Dr. Eric Amidi reviews and his readers rate various types of contents such as books, digital programs, courses, and movies on this site. Eric is a best selling author and scientist with interests in particle physics, brain science, and self improvement. His work in artificial intelligence and quantum physics contributed to the discovery of the Top Quark in 1996.
Reviews presented here serve as a free form exploration of a wide range of topics that interest Dr. Eric Amidi and his fans. Hopefully, this will be a catalyst for promoting critical thinking and adopting the great habit of reading.
Remarkable Benefits of Reading
What was the last good book you read? That question might stir up feelings of guilt as you search your brain for an answer. You’re not alone.
Today, the number of people picking up literature books is on the decline. In fact, the National Endowment for the Arts reports that the percentage of people reading books of literature is at its lowest point since the early 1980’s.
Unfortunately, the type of reading getting done in our modern world often consists of Facebook posts, tweets and reading Instagram photo descriptions.
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. – Ray Bradbury
Let’s discuss why picking up a real book has tremendous advantages for you and your family.
Let’s Improve That Vocabulary
Consistent reading naturally expands your vocabulary. The very act of reading does this without effort on your part because you’re continually exposed to new words.
How might expanding your vocabulary help you in life? Well, aside from feeling a sense of achievement, you’ll discover that your conversations become more interesting. When you have more words at the tip of your tongue, it becomes easier to communicate with others effectively.
Each word has its own emotional nuances, which are only unique to that word. By expanding your vocabulary, you expand the ways you can express your emotions and communicate with others. In other words, you become more intelligent emotionally.
Impact on Your Career
When it comes to your career, you may find that your confidence is boosted when talking with higher-level management people at work. When they notice how well you speak, it may help when it comes to deciding between you and another person regarding that next promotion opportunity.
Helping your children in this way helps improve self-esteem. We live in a world where communication is vital. Reading will help your children become confident as they realize they can converse well in any life situation.
Dr. Jennifer Duffy is a Graduate School Dissertation Chair at Northcentral University. She says that “…words – spoken and written – are the building blocks by which a child’s mind grows. Reading is not only essential to a child’s verbal and cognitive development, but it also teaches the child to listen, develop new language, and communicate. Additionally, books open a child’s imagination into discovering his or her world.”
Books are a uniquely portable magic. – Stephen King
When a mother asked Albert Einstein what she should do for her child to make her more intelligent, Einstein replied: “Read her fairy tales”. Doubting Einstein’s seriousness, she followed up by asking “What can I do to make her more intelligent”. He replied: “Read her more fairy tales”.
Every great thing that has ever happened in human history started as a dream – an improbable fairy tale. Many of fantastic stories of Jules Verne are today’s mundane technology.
How Would You Like to Gain More Knowledge?
Once you acquire knowledge, it can never be taken away from you. Reading helps in this area. It becomes easier to tackle life challenges as you become more knowledgeable.
You never know how the knowledge gained from reading a good book today will help you down the road. Even a good fiction novel might help in this area. For example, a novel may make references to real world ideas that help you better understand that topic.
Do You Need More Mental Stimulation?
There is a lot of talk in today’s society about exercising. Most people understand that the body needs frequent workouts in order to stay strong.
Did you know that your brain works the same way? The more you exercise the brain, the stronger it becomes in terms of staying “sharp” and improving the ability to remember facts and statistics.
Going further, reading helps keep you healthier as you get older. Research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that reading (along with other mentally challenging activities like puzzles and chess) helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
How is Your Memory?
Have you ever complained that your memory isn’t what it used to be? If so, ask yourself how many books you’ve read in the past 5 years. A lack of reading might be the only thing contributing to your memory issues.
Reading improves memory because it requires keeping track of many moving parts. You need to remember names of characters, how they relate to one another and their background information. You need to keep track of the plot and various sub-plots.
Unlike a movie, reading a book requires your brain to use its power of visualization to bring the story to life for you. Nothing is given to you except the words. Your brain must work to remember it all and visualize what it looks like.
Keep in mind that every memory you create strengthens brain synapses. This process builds upon itself over time to the point where you’ll never complain about your ability to remember things again. Science backs up this idea.
Create Better Analytical & Critical Thinking Skills
Simply put, reading makes you think. Movies and social media are great fun but honestly ask yourself how much you’re putting your critical thinking to work. Your brain doesn’t need to go into overdrive during those activities.
Reading is another story altogether because you must think through what your brain is digesting. Have you ever read a mystery and figured out who did it before you finished reading the story? That was the analytical and critical thinking parts of your brain kicking in.
Joining a book club helps in this area. Getting together with others to share the book experience forces you to think critically as you explain what you read, analyze the plot, the interaction of characters, etc.
Do You Feel as if You’re Less Focused?
Today’s world is filled with distraction. The era of multi-tasking means your mind is taken into many different directions throughout each and every day.
Consider what happens when your brain is distracted by checking email, looking at a text, chatting on Facebook, looking at the latest Twitter notification and actually performing at work. And all of that within a matter of minutes!
One study reveals that this type of lifestyle creates an inability to control emotions and maintain attention effectively.
Try pulling out a physical book. Turn off the phone, Internet and television. When you open a book and focus on reading that one physical object, you’ll experience something you may not have felt in a long time: a feeling of calm and focus.
Reading a story (fiction of non-fiction) helps your brain concentrate on one task. Over time, the result is an overall improvement in your ability to stay focused and concentrate on one thing at a time.
Will Reading Improve Your Writing Skills?
Reading helps you write better. The reason is that reading exposes you to a variety of writing styles. It helps you understand how to improve the use of fluidity and cadence inside your own writing style. It’s similar to the way a painter or musician becomes better at their craft by observing how others create art or music.
Why would you want to become a better writer if your profession has nothing to do with being an author? Writing well translates to writing better resumes, crafting more powerful reports at work and communicating properly through email. Many people today branch out into writing articles for a blog or social media. Reading helps improve your ability in all these areas.
How Reading Helps Decrease Your Stress
This relates back to the area of improving your focus and concentration. The act of reading gets you focused on one task. It brings a sense of calm as get involved in the story and you let the world fade away for a little while.
At the same time that reading helps reduce stress, it also increases the ability to feel empathy toward others. This is especially important in today’s world when everyone seems so distracted and unconnected from others.
Studies prove the two above points. In fact, one study revealed that reading was more effective at decreasing stress than other recommended activities, such as drinking tea, taking a walk or listening to music.
How Reading Helps With Emotional Intelligence
Dictionary.com describes emotional intelligence as, “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.”
Reading helps improve emotional intelligence in a variety of ways. We already discussed vocabulary and critical thinking skills. These two areas combine to help express emotions and to think through challenges more effectively
Other ways reading helps with emotional intelligence is to improve social interaction (by helping the reader relate to others), producing real emotion (how you react to a story and how it moves you to cry or laugh) and improving your feelings of self awareness (becoming closer to your own emotions as you relate to others).
When you read a novel, for example, you get a chance to see the world from the perspective of different characters in the book. Being able to see things from other people’s perspective is the sure sign of emotional intelligence.
You Can Live Many Lives in One
If nothing else, books are the means to transfer knowledge and experience from one person to another. When you read the best books in a topic, you get to acquire the essence of someone’s lifetime experience in that topic.
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. – Carl Sagan
Reflect on this for a minute. What’s the most precious thing the world? No, it’s not money. It’s Time. With Time being the most valuable asset of all, books help you collect and own other people’s life experiences. Nothing can be more valuable than that. In effect, you get to live many live in one.
Famous novelist, George R.R. Martin once said:
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.
How to Build a Reading Habit
If you’re now convinced that you need to start reading more, let’s explore a few habits that will help you get started.
Make time for reading: Simply put reading on your calendar so your goal doesn’t get lost inside your busy life. Even if you start with only 15 minutes per day, you’ll develop a habit that eventually turns into longer reading sessions.
Build a reading list: Start making a list of what you want to read. As it grows, your motivation to dig in will grow.
Go to a library: Looking at Amazon is wonderful but consider going to a library and embracing the physical nature of seeing books everywhere! Take in the “old book” smell of a book on the shelf. It might spark the feelings of being a child and experiencing being around books for the first time.
Read to someone: Consider reading to your child or an elderly person. Sharing the experience will help you stay committed to the habit.
Join a book club: Get involved with others so you can talk about a book and get excited about the next book you’ll read for the club.
Tips for Absorbing Information More Effectively
Read the Table of Contents and Sub-headings first: This allows you to get a bird’s eye view of the book’s material. You may find that some chapters are unnecessary for your situation. Skip those and read the chapters that are most relevant.
Use a highlighter: As you read, highlight areas that jump out to you. This makes it easy to reference these sections later. The act of highlighting also helps you remember the information.
Take notes: Depending on the type of reading you’re doing, you might want to take notes to go back to at a later date. The act of writing it out helps to better absorb the information. Try summarize the book into few basic concepts that the author tries to convey. These summarized points will stay with you while the details may not.
Talk to others: Saying what you’ve read out loud helps to cement it into your memory.
Reading improves many areas of your life. Now it’s time to get into action. Go grab a book, make some tea and dive in to a new story!