What Reading Fiction Does for Our Brains & Bodies

Season 3, Episode 10

In this episode of Your Next Chapter, we’re diving into the fascinating neuroscience behind reading fiction and why books may be one of the healthiest things we can do for our nervous systems.

Listen in to hear about:
• The link between reading, stress reduction, and nervous system regulation
• How fiction strengthens social reasoning
• What happens in the brain while reading
• The connection between reading and longevity

Research increasingly suggests that fiction isn’t frivolous at all. It may actually help regulate us emotionally, deepen empathy, strengthen cognition, and reconnect us to sustained attention in a distracted world.

If you love books, neuroscience, psychology, or creativity, this one is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome back to your next chapter, the podcast for women who read, write, and live creatively. I'm your host, Rebecca Hasselak. And if you were with me last week, we were talking about fiction reading, one of my favorite topics of all time, but we were talking about it from the angle of how fiction teaches us certain things, particularly what it teaches us about being human. And I absolutely loved that conversation. I hope you did too. For any of my bookworms out there, I am so excited that we are doing part two, which is the fiction effect, what reading fiction does to the brain and body. And if you don't currently identify as a bookworm, I am hoping that these two episodes are gonna change your mind or at least open your eyes a little bit, give you some encouragement to pick up a piece of fiction and give it a whirl. So let's dig in. Fiction is not simply entertainment or escape. Research has increasingly shown that reading fiction changes what your brain and your nervous system are doing in real time. Fiction appears to regulate stress, strengthen empathy, deepen social reasoning, improve attention, and help us practice understanding human complexity. Who doesn't want a little more of each of those things? So when you think about the last book you read, and of course, here we're talking about fiction, how did you feel after you were done reading? How did you feel while you were reading? Most people intuitively feel that fiction changes them somehow. Certain books leave us calmer, softer, more reflective, or even more connected to other people. The fact of our current reality is that modern life fragments our attention, whereas fiction asks the brain to sustain attention. Instead of scrolling, which is basically telling your brain, I need a dopamine hit every 30 seconds or whatever the most recent alarming number is, you're telling your brain with fiction that it's gonna have to do a little work. It needs to work with you to create coherence and immersion. It is a more intellectually demanding pastime than a lot of other pastimes. And because of that, it is really, really good for your brain, but it's also great for your nervous system. So let's talk about the nervous system. What happens in the body when you read fiction? I was just reading a stat that said reading can reduce stress in as little as six minutes, you guys. Six minutes. It takes me longer to wash a couple dishes. I mean, seriously, for those of us who live with nervous systems who are that are a little more coiled up, a little more sensitive, or even if you live with anxiety like I do, reading can reduce your stress in as little as six minutes. To me, that is a wonderful piece of news. And I've felt it, you guys. They have done studies about this, and physiological arousal measurably drops while you're reading. Your heart rate slows, muscle tension decreases, your brain shifts from scattered high arousal into focused low arousal absorption. And the cool part is that fiction isn't just distracting us from stress, it's actually interrupting stress loops at a structural level. So if you think about the brain, your stress often lives in repetitive thought loops. You've probably heard that. They're kind of like some of people have described them as the grooves of the brain. Fiction gives your brain one coherent narrative thread to follow. So your brain can't fully ruminate in one of its little well-worn grooves of anxiety and what have you if it is also fully immersed in a story at the same time. It can't do both. So books give your brain a single clean channel and it asks your brain to stay in that space. And I just love that. I think that is so cool. And I hope you do too. So we talked a little bit about kind of how the nervous system responds to fiction versus modern overstimulation. But the problem, and I'm not just hating on technology, I use technology too, you guys, but the truth is that scrolling encourages novelty seeking. It fractures your attention or it elicits rapid emotional reactions and it just creates constant stimulation. Whereas fiction encourages sustained focus, emotional continuity, patience, and immersion. Reading may be one of the few remaining activities that asks the brain to move slowly, and that's a really good thing. It's a good thing to ask your brain to move slowly. Your nervous system just responds differently to immersion rather than constant interruption. So when it comes to books, I talked a little about empathy last week, and that's a huge thing. But the reason that fiction helps to cultivate empathy within us is because you are literally, as you read, you are practicing understanding someone else's mind. That is exactly what you're doing, which what is empathy if not that? And research is consistently showing that fiction readers tend to score higher on empathy measures. And they actually did separate this out because this was one of my questions. You know, whenever there's research, you always want to look at maybe biases or things that you're not thinking about that could come up in the research. And one of those things, the question I had was, well, maybe is it just that the most empathetic people happen to gravitate toward reading? But they actually separated that out. They were able to find out that no, it wasn't just empaths who read, and it's actually reading's impact is increased empathy. So that again is very cool. So when you think about it, there's something called theory of mind, which I just learned about, but it's the ability to infer what another person may be thinking, feeling, or intending based on limited information. So the brain skill that reading is working out for you, that you are working out when you're reading, is theory of mind. This is a skill that's constantly used in real life. Like think about every time you've had a difficult conversation, conflict, when you're parenting, when you're engaging in a friendship or another relationship, when you're trying to interpret a social interaction. And this capacity may be trainable rather than fixed. Like with so many things, our brains are able to be changed through something called neuroplasticity. So just because we don't automatically have a strong theory of mind doesn't mean that's something we can't grow. So the more you read, the stronger your theory of mind, and the more you will be able to understand other people's minds. Readers have to be able to interpret motives, they have to track emotional shifts, infer what is being unsaid, and hold multiple perspectives sometimes simultaneously. So it's just training you to be an empathetic person and to read the room, right? And what a great skill that is. Like in your career, in your family life.Anywhere you go, you will always benefit from being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes, understand context, understand social cues, read emotions. It's just super powerful in your life. And empathy is just a huge part of that. And all of that can be trained through reading. So let's talk about what the actual brain is doing while reading fiction. When readers follow a character's inner world, the brain activates the default mode network. What is that? Well, I just learned about this too, so I'm sharing it with you. The default mode network is associated with self-reflection, memory, social reasoning, imagining other minds, and internal narrative. So those are the same brain systems we use to navigate real social situations. And those brain systems become active while we're reading. So when you think about something like visualization, it's really powerful. And a lot of the top athletes in the world do this because when they visualize themselves doing their sport, the same regions of the brain fire up as they do when they are actually doing the sport. So when you're reading, those brain systems that help you to basically be a better human are firing up then as well. So they've actually found that when readers encounter descriptions of physical movement, motor regions of the brain activate as though the reader were performing the movement. When characters experience grief, conflict, fear, shame, or emotional pain, corresponding emotional processing systems in the reader's brain activate as well. So your brain isn't just processing description, it's actually running simulations, which is incredible. Our brains are incredible and fiction is incredible. And so, real quickly, because I am a huge proponent of reading, nonfiction is wonderful. Read all the nonfiction you can and that you want to. Fiction, I will always slightly, slightly prioritize just because I write fiction and I love to read fiction. But honestly, if you're reading, I'm happy. And if you're reading, you will be happy. But I do want to touch briefly on why fiction might actually affect us a little differently than nonfiction. Nonfiction presents information from just usually a very clear, singular perspective, which is necessary for that vehicle, right? But with fiction, there's a lot of ambiguity tolerance and emotional interpretation that just isn't there with nonfiction. So readers have to actively infer meaning rather than just passively receiving it. Fiction asks readers to co-create interpretation. And I found this interesting too. I don't read a ton of literary fiction. I do read some and I enjoy it. But literary fiction in particular leaves emotional gaps and unresolved psychological complexity, which actually leaves your brain having to work a little bit harder. The research is showing that literary fiction in particular strengthens a lot of these systems we're talking about. But fiction altogether does. It doesn't, and it's because it doesn't simply tell us what happened. We're not watching it play out on a TV screen. We are having to inhabit another person's interior world. So I'm a little fired up here, you guys. So let's talk about literary fiction and social reasoning. Research by Kidd and Costano found that literary fiction produce stronger theory of mind gains than popular fiction or nonfiction. One proposed reason is that it often leaves more unsaid about the character's psychology, which is what I just talked about. Readers are forced to actively construct interpretation rather than just receive one. And the more inferential work a text demands, the more the brain's social reasoning systems appear to engage. Characters in literary fiction are known to be a little more contradictory, emotionally layered, morally ambiguous, and a little bit difficult to categorize. But real human beings are also psychologically complicated and difficult to fully interpret. So fiction kind of helps us just to interpret other people and it gives us practice interpreting one another. The best novels don't flatten human beings into categories. They let us see them from all these flawed, messy, multidimensional angles, and it allows us to remain inside another person's experience long enough to complicate our own assumptions. So you've heard about all this, you know. I think I've proven the point there. But what impact does reading have on your actual life? I want to tell you something pretty interesting. There was a study done by Yale, and it followed approximately 3,500 participants over 12 years. Book readers lived roughly 23% longer than non-readers. Wow, you guys! Reading is medicine. I always knew it. Better than medicine. It's prevention. Researchers believe the benefits may stem from cumulative stress reduction, emotional engagement, cognitive stimulation, and cognitive reserve. So regular reading appears associated with stronger cognitive resilience as the brain ages. And you know, you guys, when I think of reading, someone who immediately comes to mind is my grandma. And my sweet grandma passed away in February, and she was one of the most voracious readers I've ever known. Getting a little emotional talking about her. She always loved words. She did crosswords and she loved Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. She did the jumbles and the newspaper, and she read. She read and she read and she read. And she also wrote a book about her life when she was 90. And that was such a gift to us, especially after we had to say goodbye to her. But um, when she died, she was 103 years old, but she was actually a month shy of 104 years old. And she was, you know, there was a little bit of cognitive decline, but I mean, for her age, she was remarkably sharp. And I really, really credit all of the mental stimulation she had through the years with keeping her brain in tip-top shape. I mean, she was she was smart and she was funny and she was with it. And um, I just loved seeing her stack of books. Her favorite author was Danielle Steele. So she she probably read almost all of all of her books, um, which is a lot of books, if you know how prolific Danielle Steele is. But anyway, my point there is, you know, I feel like I saw that firsthand. I know there's a lot that goes into longevity, and it's not as simple as just read more and you'll live to almost 104. But I did see how reading positively impacted my grandma and her life and her longevity, and that's just such a gift. So keep that in mind. All right, so before we wrap up, I just want to mention a few more benefits of reading. Research has found that reading for 30 minutes daily is associated with lower mortality rates. Frequent reading may strengthen memory and improve mental processing. Reading physical books may actually improve comprehension and mental well-being more than fragmented screen reading. So I love Kindles. I'm all about, I don't personally have one, but I love them because they get people to read and they're convenient for people. So if you read on a Kindle, more power to you. But if you do get a chance to read physical books, that's really great too. That's that's great. And it may actually improve comprehension and mental well-being even a little bit more than reading on a screen. So who knew? It's also been found that children who read for pleasure earlier in life have stronger cognitive performance and mental health outcomes. And this one's really big. This is one of my favorite life hacks is reading before bed may support nervous system recovery better than screen exposure. I mean, obviously. But reading before bed is huge. Sometimes I'm not very tired when it's bedtime and I have trouble falling asleep. If you read for even 10 minutes, but longer is better, your eyes are gonna get so tired, you guys, and you will have a much better sleep. I mean, that's at least been my experience. So highly recommend it. Let's see. I think we're, I think we're almost through all the main points I wanted to uh mention. But book clubs too, you guys. I talked about book clubs in last week's episode, but book clubs combine deep reading with meaningful conversation, and they really encourage perspective taking and emotional articulation. So they combine two of the healthiest things for the human brain, which is deep reading and meaningful conversation. I mean, those are incredible for the brain and the body and just your overall health and well-being. Let's just remember that reading strengthens our ability to remain inside complexity. It trains us to resist oversimplifying people. And fiction matters because it slows us down long enough to remember that people are complicated, to have empathy, to stay with people longer than we normally would. And it just does something different for your nervous system and your body on so many levels. So I want to encourage you. I hope between last week's episode and this week's episode, if you're not a reader, I hope you'll give it a try. And, you know, it's not just about entertainment, although fiction is highly entertaining. It's really about strengthening your patience, your interpretation, your empathy, learning how to sustain your attention in a world that is trying to fragment it. It's just the reality that fiction can help us regulate and it can help us deepen and reconnect to the complexity of being human. And honestly, at this point in time, like what else could be better? So before I close, I want to give you a quick quote. This was said by Marianne Wolf. Literature is a form of instruction in the life of the mind and heart. And I'll leave you with that. I'm encouraging you to pick up a book today, go to the library. Libraries are amazing and free. And if you want to buy a book, more power to you. But get reading, you guys. I promise it's gonna make a big impact on your life. And until next time, keep creating and keep turning the page.