7 Reasons Why Reading is Important

Reading has always been a huge part of my life. I grew up with my dad reading at every spare moment he had for himself, that being in the backyard when it was sunny or right before bed.

From very early on I was always drawn to books, to words, to different ways of writing and telling a story. I don’t have the time to read as often as I’d like to now, but as my job consists of creating stories and writing, I feel as if I still get something out of words on my daily life – and that helps too.

Because reading feels like such an important hobby to me, I wanted to compile some of the reasons why I believe it is important. Feel free to add the reasons why you love it in the comments below, I’m sure there are many I couldn’t remember!

1. It’s educational. Reading is educational in many different ways: it teaches you vocabulary and grammar, it teaches you about empathy when describing how others might feel, it teaches you ways of living that you might have overlooked before. Reading can open your mind to so many things.
2. It helps you escape. When I’m reading a story, I can forget about everything going on in my life and temporarily submerge myself in the story’s world. It can feel like a sort of therapy at times and it’s definitely helped with anxiety.
3. It boosts your creativity. I feel like those who read very often have an easier time coming up with their own stories. You are used to jumping in and out of different worlds, where the impossible doesn’t exist, and that expands your creativity like nothing else.
4. It can help you focus. For me, when I’m reading I can’t hear anything else around me. I have always been easily distracted by everything around me, but reading changed that – in the sense that it taught me how to drown out any sound around me when I’m focusing.
5. You learn about different cultures. What faster way could there be of completely submerging yourself in someone’s culture than to walk their footsteps for 400 pages? Reading has taught me so much about different cultures and different family styles.
6. It makes you less judgmental. In the same way that it can help you open your mind and understand other cultures, reading can also help you understand that everyone goes through hardships and everyone has a long story behind them that shaped the way they are.
7. It makes a great community. For me, a community of avid readers is one of the most interesting ones out there, always supporting writers and the right to create new stories.

Comment some more below, I’ll definitely be making a part 2 in the future 😊