Through books, we are able to “live” in different settings and have new visions of the world, we can visit fascinating places, meet incredible people, smell exotic environments, taste unknown ingredients and listen to sounds never heard.
Why does reading with pleasure give health?
Because when we read we are exercising the mind and energizing our cognitive abilities. We are focusing attention and fighting dispersion, exercising working memory, which allows us to understand the sequences of events, and we are also stimulating imagination and creativity, which are skills that help us to think about the best solutions for solve problems.
All these cognitive skills are fundamental in our day-to-day and reading is the best exercise to combat the early degradation of our mental skills.
Emotions become aware and alive. When we “enter” a book, it can be a novel or a thriller, or even poetry, we are invited to feel and live with intensity. The emotions we feel when we vibrate with a book often serve the purpose of releasing the restrained tears, the loud laughter and feeling the throbbing of hope and faith for tomorrow.
All these emotions fill our boredom, appease our anxiety, comfort our loneliness and remind us that we still have a lot to learn and so much to teach.
Why does feeling the pleasure of reading makes us live?
Because reading activates our five senses.
Through the books we see landscapes, we appreciate extraordinary works of art, we look at people of all shapes and sizes, we take part in war scenarios and we also visit enchanted castles.
Through books, we can hear the gentle breeze, startle ourselves with the roar of the lion, feel the vibration of forgotten songs and recognize the tone of voice of each of the characters.
Books stimulate our olfactory memory. We smell and breathe every space that each page offers us, we learn to identify new smells and to recognize others.
Books allow us to touch different textures, some even cause chills and distress in us, others are so soft and smooth that it takes a little longer to turn the page.
What about the flavours we taste? Some we recognize and even know if we like them or not, others are totally unknown but with the help of the writer we can imagine and even taste them.
Books beyond knowledge convey emotions and feelings.
It is essentially for all this that reading gives us health and makes us live!
