Reading Before Bed: What Are The Benefits?

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“Book lovers never go to bed alone.”

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Anyone who has found their way onto this site doesn’t need any reminders on the benefits of reading. As well as whisking readers away from their day-to-day grinds, reading has been shown to aid one’s memory, communication skills, speech, creativity, problem-solving, and other cognitive functions.

We all find different times of day to carve out the time needed to sink into a good book, with reading before bed being one of the most common. The question is: how beneficial is this for your enjoyment and health? Join us here at What We Reading as we put the benefits of reading before bed under the microscope! 

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Benefits Of Reading Before Bed

Reading before bed has been shown to carry a number of recognisable benefits, some of which can have a profound impact on one’s own well-being over the long term. 

Improved Sleep Quality

For people with sleep disorders such as insomnia or other issues such as anxiety, getting a decent amount of shut-eye can be a tough ask. Getting a high-quality amount of sleep? Even harder. Grabbing a book before bed has been shown to be one of the most effective ways of de-stimulating the brain before you fall asleep. 

In one particular study, 42% of 491 people surveyed claimed their sleep improved once they were instructed to read a book before going to bed. 

As well as being an exercise that naturally wears you out thanks to the eye movement and digestion of imagery and information, reading helps increase melatonin production throughout the body and relieves the thoughts that keep people awake at night. 

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Fuelling Brain Power

Like any other muscle in our bodies, the brain needs regular exercise to stay healthy. It’s something reading at any time ensures, but studies have shown that your brain works more when it is following words on a page rather than viewing an image. By reading before bed, you can help your brain complete your tasks more efficiently during the day. 

Neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s have also been shown to be directly influenced by how much stimulus the brain gets through activities such as reading. People who exercise their minds through reading, playing chess, completing puzzles etc. are 2.5 times less likely to be impacted by issues that affect the brain and its functions. 

Chills You Out

On the subject of mental health, one of the biggest contributors to issues is a high level of stress. In the same way that other exercises such as yoga or meditation can have a profound on our well-being, reading can have a significant impact on our stress levels. When our bodies have a high amount of cortisol, the stress hormone, it directly affects our melatonin production. As mentioned above, melatonin is a vital component of being able to sleep. 

Anyone with stress, anxiety, depression or any other mental health issue will testify to their brains being in a total state of fixation on various things from the day. Escapism is one of the most powerful byproducts of reading, and that can be a helpful means of taking your mind off these things before you go to sleep. 

We can’t promise you a cure to these issues, but we can at least assure you enough practice will mean the chances of them impacting your sleep schedule are minimised. 

Increased Creativity

Our brains are wired so that they are given a boost in creativity during the evenings and first thing in the morning. One of the biggest contributing factors to the latter of these times is because of how active our brains are when we’re sleeping, logging all the thoughts and events from the day previous and conjuring up dreams that reflect them. By reading something like a work of fiction right before bed, you can stimulate your brain further and directly contribute to your overall creativity in the day ahead. 

Maximise Concentration

It may seem like an oxymoron, but, in the same way that running through lines of text can tire you out, it can also heighten your concentration. The reason for this lies in the consistency of a book. As opposed to something like scrolling through social media for books, which bombards your brain with all manner of different stories and information, a story gives your head something much more consistent to digest. 

This consistency has been shown to directly correlate with an improvement in focus and concentration. Honing this practice through repeated sessions can have a profound impact on your focus during the day on things like work or study. 

How To Add Books To Sleep Routines

An often overlooked part of going to sleep is the actual process leading up to it. A consistent sleep routine is an important part of getting your body ready to go to sleep. A good sleep routine should reflect all the things that help you relax and unwind and can include: 

• Taking a warm bath/shower
• Drinking tea (green teas are most recommended)
• Stretching
• Meditation or Yoga
• Listening to soothing music or sounds (40-65 bpm most recommended)
• Hiding electronics
• Turning down/off lighting
• Reading a book

Slow And Steady

The number one thing to remember when it comes to reading at any time of the day or night is that everyone reads at different speeds. Setting a reading goal can be a great way of staying motivated, however, there’s no point keeping yourself awake at night if that’s what it takes to hit it every day. A rough guide to stick to when it comes to reading before bed is to aim for about 20 minutes before you put the book down, giving yourself a manageable, consistent window to stick to. 

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are a great way to read a book when you are too tired to trace the words across a page. For those who unwind or fall asleep listening to lofi or ambient music, audiobooks can be a great way of ushering in a good night’s sleep. Audiobooks make for a great alternative to reading a paperback or hardcover because they still require the same level of focus and concentration to stimulate the brain in the ways we mentioned above. 

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