Person readingWriting in his book How To Prevent Dementia, neurologist Richard Restak said that reading – especially reading fiction – might be “the single most effective activity” you can take up to build up your “cognitive reserve”. The bigger this reserve is, the longer your mind may hold out against cognitive decline. “A lifetime investment in building up cognitive reserve leads to healthy cognition and thinking later in life,” Restak wrote. A separate study found that those who read twice a week or more seemed to have a lower risk of developing dementia in older age, too.But that’s just one benefit of reading. Other studies have found benefits to our physical and mental health, empathy, and even perceived attractiveness, too.What are the benefits of reading?A 2024 article published in Frontiers in Paediatrics cited research which found that readers lived nearly two years longer than non-readers, and that, “Adults who read for