When school lets out for the summer and the pressures of academic work temporarily subside, it’s easy to to give your brain a three-month rest from the school year. With the rigors of exams, projects and papers in the not-so-distant past, one low-stress activity students can do to keep their brains active is reading.

Here are four reasons you should use this upcoming break to get in the habit of regular reading, along with a list of books set to be released this summer that can help you out.

1. Reading can help you de-stress and improve your sleep.

Whether work, school or something else is preventing you from relaxing, curling up with a book at the end of the day can help you calm down. In 2009, The University of Sussex studied relaxation methods such as reading, playing video games and listening to music, measuring subjects’ stress levels and heart rates before and after each activity. Not only did reading help subjects calm down faster after undergoing tests and exercises designed to raise these levels, it also made them less stressed than before the study began. But make sure you’re reading an actual book. A study published in the journal Sleep Medicine this year found that reading on an iPad or a similar blue-light device actually makes you less sleepy.

2. People who read fiction might be more empathetic than those who read other genres.

The more emotionally invested you are in what you read, the more empathetic you are in your daily life, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE. Even though the study’s control group read newspaper articles that focused on individual people, therefore making it more likely they might become invested in the stories, the group that read excerpts from José Saramago and Arthur Conan Doyle texts reported being more emotionally engaged even a week after the study’s completion. This may not come as a surprise since fiction is meant to draw in readers and allow them to become emotionally involved in the characters’ lives.

3. Your memory stays sharper as you age.

Taking part in mentally-stimulating activities such as reading throughout your life may not only be fun but also help keep memory loss at bay. A 2013 study in the journal Neurology showed that people who read regularly both as children and older adults experienced memory and mental decline slower than those who did not. The study also found that those who did not participate in mentally-stimulating activities as they aged saw their memory decline at a 48 percent faster rate.

4. Reading just might make you happier.

A hundred years ago, the term “bibliotherapy” appeared in an Atlantic Monthly article for the first time. It referred to the author’s discovery of a “bibliopathic institute,” where one man provided reading recommendations to heal certain ailments. While books may not be widely “prescribed” today, the desired effects of bibliotherapy are still prevalent among readers. Adults who read regularly reported feeling less isolated and reported higher levels of self-esteem and self-acceptance, according to research from the initiative Quick Reads. 

If you’re ready to start reading but aren’t sure where to start, here are a few books coming out throughout the summer: 

– “Even if the Sky Falls” by Mia Garcia, May 10

– “Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman” by Lindy West, May 17

– “The Girls” by Emma Cline, June 14

– “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” by J.K. Rowling, July 31

– “Enter Title Here” by Rahul Kanakia, August 2

While the end of final exams might be what you’re most excited for right now, being able to enjoy the benefits of reading this summer could — and should — be right up there with it.