50 Lil' Habits: Read for Pleasure
Light up your neural pathways by getting lost in someone else's story.
Our "go big or go home" culture has left many people feeling overwhelmed, stuck, and gloomy, when all it takes is a lil’ action to turn things around.
Want to try out a new daily habit? I've got a few suggestions.
Here's one: Read for Pleasure
My favorite place on the planet is anywhere that houses books; a library or a bookstore, even that disappointing half-aisle at Target is my haven. As a kid I dreamed of being the “library lady” who lived amongst the books and read them to children using funny voices.
There’s nothing better than getting lost in a book. Going inside another’s mind, exploring another’s world, taking a satisfying emotional ride from beginning to end.
“It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination … the printed page can stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness.” - Professor David Lewis, Cognitive Neuropsychologist
Reading is good for managing stress, building intelligence and empathy, and improving your ability to focus and communicate.
If you haven’t made time to read for fun, you can start lil’ by going to your TBR (To Be Read) book pile, pulling out any book, and immediately opening it and reading the first page. Aim for comprehension so you can get lost in the world the author is building for you. Cue yourself to slow down and enhance your focus by using the pointer method while you read, move your finger or an index card under the text as you go. When you finish the page, close the book and get curious about what you read, what the author wanted you to know, and what you think might happen next. Do this daily.
Reading can help you feel less lonely and more hopeful, and it also happens to be one of the most inexpensive pastimes there is.
If this LIL’ HABIT resonates with you, create a ripple of action by sharing it with a friend.