Reading helps fight against brain aging, improve memory, empathy, imagination, and also take a break.

On the occasion of World Book Day, the health consultant of Europe 1, Doctor Jimmy Mohamed deciphers all the benefits of reading. 

Improve your memory, your capacity for empathy, have fun, use your imagination or simply take a break from long connected days: on the occasion of World Book Day, Dr. Jimmy Mohamed, health columnist from Europe 1, discusses the benefits of reading for the brain and the human mind.

A good habit that he recommends to take, at all ages.

He also returns to the debate between a paper book and an electronic reader, initiated in the early 2000s.  

"Reading will protect your brain from the effects of aging by maintaining your memory capital, it is scientifically proven. In the long term, it will quite simply limit memory problems and therefore potentially Alzheimer's disease.

Reading also allows you to take a break.

It is often practiced in the evening, with the children, at the time of the bedtime ritual.

Adults can also be inspired by it to put themselves in a bubble of calm, before sleeping. 

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Find Jimmy Mohamed's column every morning at 8:37 am on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

Another of his extraordinary powers: to develop and improve theory of mind.

Or the ability of your brain to better discern and why not predict the behavior of people around you.

It's also kind of called empathy.

Thanks to this quality, you have the ability to communicate better and simply be happy.

Reading will activate certain areas of your brain and change the connections between neurons.

Literally the structure of the brain is going to be changed.

It is therefore important to allow children to read, whatever the type of reading: comic book, fiction, novel, manga.

It does not matter as long as there is the intoxication of reading. 

E-reader or paper book?

If you ever read on a tablet or e-reader, don't change your habits.

But since the early 2000s, the debate has raged between a paper book and a digital medium.

According to several studies, text comprehension remains better when reading is done on paper rather than on a screen.

This can be explained by two experiences: a sensory and motor experience of reading.

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The sensory experience, first of all: when you read with a real book, you will have the shape of the book, the cover, the number of pages or even smell the peculiar smell of the paper.

And then the driving experience: you took the time to buy the book, to touch the paper, to put your bookmark, then you will end up putting it away on your bedside table or in your library.

It is all these experiences that will help the brain to better integrate this information and therefore to better retain it in the long term.

Last advice: to learn a text, whether it is a course or a play, nothing like reading it and rereading it aloud to memorize it better. "