Reading is not just considered one of the best ways to spend your free time. It takes us to an unknown world, which, in contrast to the film, is much more our own, as we partially construct it with our imagination. It is therefore nothing unusual that reading helps to improve well-being and has a therapeutic effect.
Anyone who has ever lost themselves in a good story and forgotten everything else around them knows that books hold magical power within them: they take us to amazing adventures, where you can identify with the main characters, and enable us to let's forget about everyday worries, but at the same time they teach us new coping strategies. It is known that it can reading helps to improve well-being and has a therapeutic effect.
A new branch of name therapy has spread in the United States bibliotherapy. This type of approach uses fiction and poetry as a tool to fight against depression, anxiety, eating disorders and other mental problems. Reading has a subtle but important effect on our cognition and psyche: books drag us into a completely different world, they change our perception to the world and to oneself and they shape our values.
Although organized therapy with literature is a fairly new thing, reading is has always been highly valued - even the ancient Greeks and Romans swore by reading as a key part of individual and social health, and research after the Second World War showed that reading Jane Austen helps overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder.
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If you are worried or struggling with stress, we recommend that you wait a while before taking the pills and try whether Huxley, Hesse or JK Rowling can help you.
