Books as Medicine (This Changes Everything)
The lost art of reading for your mental health
I was sitting on a park bench one evening with a book propped up on my knees when a single word jumped out to me: 'bibliotherapy.'
The author mentioned it just briefly, writing that "book therapy" has been proven to have many mental health benefits.
You see, I love to read.
I read in my backyard, I read at the park, I read in the car, I read on the beach, I read before bed. As a kid, I even read while rollerblading around my driveway.
Basically, reading is an "anytime, anywhere" thing for me.
I love it for that.
But books have always been so important to me that I've never really thought about their impact on my life. Or anyone's life, for that matter.
Until that night at the park.
As I sat on the bench reading, I thought there's definitely something to this. There's got to be mental health benefits to reading. They've been proven by research. And, most importantly, I've felt them myself.
So I decided right then and there to do a deep dive.
Along the way, I'll discover that reading is one aspect of a much bigger picture—a picture of how our lifestyles impact our health and happiness in more ways than we could have ever imagined.
This changes everything. And I'm not alone in this realization.
Social Prescribing
In countries like Great Britain, health care has begun to include prescriptions for much more than drugs.
It includes "prescriptions" for an increase in things like meaningful relationships, time in nature, volunteer work, art-making, exercise, and—yes—reading.
This approach, often called social prescribing recognizes what we've intuitively always known but scientifically ignored: that lifestyle factors have profound effects on our well-being.
And reading, like everything else I just listed, is a lifestyle factor with tremendous power to influence our mental health.
Reading can include bibliotherapy—as was mentioned in the book I was reading—but reading doesn't have to be done in a therapeutic setting to be therapeutic.
For those of us that grew up being forced to read to hit a requirement and take tests on what we read, books may have seemed to be anything but therapeutic. For many, the joy and pleasure of reading is stripped from their childish hearts as soon as it's forced upon them by authority figures.
Once the joy is gone, only a select few will stumble upon it again.
Most people will reach adulthood and never pick up a book again.
Statistically, you are probably one of those people. If not, you've probably got those people in your life. You've probably heard them say, "I can't remember the last time I read a book for fun."
Maybe they will go so far as to say "I wish I had time to read…but I hardly even have time to cook dinner.
If you're like me, you've heard that comment more times than you can count. And, if you're like me, maybe you wonder to yourself:
What are the consequences of society's falling out with reading? If we're no longer consuming books, what are we consuming instead?
If you want to understand the answers to these questions, you must understand why reading is so important.
Because if something doesn't change, things will end badly.
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Why Does Reading Matter?
Why does reading matter?
It's only the act of consuming stories.
Why do stories matter?
The stories we tell ourselves only influence our entire identity. The stories we tell others only make up majority of our conversations. The stories we hear only allow us to understand and make meaning of this complex world.
What is life if not a collection of stories?
Why do stories matter?
They don't mean much. Just everything. Absolutely everything.
“Short-Form” Content Steals Your Attention
The way we consume information has drastically changed in the past few years. We've gained so many new ways to be educated and entertained.
There are forces competing for our attention like never before; attention has become the most important form of leverage.
Thanks to the internet and social media, our attention is being stolen for up to 9 hours a day And because of the internet and social media, our attention spans are shrinking. Fast.
So today, the vast majority of what we consume is "short-form" content.
5-second TikTok videos. Endless Instagram scrolling. The average YouTube video is 11.7 minutes long. Even a podcast episode takes just an hour to listen to (and that's if you're unlike me and listen on 1x speed.)
Basically, reading a 100,000-word book could almost be considered radical.
But people still do it—and they're experiencing the benefits.
These are the people I want to talk about next.
Reading Expands Your Worldview
Stories are our best hope for breaking down prejudice and tribalism and encouraging us to behave more humanely to more types of humans.
The Story Paradox, Jonathan Gottschall
In a world of short-form content, reading books is an act of subtle rebellion.
Sticking with a story that takes days, weeks, months to complete is an exercise in consuming slowly.
Reading doesn't destroy your attention span; it expands it.
What happens when we read is a bit like what happens when we spend time in nature—our attention focuses on what's around us and falls into "soft fascination." Like when we gaze at trees, gazing at words on a page and falling into a good story captures attention without taxing it.
But reading doesn't just expand our attention spans—it expands our entire worldview.
Some of the most impactful stories I've ever read are ones that—on the outside—look completely different from my life. But every story involves shared human experiences.
Every story reminds us that we are all the same, in so many ways.
When we read, we encounter experiences, ideas, feelings that look like our own. We identify with the characters that present themselves. And we learn from these.
Too, exploring the stories of others can help us rewrite our own stories.
Therapeutically, this can be powerful.
Research on bibliotherapy defines it as the process of reading, reflecting upon, and discussing literature in a structured setting.
One meta-study found that bibliotherapy can help readers gain a sense of purpose and healthy values. Others found it can change thinking and behavior.
Stories offer a portal to a new place: one that expands your attention and worldview, changes your perspectives, and allows you to get outside yourself.
Reading to Get Outside Yourself
Reading is a healthy escape from reality.
It's a way to get outside yourself without the negative effects of the other things that offer an escape (video games, alcohol and drugs, social media scrolling, online shopping).
Reading gives your brain a break from thinking about yourself—and thinking about yourself too much (as I've written about here) is harmful to your mental health.
Reading places you in the shoes of another and inherently forces you to see things from a different perspective. It also reduces stress by easing you into a state of relaxation.
This brings me to my last point (and maybe the most important one).
A Reminder of What Matters
If you always read the news over a book, check out this quote:
The extreme negativity of the news has serious consequences for the world. In fiction, things typically get worse and worse until, at the very end, they get better. Psychologists find that heavy fiction consumers have greater confidence that they live in a nice world rather than a mean world. They're more likely to think that the world is a good place where things turn out well and end. Perhaps this means that fiction turns people into suckers, but just as plausibly, it turns them into nicer people who believe that good people can overcome daunting obstacles to improve the world.
Jonathan Gottschall, The Story Paradox
With a change in perspective, we’re reminded of the things that matter most to us.
Reading offers a return to meaningful values.
We live in a society where social media tells us what to care about (big houses, fancy cars, and a perfectly curated Instagram profile) and a culture where materialism abounds.
We log off Instagram thinking about the new clothes we need to buy, the vacations we must go on, and the purse that will somehow make us more likeable.
But when we finish a book, we're left thinking about different things: friends and foes, love and hate, good and evil, death and life.
Bigger things.
Things that make us human.
Things that truly matter.
Perhaps this is the most powerful story of all—how words arranged on a page can rearrange something inside us, making us more whole than we were before opened the cover.
A Reading Prescription for You
So here's my prescription for you: Find a book. Give it your undivided attention for just 20 minutes today. Notice how your thoughts quiet, your perspective shifts, and you relate to the characters in small ways.
And one last thing.
I want to hear your story in the comments—what books have been medicine for you?
As always, thanks for reading.
With love and health,
Sophie