes you humble. Some subjects we read about can bring about immense inner peace and tranquility. Reading spiritual texts can lower blood pressure and bring about an immense sense of calm and peace of mind. When I read Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, my perception of life changed drastically. I immediately became very positive and removed the word “problem” from my vocabulary and replaced with the word “challenge”. I got to learn that challenges are part and parcel of our daily lives. Even Christ had them. What is important is to know how to navigate them and also note any lessons learnt.
Last but not least we read for entertainment. This we normally get from fiction novels. Story books can engage us in worlds which are miles apart from our own, here we can have a glimpse of what goes on in the lives of many fictional characters, where we can experience empathy, sympathy and compassion with these make believe characters. This shows the power of our imagination as we bring these people and their experiences to life. These experiences of the fictitious characters you can easily bring them into your own lives.
All leaders and successful people never stop reading. The famous Think and Grow Rich book written by Napoleon Hill has made over 500 millionaires and the formula to his strategy has been used by many of the world’s finest entrepreneurs; it has been attributed to the success of some of the wealthiest people worldwide. Reading is very powerful, it changes and transforms lives.
Nearly all successful people will tell you that there is at least one book that they read that completely turned around and transformed their life. Information and knowledge can mean power, it can lead to inspiration and success, but only if you apply the right information to help you better your life.
Online Reporter