Reading has always been known for having many benefits for the well-being of people’s mental health.
From helping them relax before falling asleep, to escaping reality for just a couple of hours throughout the day or to challenge their mind in various ways.
Studies have shown that reading up as little as 6 minutes per day can improve your quality of sleep, reduce stress and sharpen mental acuity.
Statements like this are good to hear, but does everybody agree with them?
Let’s find out.
The impact that reading has on people sure can differ in meaning and point of view as explained by Dr Craig-Jordan Baker Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing at the University of Brighton, he said: “I don’t think there is any predefined impact, because people and texts are very different. At least if you follow the blurb, the effect of a piece of erotica is meant to be characteristically different from the malaise-riddled novels of Kafka.”
When the pandemic hit in 2020 much attention and care for mental health became the subjects of numerous debates, and many found that reading helped people escape from the current reality more than anything.
This can be defined as ‘escapism’, meaning, ‘a habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine’.
Dr Baker said: “While there are many reasons to read, escapism is certainly one of them. At least plausibly, it can function in several ways. The way we often talk about is that life is tough, stressful, etc. and that to escape into a book is a form of pressure-release or avoidance of those stressors. This, I am sure is true but there’s often an internal imperative here, sometimes we escape into answers we wish we could have in real life. For example, sometimes in fantasy and sci-fi, there’s a comforting kind of moral clarity and sense of purpose that we never obtain outside of books. This is escapism, but it escapes to something, rather than from something.”
Words and stories can transcend our imagination to something far away, here are some of the books Dr Craig said helped him ‘with’ difficult times when things are to be dealt with and companionship in words is what we seek.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Stanislaw Lem, Solaris
Anna Burns, Milkman
Flann O’Brien, The Poor Mouth
Share yours in the comments below.
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