We all know that reading provides us with a way to relax, and unwind after a long day, but here are some of the different benefits reading can provide us.

Increases Attention Span & Youth-fullness

According to Bustle, reading can both increase your attention span, and keep you more youthful. “How can reading keep someone more youthful?” you may ask. Well, reading can give people of any age social connections, and keep us from getting withdrawn. There are also many studies that claim reading “can create new connections between brain cells,” one of these studies conducted at Harvard Medical School.

Stress Reliever

Reading is also a well known technique to reduce stress. According to Serious Reading, “Reading a book can relieve stress better than taking a walk or listening to music.” Many other studies have been conducted concluding that reading is a good stress reliever.

Cheap Form of Entertainment

Reading is also a great form of cheap entertainment! In a world where entertainment usually costs quite a bit, books are a cheap, or even free alternative. There are many second hand stores around the Ames area with large book selections, as well as the public library, and other book suppliers, such as Books-A-Million.

Reading also provides knowledge, vocabulary expansion, the possibility of sleeping better, a stronger sense of empathy in our everyday lives, as well as a sense of encouragement in our lives, and the opportunity to escape for a little bit.

Iowa State Alumnae Tara Goedjen, author of “The Breathless”, believes that, “Reading stretches the imagination—it lets us step inside someone else’s shoes for a little while and experience other perspectives. Reading can be a bridge, a way to ‘travel’ to new places and connect with others, with how they feel and think and live.”

Goedjen finds a certain magic in books that can change your life, something you can’t anywhere else.

“Sometimes we pick up a book to find ourselves in the stories we read—to discover solutions to the problems we’re going through—and sometimes we pick up a book to live vicariously, and sometimes, if we’re very lucky, we get entranced by a story and find ourselves relating to people and things that we never expected to,” she said. “That’s when we have ‘ah ha’ moments, and dramatic shifts in our thinking and in the way we view the world.”

So challenge yourself this upcoming spring break to pick up a new book, or an old favorite, and see how it benefits you.