If you are among the 264 million adults of the world suffering from anxiety then you must surely be knowing the dreadful feeling of those overwhelming anxious thoughts and their power over an individual. Anxiety is something that can hinder your day-to-day life. Though anxiety is treatable, only one-third of the people suffering seek treatment.
Mental health is a topic that is a lot stigmatized and often ignored in front of physical health. But not anymore. Let’s start by focusing on small things that can help cope with anxiety.
If you are a bibliophile then we have a piece of great news for you. Reading is something that can help you cope with your anxious mind.
Here are 5 ways in which reading can calm your anxious mind:
Reduces stress and helps you relax
Anxiety has physical symptoms and triggers including increased heart rate and blood pressure. Reading is something that lowers heart rate, indulges your mind into imagination, and reduces stress levels. It helps you fall in love, take up adventures, and also travel from the comfort of your very home helping you to relax. So, why not get lost in a book and enjoy the ultimate form of relaxation.
Rewires your mind to be empathetic and more compassionate
People having mental disorders or anxiety are often self-critical, unempathetic, and hard on themselves and the people around them. For people with anxiety, it is not always easy to find compassion but the ones who read especially literary fiction have improved relations and human connections. According to research, relationships with some fictional characters can help you understand human experiences in a better way.
Improves mental flexibility and cognitive function
While reading you are often forced to adapt and inhabit the mind of someone else. Opening up to new interpretations and perspectives is quite challenging for anyone, let alone people with anxiety, but reading is something that helps you make this journey of acceptance easy. Reading is often related to intelligence and helps you retain information better enhancing a person’s cognitive qualities adding to the mental health and overall wellbeing of the reader.
Helps you escape reality for a while
Whether you are someone who just rips through a book or someone who is still struggling and learning to read 3 pages a day, your time is being quite well-spent while escaping your own life and living someone else’s for some time. Anxiety can often be constant and overwhelming and we might need a break from all this, what could be better than a good book for this?
Helps you find perspective
Reading about other people’s experiences, even if they are relatable or not is one of the best ways to step into someone else’s shoes. By providing you with a whole new perspective, reading can not only shift the way you think but can also improve your life quality.
With the advancement of technologies, people are forgetting the joy and advantages of simple things such as reading. So why not take a step towards our mental health and make a ritual of reading regularly.