How Your Favorite Novel Can Help You Love Life

Despite the advancement of digital technology, reading is still a popular pastime. Today, you may choose to read a physical book or an electronic one. Equally, you may prefer to read articles or blogs: these can still be beneficial.

Reading, particularly reading your favorite novel, is a great way to fall in love with life again. I’m going to show you how sitting down with a good book can make a real difference to your daily routine.

Allows You to De-Stress

This one isn’t a secret. We live in a stressful world. Thanks to the arrival of digital technology, it is incredibly difficult to turn off from work, friends, and social networks.

Unfortunately, the constant pressure to be available and in the know takes a toll. Being constantly stressed has been linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as poor mental and physical health. Reducing your stress levels periodically can help you stay healthy, allowing you to enjoy what life has to offer.

All that from simply reading a book.

Realize That Everyone Faces Challenges

Whether you prefer to read fiction or nonfiction, you’ll quickly realize that every character, in every book, has challenges to face and surmount.

In fiction and non-fiction, it’s what makes the character believable and makes the story so enticing. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a story if the main character simply waltzes through the book taking or being given what they want/need.

Conflict is essential in all stories to help the character grow and be ready for the final battle or prize. The same is true in real life. To grow as a person and achieve your goals, you’re going to need to overcome a variety of obstacles.

The sooner you realize that the sooner you can change your mindset. Instead of questioning ‘Why is this thing happening to me?’ you’ll realize that you should be asking ‘What can I learn from this?’ In many ways it’s the first step towards understanding loving life is about ditching the busy life and focusing on the journey.

Accepting that challenges are an important part of life will help you embrace each one. You’ll be surprised at how much more energized you feel when tackling issues.

Encourage You to Think About Complicated Topics

Every book has protagonists and antagonists, they are the goodies and the baddies which help the story flow, create a storyline, and teach you life lessons.

For example, stories can cover complicated subjects such as racism, poverty, bullying, and a variety of other issues. In each story, you’ll find the protagonist grappling with one of these issues, commonly the problem is caused by the antagonist.

How the protagonist deals with the issue can help you find a way to deal with something similar in real life.

More importantly, a well-written novel will show you that the protagonist isn’t pure good and the antagonist isn’t pure evil. Both characters are motivated by something, in many cases they may even have the same goal. The difference is in how they approach the issue.

Reading reminds you that this is the case and can help you think about complicated topics as well as how you act in certain situations. It can cause you to review your own behavioral patterns.

Ultimately, this can lead to life changes that will help you appreciate and empathize with others. This will make you feel more confident in daily life and learn to love life all over again.

After all, it takes all sorts to make the world go around.

Relieve Depression

Reading a novel transports you to a different time, place, or culture. While your stress levels decline you’ll become engrossed in the novel. In some cases, you’ll almost feel like you are the central character.

That’s good, it will help you appreciate what they are going through and how they came out on top. Reading this will also do something more important, rekindle your hope in life, solutions, and happy endings.

It’s much harder to be depressed when you have hope.

Of course, recovering your motivation takes time, but hope is a great starting point.

Improved Social Skills

It’s been shown that people who read fiction a lot improve their social skills while reading. Research suggests that it’s a result of the reader visualizing themselves as the character. They imagine how they would react and how they interact with people.

It’s been suggested that when you read you are activating parts of your brain, specifically the part connected with what you’re reading.

In theory, this can better prepare you for a variety of social situations, effectively improving your social skills while reading a book!

Summing Up

Loving life starts with accepting who you are and what you want from life. Novels can help you understand what is important to you. That’s a big step toward loving yourself and allowing yourself to live the best life possible.

---