Drum roll…with some inspiring ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ by U2; yes, acoustics work just fine for me to let you in on this one beautiful page-tuner thing that can transform your life. And that is, reading books.
I’m not talking about just ebooks or audio books – though they are a great alternative to catch up with your voracious reading appetite. I’m rather moved by a paperback book – wherein I cam smell the beautiful labour of writing on those delicate but courageous papers. Somehow I feel relaxed and calm and upleveled with each page that I turn by, and then those words become a beautiful story etched in my mind.
All great writers – not just the traditional knowledge workers – but also engineers, coders, builders, among others – have benefited from reading books.
Elon Musk read almost 2 books a day turning up to be the world’s richest man. Warren Buffett also points towards reading books as they compound like anything and your value to the world becomes massive and wide-ranging. We have read time and again that leaders are readers. We all are managing leadership roles – could be at home, work, or life. So why not make reading a book a daily habit to inculcate instead of gorging TV or using our mobile phones more unreasonably than we think?
Apart from the health benefits – one being of reduced stress that I’d like to pronounce here, reading improves your EQ levels, helps you cast your worldview in wide and deep ways, and improves your sleep latency.
So, pick up that book on your commute to office. Preferably reading non-fiction can work wonders in the day and reading fiction in the night can off-load you from the day’s stress that accumulates owing to work demands.
Non-fiction books activates our brain and improves our cognitive function and fiction takes us into this beautiful wonderland – an escape we all need (in a healthy way). I follow the ‘power rule’ when I’m reading – that is, reading intensely in the morning (hence non-fiction), then reading moderately during the afternoon (all the emails, newsletters, work literature), and reading lightly in the night (hence some fuzzy fiction).
Now, I urge you to go to your favourite book cafe, sip some coffee, and pick that book that you were so wanting to read!
Happy reading! Love to all 🙂
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
