Reading fiction books increases memory
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
– Richard Steele
With age, our memory declines. And there’s no point in ruminating on and explaining it, it’s just a fact. What’s much more interesting is exploring tricks of how we can increase our memory, or at least keep it from declining.
Meet the group of researchers led by prof. Elizabeth Stine-Morrow. Tackled by a question of declining memory, the team decided to do an experiment. “Will reading books help older adults have a better memory?”
They brought in 76 participants aged 60-79 and tasked half of them with reading fiction books 90 min a day for at least 5 days a week over the course of 8 weeks. The other half had to do puzzle tasks.
And what did they find? In 2022 they published their findings and found that the participants who read books had improvements in their verbal working memory (how many words you can remember at once) and episodic memory (memory of life events).
"Reading for 8 weeks improved verbal working memory and episodic memory."
The authors were not sure whether fiction or non-fiction would work better for memory improvement. So as far as we know, even reading this article right now might be doing something good for your memory. But that’s just a guess.
You might be asking: “But I’m not 70 years old, will reading still improve my memory?”
It doesn’t matter that you’re not 70 yet. It’s actually quite good in this case. Because the younger you are, the easier it is to get into a habit of reading, so that when you are going to be 70, it’ll be only natural to spend your evening with a lovely book.
The next time you’re going to be cuddling in bed and reading a book to your children, remember: You might just be reading, but you’re also making a worthy investment for your future self, and the future of your children.
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