07/24/2024
We’re all reading wrong, Alexandra Moe writes. “We should be doing it out loud, all the time, with everyone we know.” https://theatln.tc/ylUOdBIc
“Reading, while not technically medicine, is a fundamentally wholesome activity. It can prevent cognitive decline, improve sleep, and lower blood pressure,” Moe writes. “People have intuitively understood reading’s benefits for thousands of years … But the ancients read differently than we do today. Until approximately the tenth century … reading was synonymous with reading aloud. Silent reading was terribly strange, and, frankly, missed the point of sharing words to entertain, educate, and bond.”
Although those early readers didn’t know it, verbal reading can boost someone’s mood and their ability to recall. “It can lower parents’ stress and increase their warmth and sensitivity toward their children,” Moe continues. Reading out loud “involves several operations—motor control, hearing, and self-reference (the fact that you said it)—all of which activate the hippocampus, a brain region associated with episodic memory … So although you might enjoy an audiobook narrated by Meryl Streep, you would remember it better if you read parts of it out loud.”
And you don’t need an audience to read out loud. “Plenty of solitary vocal reading no doubt consists of deciphering recipes and proofreading work emails, but if you want to reap the full perks, the best selections are poetry and literature,” Moe continues. “These genres provide access to facets of human experience that can be otherwise unreachable, which helps us process our own emotions and memories.”
“Hearing words read aloud to you also has unique advantages, especially for kids. Storytelling has been shown to increase hospitalized children’s levels of oxytocin while decreasing cortisol and pain,” Moe continues. And “anecdotal evidence suggests that adults, too, can benefit from such listening … The health benefits of reading aloud are so profound that some doctors in England now refer their chronic-pain patients to read-aloud groups.”
Read more: https://theatln.tc/ylUOdBIc
📸:Tony Evans / Getty
