How Reading Impacts Our Mental Health
- Maxim Goohs
- Apr 25
- 13 min read
We don’t read anymore.
Immediately, I hear the objections. You might even be clutching your kindle right now,
scoffing at my comment. Yes, I concede people do read in one sense of the word, be it news
articles, social media posts, or pop fiction. And while Borders did bite the dust just over a decade ago, Barnes and Nobles continues to be a strong staple of the American shopping mall – this success not only attributable to their large assortment of board games, leather-bound journals ,and other gimmicky literary paraphernalia. Also, I’d be wrong not to mention the booming e-book industry and the large online community of readers who worship literary-rpgs.
So yes, people are reading. However, they are not reading with intention. While subtle,
this is an important distinction that explains how books have shifted from meaningful, life-
changing pieces of art to entertaining and informative commodities. Over the course of this
essay, I look to explain how the decline of intentional reading directly correlates with the decline of mental well-being. To start, I pose a simple question:
When was the last time reading changed the way you saw the world?
Straightaway, most of us will think of a piece of non-fiction, probably on the cultural,
racial, or environmental struggles of modern-day. Countless non-fiction books have shaped our discourse, broadening our perspective and encouraging us to live more conscientiously. One only has to look at the influence Jared Diamond’s Germs, Guns, and Steel had on our understanding of Western imperialism and colonialism. Or Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which directly affected our environment by leading to the out-lawing of DDT. And of course there is Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a book that opened our eyes to the continued impact of racial prejudice on society.
Undeniably, non-fiction changes the way we see the world. And although this may have
some effect on our mental health, I argue this is marginal at best. Unlike intentional reading, the consumption of non-fiction does not look to change who we fundamentally are, but instead provide us information that alters our cognitive schemas. Imagine the brain to be full of scales, our rational mind constantly weighing what our sensory/intellectual input tells us and creating schematic frameworks based on these deductions. Information helps us discern what is true and what is untrue, consequently bringing our belief systems into increased alignment with reality. Many of the horrors of this world – genocide, racism, war – are linked to faulty belief systems, i.e. a lack of information. This is why we have seen a diminishment of human rights crises in the wake of the Information Age. The theory hypothesized the more information people had, the less atrocities would occur. When we consider how much less violence and prejudice exists in the 21st century compared to the 20th , it seems this theory proved correct. Information has led to more world peace.
Based on this, shouldn’t we have expected information to also lead to more individual
peace…to improved mental health?
While increased information has led to a “better world,” it has not led to better individual
mental health. If anything, it seems to have done the opposite. From 2000 to 2018, suicide rates increased over 37%. This is especially true of young adults whose suicidality have nearly doubled (CDC, n.d.). From 2005 to 2017, there was a 52% increase in adolescents and a 63% increase in teenagers reporting symptoms consistent with major depression (APA, 2019).
This leads me to my second question: When was the last time reading positively impacted your mental health?
Unlike the first question, this one is not so evident. Other than those who can point to the
minor effects accrued from reading a self-help book or an essay such as this one, the vast
majority of us not only struggle to come up with an answer, but probably consider the connection between reading and mental health to be somewhat weak. A common criticism is that reading may have some purpose, but it’s ultimately just a form of entertainment no more valuable than watching a movie or listening to a podcast. There is also the objection that valuing reading is elitist, for it looks down on the illiterate or those with disabilities. I have heard in the past that great novels, like other forms of high art, are for the privileged few who have the education to understand them; but for all others, they’re not important and to claim otherwise is problematic. While most of us know that reading can give us new perspectives, we think this is in the same that documentaries and non-fiction books do. Thus, we believe that there is nothing special about the intentional reading of literature.
Or is there?
The problem arises when we boil the value of reading down to that singular word:
information. If reading at its best is no more than an entertaining way to access information, than we may as well put it in the same box as other forms of entertaining and informative art. This line of thinking allows us to shrug off reading with that empty, yet so common phrase: “I’m just not really a reader.” If this is true, if many of us really just aren’t readers, then we must ask why some people are. Is it only those who were raised with books, those who had them forced upon them as a children? Or is it only those who were too shy to engage with classmates and compensated by burying their faces in a novel? Or possibly it’s only those who were born with the patience and concentration necessary to sit down and read for hours, these traits now seen as genetic dispositions instead of developed skills.
It goes without saying that there are certain people who do struggle with reading, due to some aforementioned disability or lack of access. But when the majority of us think this way, we make reading into a preference…a hobby. We convince ourselves that there are those who benefit from reading and those who do not. To do otherwise would be “unkind,” casting a value judgement on something many people don’t enjoy. Thus, we force reading into the camp of relativism and equate it with all those other past-times people rely on to get through their lazy Sundays. It shouldn’t surprise us that that one of the main places people read is on airplanes –but even this has been mitigated by the rise of back-seat screens and free WIFI.
Sure, the average person acknowledges reading is valuable. But again, only as a means of learning about other people’s lived experiences or gaining information about the world. Both of these, while important, do not substantially improve our mental health. And unfortunately, in some cases even worsen it. One must only think of the kid who first learns about the nuclear bomb, only to be left tormented by apocalyptic nightmares. Although information is key to a civilized society, lest us forget that ignorance is also bliss.
So how is intentional reading different? How is this increasingly underutilized act
curative to mental health issues? Unlike other forms of reading, intentional reading embodies the text as a living spirit and subsequent agent of change. It does not look to inform the reader, but to transform them. To understand how this functions, we must first go back to one of the oldest examples of intentional reading.
In Western Christianity, there is a monastic practice called Lectio Divina (Latin for
Divine Reading). Unlike regular reading, Lectio Divina focuses on a personal engagement with the Bible. This practice does not see the Bible as a text to be studied and analyzed, but instead as the actual manifestation of God’s word, present for us to form an intimate relationship with. By reading slowly with an emphasis on meditation and contemplation, monks believe they can form communion with God. Lectio Divina does not use the logical side of the brain to alter schemas. It transcends all logic and seeks to invite the divine into the mind, hoping that by supplementing one’s thoughts with the “thoughts” of God, one’s mind will be shaped in the form of God’s intellect. In other words, Lectio Divina does not look to alter people’s belief systems through reason, but instead to alter them through a metaphysical change of their actual mind. We aren’t putting higher quality gas in the car hoping to go faster. We are upgrading the engine itself. This is the difference between unintentional and intentional reading. But how does this work?
One of the main goals of therapy is the development of mindfulness. This is because the
more aware we are of our internal functioning, the more power we have to change said
functioning. Think of a computer. Computers are programmed in such a way that when you put in certain inputs, you get out certain outputs. X leads to Y. Similarly, our minds have
unconscious programs that dictate much of our lives. For example, when a depressed individual gets a job rejection, they often feel worthless; but if a more stable individual gets that same rejection, their self-worth remains untouched. This is due to the dissonant programming between the healthy and the unhealthy mind. When people are unhappy with their lives (Y), they often look to change their circumstances (X) in hope that different inputs will result in a different output, i.e. a happier life. While there are undeniable benefits to improving the inputs in one’s life (eating better, sleeping more, quitting a substance), countless people find that no matter what they do, they remain unhappy. No matter their Xs, the Y remains the same. This leads to chronic mental health issues, such as stress, emotional dysregulation, and depression.
The problem with these individuals is not the circumstances of their lives, but the actual
programming of their minds. The depressed individual has a depressed programming. The
anxious individual has an anxious programming. No matter the Xs, they end up with the same Y.
This is where mindfulness comes in. Unlike traditional problem solving, mindfulness
understands the limitations of altering the Xs in one’s life. Instead, mindfulness encourages the individual to step back, look at their life from a detached perspective, and form a better
understanding of their mind as an objective process. I was once talking with an individual who was utterly distressed over their future. No matter what we did the individual feared everything was going to go wrong: their partner was going to die, they were going to lose their job, their children were going to stop talking to them. This sense of unshakeable dread led to sleepless nights, cycles of rumination, and a dependence on alcohol to soothe their otherwise un-soothable negative feelings. At first, we focused on what could change in their life to give them more hope – what new Xs could we put in so as not end up with that awful Y. However, nothing seemed to work. Even when things were generally positive in the individual’s life and external progress had been made, the sense of dread remained. After much debate, I finally asked: “What if the problem isn’t your actual future, but your inability to imagine a positive one?” At these words, the individual’s eyes widened and they began to see their dilemma in a new light. Their issue wasn’t the Xs in their life. Their issue was that they were programmed to dread their future, no matter what. Following this realization, real change could occur.
So what does this have to do with intentional reading? The same way mindfulness looks
to alter the mind’s programming, intentional reading does the same. When we are not in a
mindful state, we are at the will of our habits and involuntary impulses/compulsions. We are lost in an all too familiar stream of consciousness, trying to solve the same old problems with the same old lines of thinking. When we aren’t mindful, we fall into the grooves of neural pathways familiar, yet ineffective. Ask yourself, how many times have you built yourself up to tear yourself down? This is because we are relying on the programming of a mind to solve problems, when in fact our main problem is the programming itself. We ironically think that if we keep thinking, we’ll one day come to a solution and solve our biggest dilemmas. The irony being that it is thinking itself which keeps us stuck.
The monks understood this. They knew that if they only read the Bible in order to solve
their problems, they’d end up with morally hollow, dogmatic views of the world, the type of
views that ultimately lead to more pain than peace. This is one of the main issues religions face; they focus on divine information instead of divine experience, leading to a legalistic and rigid view of life that propagates oppression, dividing us into the sacred and the damned. Instead of reading the Bible to change the Xs in one’s life, Lectio Divina leans into the ambiguity of religious text and looks to structurally alter the reader’s mind.
As hard as it can be to sometimes remember, monks are normal people. They have wants and desires, fears and doubts. Even the monk has a programmed mind made up of spontaneous thoughts and feelings. But it is through the act of Lectio Divina that the monk tries to overcome this. By intentionally reading the Bible, the monk subjugates his stream of conscious to what he believes to be the conscious of God. Thus, in these moments of intentional reading, he abandons his typical neural grooves and opts for the supposed grooves of the divine intellect. Fundamentally, the monk supplements his programmed neural pathway for the neural pathway of the Biblical authors in the hope that this will alter the shape of his actual mind, i.e. change the programming.
When one writes, they take their unique thoughts and put them down on paper. Let’s
consider these thoughts as paths through the psyche. Therefore, when one reads another’s
writing, they leave their own psychological paths and traverse down the foreign paths of another. In many ways, the reader’s mind temporarily mirrors the writer’s mind, allowing them to directly experience another human’s existence. Through intentional reading, the reader momentarily becomes the writer. This can be considered one of the purest forms of empathy possible, to think exactly what another person has thought.
Intentional reading is empathy. It allows the individual to escape their own programming
and temporarily experience the programming of another person. It takes us off the paths of our own mind, paths that have been ineffective, and down new paths, paths that may change us in the way we independently are incapable of. As monks intentionally read the Bible in hopes of making their mental programming more divine, we can intentionally read fiction in hopes of making our mental programming more healthy. When we read the words of a great author, we expand our own minds, challenge our own programming, and give ourselves the opportunity to experience the world in a more peaceful, well-rounded way.
(Important note: I begin my argument with a religious example in order to explain the
historical precedent of intentional reading. However, intentional reading does not have to be
religious; in fact, it is predominantly humanist. While monks sought to replace the voice in their head with the voice of “God,” we look to replace the voice in our head with the voice of our fellow human.)
If this sounds far-fetched, there is scientific evidence to back it. In a recent neuroimaging study, it was found that individuals who read more narrative fiction had greater activation in parts of the brain related to perspective-taking. This research showed there is a direct correlation between lifelong reading and the ability to understand how other people think. One study even found that people who read books have a 20% reduction in mortality compared to those who don’t (Tamir et al., 2016). The effects are even physical. As mentioned earlier, major depressive symptoms have been on the rise amongst adolescents and teenagers. However, the same is not true for adults. What explains this discrepancy? Although not the sole reason, one factor may be the decline of reading amongst young people. According to the APA (2018):
“In the early 1990s, 33 percent of 10th-graders said they read a newspaper almost every day. By 2016, that number was only 2 percent. In the late 1970s, 60 percent of 12th-graders said they read a book or magazine almost every day; by 2016, only 16 percent did. Twelfth-graders also reported reading two fewer books each year in 2016 compared with 1976, and approximately one-third did not read a book (including e-books) for pleasure in the year prior to the 2016 survey, nearly triple the number reported in the 1970s.”
The research is clear. As reading declines, mental health declines.
What does this mean for you? Does it mean to go consume a lot of fiction? And if you
do, should you only read the works of happy, well-adjusted authors? No to both. Treating a
library like an all-you-can-eat buffet misses the point of intentional reading. If the goal is to
imitate the mental functioning of another, we need to read as if the writing was our own
thoughts. We must read every sentence and hear every word. Reading at a breakneck pace may give us the substance of the work, but ultimately fails to mirror the mind of the author. This is why I recommend even moving your lips to the words; doing so not only keeps your pacing right, but also ensures you’re substituting your own thoughts for the writer’s.
And in regards to only reading happy authors, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. As
Aeschylus declared in his masterpiece Agamemnon, “Wisdom comes alone through suffering.” It should not surprise us that some of the most impactful pieces of fiction were crafted by some of the most tortured souls. How can we forget the genius of Dostoevsky, Wolff, and Hemingway, all authors who experienced great psychological pain in their lifetimes. While seldom talked about in the modern mental health discourse, wisdom is a key factor in mental well-being. One could argue that many mental health issues result from a deficiency of wisdom. Thus, when we read the books of authors who suffered deeply, we supplement our stream of conscious with a wiser version, giving us insight into corners of our psyche until then unintelligible.
According to the 2024-2025 Literacy Statistics, only 79% of Americans are literate and
only 54% of adults can read at the sixth grade level, with 20% falling below the fifth grade. On
the world stage, America only ranks 36 th in literacy. Based on these facts, it is clear that we have a reading problem. While I concede that there are many factors playing into these statistics, such as poverty, disabilities, and gendered issues, this should not be seen as a reason to give up on the value of reading. Instead of saying that factors like poverty prevent people from reading, we should look for solutions to these problems and encourage society to recognize the profound benefit reading can have on our lives. If intentional reading leads to empathy, we must also believe that it leads to better communities, better families, better relationships, and better people.
To tell someone who is struggling mentally to pick up a book may seem out of touch.
And for a lot of people, the last thing they have time for is reading. I understand that. However, ask yourself how effective your own thoughts have been at solving your problems. Be honest. And if you find that no matter what you’ve done, you still feel stuck, what’s the harm in going to the library, checking out that book you always had interest in, and reading it with slow, deliberate hope. The worst it can do is give you a paper-cut. The best is change your life.
It’s happened for me. Why not you?
Works Cited
2024-2025 Literacy Statistics. National Literacy. (n.d.).
American Psychological Association. (2018). Teens Today Spend More Time on Digital Media,
Less Time Reading. American Psychological Association.
book#:~:text=In%20recent%20years%2C%20less%20than,by%20the%20American%20Ps
ychological%20Association.
American Psychological Association. (2019). Mental Health Issues Increased Significantly in
Young Adults Over Last Decade. American Psychological Association.
Bavishi, A., Slade, M. D., & Levy, B. R. (2016). A chapter a day: Association of book reading with longevity. Social Science & Medicine, 164, 44-48.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Suicide Data and Statistics. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html
Tamir, D. I., Bricker, A. B., Dodell-Feder, D., & Mitchell, J. P. (2016). Reading fiction and
reading minds: The role of simulation in the default network. Social cognitive and affective
neuroscience, 11(2), 215-224.
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