HarryPotter, butyourbrain acts as if
it is.Andthemorepartsof your brain
thatgeta workout,thebetter it is for
youroverallcognitiveperformance.
Thatsaid,notallreading is creat-
edequal.Preliminaryresults from a
studyconductedatStanford Univer-
sityindicatethatcloseliterary read-
inginparticulargivesyour brain a
majorworkout.MRIscans of people
whoaredeepintoaJane Austen
novelshowedanincrease in blood
f lowingtoareasofthe brain that
controlbothcognitiveand executive
function,asopposedto the more
limitedeffectsthatcome from more
leisurelyreading.
Whatifyouare(orsomeone you
knowis)apoor,oreven a dyslexic,
readerwhofeelsasifyou’ll never be
abletoreadenoughto reap these
benefits?Abookcanfix that prob-
lem, too.Scientists at Carnegie
MellonUniversitystudied children
agedeighttotenwhowere below-
averagereaders.Onehundred hours
ofremedialreadingclasses signifi-
cantlyimprovedthequality of their
brains’ white matter – the tissue
that carries signals between areas
of grey matter, where information is
processed. The researchers’ conclu-
sion: the brains of these children had
begun to rewire themselves in ways
that could benefit the entire brain,
not only the reading-centric temporal
cortex.
The ability to read closely is some-
thing that needs to be nurtured. In
her new book, Reader, Come Home,
Wolf notes that even she, as someone
who reads for a living, has found her
ability to concentrate on the written
word fading as more of what we read
is on a digital screen. “Unfortunately,
this form of reading is rarely continu-
ous, sustained or concentrated,” she
writes. That sets up a vicious cycle:
without the sustained exercise of our
reading ‘muscles’, the brain loses its
ability to control the intricate pro-
cesses that allow us to read deeply.
Of course, there’s an easy solution:
Turn off your phone and your com-
puter, set aside a good hour or two –
and just read.Expression Origin: ‘Barking Up The Wrong Tree’
Meaning:Tohavemisguided thoughts about an event or situation,
a false lead.Origin:Thisrefersto hunting dogs that may have chased their prey
upa tree.Thedogs bark, assuming that the prey is still in the tree,
when the prey is no longer there.
anais john, from http://www.grammarly.com136 august 2019
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