Books Help You Live Longer
(2nd Quarter Books)
Wanna live longer?
Try reading more books!
📚 📚 📚 📚 📚
Research proves there are many benefits of regular reading - some might surprise you! 😳 😲
Reading helps both our brain AND our body. 😃
Here’s how:
improves brain connectivity 🧠
increases your vocabulary & comprehension 🗣
empowers you to empathize with others 🤗
aids in sleep readiness 😴
reduces stress 🙃
lowers blood pressure & heart rate 💗
fights depression symptoms 😊
prevents cognitive decline as you age 👩🦳
contributes to a longer life 👵
When you haven’t been reading in a while, do you struggle to find certain evasive words to describe something or to express yourself? Is your imagination less active, and you discover that your creativity has left town? That has been my experience. The good news is - those things improve when I get back into the habit of reading.
Several years ago, I was recuperating from an injury, on pain meds, and supposed to sit (mostly) still and get some rest. That doesn’t come easily for me, but I decided to make the most of it and get in some bonus book time… except things didn’t go exactly as planned. I couldn’t concentrate. WTH?! I couldn’t focus. I wasn’t really comprehending what I kept rereading over & over. Dammit. That was so frustrating! All this time to read, with no guilt, for as long and as much as I could handle in a day, but I couldn’t do it. Losing that ability, even temporarily, was a shock. It gave me a much deeper appreciation for this precious gift - the ability to read. And that’s not all I learned that day about reading…
The only things left to do as I recuperated were napping or watching TV. Even writing wasn’t an option, for the same reasons as reading. So, I dusted off my remote and tried to find something on the telly to kill time while my body mended. Interestingly, there was no problem focusing and comprehending the boob tube content... hmm, in my mind, this could only mean one thing…
🧐 I concluded that this was evidence enough to prove that reading uses our brains far more than TV.
Of course, this wasn’t ground-breaking research in the top bio labs with leading global scientists on a multi-million-dollar budget - just little ol’ me on my faded floral sofa, but I will never forget the impact it made on me. I’ll likely remember it better than the actual scientific research that backs my findings. Couch potatoes are grown with heavy doses of screen time. My TV is rarely on, (except for hockey or baseball, or the occasional binge-worthy series) yet that lesson comes to mind every time I touch the remote.
📕 📒 📓 📗 📘 📔 📙
So, here’s what I reached for instead through the 2nd quarter of 2021:
*Holy Heathen - Katherine North
*You Don’t Owe Anyone - Caroline Garnet McGraw
Living with Intention - Lynne McTaggart
*Everything is Figureoutable - Marie Forleo
Present over Perfect - Shauna Niequist
Hallelujah Anyway – Anne Lamott
*The Wisdom of Sundays – Oprah Winfrey
Some were audio books, some in print. The ones I’ve starred, come with my recommendation*.
There are still lots of lazy summer ☀️ days to get your read on!
📚 📚 📚
Grab a book and do something good for your brain AND your body!
And remember! If you are an avid reader, you are on your way to a longer, healthier life, which equals more time to read! You may just live forever. 😉
xo Deena
>> *For even more reflections on reading and book recommendations, be sure to hop over to my “1st Quarter Books” blog post.
👇 And please share your recommendations in the comments, below. I’m always looking for new material!
