How Reading Can Change Your Life

You may not realise but reading can change your life positively by a huge extent. I can even say that reading is the fastest way of growing as a human. All the successful people in the world whether they are entrepreneur, businessman, politician, scientists, almost anyone is an avid reader.

Ohh that's too much. So why is this guy so fond of reading. I am assuming anyone reading this article who the above-shown personality is. Let me give you some more examples to build your further motivation.

This guy claims to read over 50 books a year which shows that reading is just more than a pass time for him.“If you read enough, there’s a similarity between things that make it easy, because this thing is like this other thing. If you have a broad framework, then you have a place to put everything,” Gates says in the Quartz video, “How Bill Gates remembers what he reads.”If you want to learn about science, for example, Gates says reading the history of scientists and reading about the progress they made can give you the context or framework to help you remember the details.
“You don’t really start getting old until you stop learning,” Gates told Time. “Every book teaches me something new or helps me see things differently. I was lucky to have parents who encouraged me to read. Reading fuels a sense of curiosity about the world, which I think helped drive me forward in my career and in the work that I do now with my foundation.”
You can even find his recommended books here Gates Notes

 "Reading has given me more perspective on a number of topics -- from science to religion, from poverty to prosperity, from health to energy to social justice, from political philosophy to foreign policy, and from history to futuristic fiction. This challenge has been intellectually fulfilling, and I come away with a greater sense of hope and optimism that our society can make greater progress in all of these areas."

And the last one

“I read a lot of books,” says Elon Musk. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX reportedly acquired the know-how to build rockets by reading. In fact, it was through reading about how to build rockets that he determined that he could do it better and cheaper.

At the age of 9, Musk reportedly read through the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, spending 10 hours a day reading. Unsurprisingly, he was reading mainly science fiction at the time. To this day, he credits his love for reading for his ability to build rockets.

We saw how reading helped these people change their lives. Now let's discuss how reading can be beneficial to you.

1. Mental Stimulation

Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia, since keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing power. Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy, so the phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly apt when it comes to your mind. Doing puzzles and playing games such as chess have also been found to be helpful with cognitive stimulation.

2. Stress Reduction

No matter how much stress you have at work, in your personal relationships, or countless other issues faced in daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story. A well-written novel can transport you to other realms, while an engaging article will distract you and keep you in the present moment, letting tensions drain away and allowing you to relax.

3.  Knowledge

Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever face.

4.  Imagination

By reading, you are exposed to so many wonderful things. This helps your imagination when it comes to creating and thinking. By reading, you are painting those pictures of the story in your mind. Books can take you anywhere you want to go.

5.  Entertainment

Reading is the best cheap or free entertainment you can get. Love your library and any bookseller, because these books can open up the world you might never have imagined.

6. Vocabulary Expansion

The more you read, the more words you gain exposure to, and they’ll inevitably make their way into your everyday vocabulary.

Being articulate and well-spoken is of great help in any profession, and knowing that you can speak to higher-ups with self-confidence can be an enormous boost to your self-esteem. It could even aid in your career, as those who are well-read, well-spoken, and knowledgeable on a variety of topics tend to get promotions more quickly (and more often) than those with smaller vocabularies and lack of awareness of literature, scientific breakthroughs, and global events.

7. Reading Improves Your Memory

When you read a book, you have to remember an assortment of characters, their backgrounds, ambitions, history, and nuances, as well as the various arcs and sub-plots that weave their way through every story. That’s a fair bit to remember, but brains are marvellous things and can remember these things with relative ease.

Amazingly enough, every new memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways) and strengthens existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall as well as stabilizing moods. How cool is that?

8. Better Writing Skills

Exposure to published, well-written work has a noted effect on one’s own writing, as observing the cadence, fluidity, and writing styles of other authors will invariably influence your own work.

In the same way that musicians influence one another and painters to use techniques established by previous masters, so do writers learn how to craft prose by reading the works of others.

9.  Reading Makes You Smarter

We know it been proven that reading makes you smarter. Readers display greater knowledge of how things work, vocabulary and language development, as well as information on people, places, and things.

We may not be able to read a lot number of pages a day. Therefore I am going to show you some ways to develop a reading habit.

1. Find any topic that you find interesting

Now your purpose is to read more and more about your topic until it is still interesting for you. Obviously, the great examples shown above don't only read about there subjects but read in general about everything. But for a head start, we want that we read at least 30 minutes a day and trust me it is only possible if you read what you like.

2. Get a book buddy

There’s nothing like peer pressure to get you to do something. Book clubs give you that, and they also impose deadlines.

Start a monthly book club. Just make sure there’s at least one person in the book club who is committed to finishing the book. Because if your group is made up of a lot of people who won’t actually read the book, your book club will quickly devolve into a wine-and-cheese club. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not going to get you closer to your goal of a daily reading habit.

3. Always have a book on the deck

 This one’s super simple: Always know what your next book is going to be and have it ready to go.

While it seems like a small thing, not knowing what your next book will be and not having it ready are really easy ways to kill your momentum for a steady reading habit. What’s more, the decision fatigue involved in having to choose a new book as soon as you finish one can often be a subtle source of friction in maintaining a consistent reading habit.

4. Read with a pencil

I find that when I read with a pencil—underlining, making little notes, etc.—I tend to be more engaged with the book, which in turn leads to a more enjoyable experience at the moment. But I also think it leads to better memory for the book long-term, which contributes to a more satisfying experience of reading generally.

5. Embrace the audiobook

If you’re anything close to the average American worker, you’re spending close to an hour round-trip commute to and from work. While it’s easy to lose yourself in mindless talk radio or yet another podcast, this is a great opportunity to read more and build/strengthen your reading habit.

6. Tell someone what you just read

This is a crucial part of remembering and applying what you read. You can tell anyone about the story if its a fiction book, the advice learnt if its a non-fiction book. If you read the news you can discuss it too.

Here is a video in which Bill Gates tells his own method of reading.

After you have achieved your goal of being a passionate reader and ready to read 1 book a week, follow these points:

• It is not necessary that you read only books. You can read magazines, newspapers, listen to podcasts. The sole purpose is to gain knowledge.
• Read non-fiction books more than fiction books. Fiction books can only alter your mood but non-fiction books will gift you with values.
• Reading newspapers is a necessity. You can't avoid this. Newspapers give you little information about all the current topics in the world.
• Now it is time to read quality books rather than just any book. Research high-quality books, look for what other great people are reading.

If you manage to include this habit in your daily life, I bet nothing can stop you from reaching the top.