HOW TO READ MORE BOOKS.
Have you always envied all those friends of yours, which claim to be able to read 15, even 20 books per month? If the answer is affermative, do not worry, you just happen to be in the right place!I mean to be as honest as possible with you, since the very beginning of this adventure together: I've always been a great reader. I have always found great pleasure and comfort between the pages of a good book, the emotions of living years that are not coming back, the shiver to experiment future...everything mixed with that smell of freshly printed paper... it's just too much to resist! Still, do not worry! The method I am about to share with you has already been tested on a lot of people I personally know. All these friends never picked a book up before (some of them not even in school!)and still now thei are absolutely addicted to reading!
BUT, WAIT. IS IT REALLY A WORTH-DEVELOPING HABIT?
Oh yeah! Reading is among the greatest activities you could decide to spend your free time doing! Some studies even proved it has a lot of different benefits varying from person to person,(and how could I be surprisetd by that? It's such a private, I'd say, intimate activity! ) but to maximize the usefulness of what I am about to write, I will present you the 5 most general reasons why it is useful to start reading.
1) READING CAN HELP FIGHT STRESS AND ANXIETY.
In a life which is becoming more and more full of activities, pressions and impossible schedules to follow reading can litteraly be a game changer!
A research by the University of Sussex showed that even six minutes of reading can lower your stress levels by more than two thirds, slowing heart rates and relaxing muscles. In fact, they discovered it was more efficient at reducing stress than listening to music or going for a walk!
2)READING IS GREAT FOR YOUR BRAIN.
Studies have demonstrated that reading can improve your memory and boost your crativeness.
It is excellent for what regards your focus too!
Think of it as gifting your brain a ticket to a meeting with the mind of another person ( a brilliant person, if you've choosen the book wisefully).
From such a meeting he will learn so much!
3) READING MAKES YOU LIVE INFINITE LIFES.
As humans, our time on this planet, is actually very limited and even those who have extraordinary resources won't be able to satisfy ALL their curiosities.
Reading can make you switch from living the life of the President of the United States to being one of the most dangerous criminals on the Planet, to being a rockstar! All of this in the same month!
It makes you live all the most different lifes without all the most negative effects of some of them.
4)READING WILL TRANSFORM YOUR SCHOLASTIC PATH.
It will give you a boost in every single subject. It doesn't matter how far the topic you are studying seems from the last book you read! (Remember that meeting we mentioned before?)
Some researches claim it has a stronger impact on educational achievement than the socio-economic status of parents.
5) READING IS ALL BUT BORING!
A lot of people have such a wrong idea of what reading is actually about.
Some of them only associate it to that booring assigment they had to complete back in school, falling in a tricky trap. Follow my reccomandations and you'll never fall for it!
HOW TO DEVELOPE A SOLID READING HABIT.
1) START WITH 5 MINUTES PER DAY.
It may seem useless, totally not effective and dumb but trust me: it will change your way of looking to reading. It is an old secret which can be applied to almost everything: from working out to learning a new language. The reason why it works is all in the subtle way your brain is tricked: we usually never start doing things which are totally in our power only because we are scared of the amount of time they will take! Start reading for 5 minutes EVERY single day, sooner than you think you'll find yourself turning a page after the other and resetting the timer!
2)TRY TO FIND AN APPOSIT "READING-TIME" IN YOUR DAY.
Okay, you decided to trust me for what regards the 5-minutes-strategy. Now, it would be great to find a precise moment in your day to put it into practice! This will have 2 great effects on the creation of a solid habit. The first one is about how our brain works. It is a lot easier for us to develope an habit when the latter occurs at a precise hour in the day. In other words, your mind, as the choosen time approaches, starts to organise all the tools she needs to work! The second effect, connected to the first, is that you will start to take your reading sessions more seriously, as you're planning them hours before they occur.
3) DO NOT BE AFRAID TO READ WHAT YOU ACTUALLY LIKE TO READ!
This may seem something blatant, with little to none practical effect. Nothing further from the truth. This is the hearth of this guide! Remember when I wrote that most people who are not into reading find themself in that position ,because they associate reading to a bunch of things they were forced to do in school? Well you do not need to start with something which is complex, or scary for its number of pages if you don't feel like it. Even reading comics is a form of reading and if it gives you pleasure why not to stick with it? If you enjoy what you are reading you are 100% more likely to be back next day. This is what really builds an habit. There will always be time to read othere cathegories of books, and trust me, you will enjoy them even more when you'll be ready.
4) NOT FINISHING A BOOK IS PERFECTLY FINE!
In accordance to what I explained in point 3, it's crucial for you to read something you enjoy. It is called "reading for pleasure" for a reason, after all! So, if even from the very first pages of your book, you start to notice you've just picked something you don't like, it's perfectly fine to abbandon it for another one. Obviousluy, as you'll become a more ecperienced reader, this will start to happen less frequently! Not to mention that as years will pass, youur taste will change continously, and you could find yourself loving something you thought would never make it for you.
5) TRY STARTING MORE BOOKS AT ONCE.
This is more of a "bonus" tip, because, it will work better on some kind of people than on others. I still wanted to include it because for some of the people that discovered the pleasure of reading for the first time it was a game-changer! If you start reading different books at the same time, you will have the great advantage of being able to adapt your choice to different kind of days. For example let's assume you're having such a tough week at work/school, you could read a short-stories-book on the most stressfull days, leaving the big passionating novel you've picked to the weekend!
I hope some of you will put into practice these tips (don't hesitate to e-mail me to share any toughts/achievements!)
I look foward to meet you again very soon with a lot of other stories, ideas and tips, here on Tunearth!