Why your lifelong learning plan should include reading fiction

You do have a #lifelonglearning plan, right?

The core of any effective learning plan is #reading. You've heard of the "5-hour rule," adopted by so many well-known leaders, who devote at least five hours per week to learning. And you've probably also noticed that many of those same lifelong learners regularly share recommended book lists.

But fiction? Our friend and client, Tony Pisanelli , recently told me that someone here on LinkedIn left a comment "disparaging" the value of reading #fiction #books. The person claimed that nonfiction books "are very powerful" and fiction books "border on useless."

Tony disagreed and suggested that I might want to . . . address . . . the topic. I sent a version of this article in our email newsletter last week, but that claim about fiction must be debunked at every opportunity.

Reading fiction upgrades your brain

Confession: For years, decades even, my own behavior said the same things as Tony's commenter. Somewhere during my law career and extending through serial startups on my own and with Yvonne DiVita , I stopped reading fiction.

I don't recall ever consciously thinking or saying anything as dumb as fiction books "border on useless." But I had so much to learn and I guess I somehow bought into the notion that only nonfiction books were for learning.

Then, about five years ago, I started doing research on the benefits reading books for my own book, Read 'Em & Reap: 6 Science-Backed Ways Reading Puts You on the Road to Achieving More and Living Longer. What I found in the science changed both that assumption and my behavior.

As I wrote in the Preface:

"You’ll see in several chapters how and why I’ve returned to reading fiction, as well. With all the benefits [of reading] we’ll cover, I’m most happy that writing this book gave that old and wonderful habit back to me."

So let's dig right into the ways reading fiction upgrades your brain.

In the first chapter, "Reading Reduces Stress," I reviewed a study that found:

Reading fiction for just six minutes reduced stress levels by 68%. Reading was more effective than going for a walk. It also beats having a cup of tea or listening to music.

The study author, Dr. David Lewis, explained the physical findings:

"...?this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction of being taken into a literary world eases the tensions in muscles and the heart."

Upgraded decision-making

In the chapter on how reading "Improves Your Decision-Making Capacity," I covered research on how reading for learning purposes has been shown to grow new neurons and increase the volume of the hippocampus (a structure critical to learning and memory). That kind of reading includes lots of nonfiction, of course.

But I opened that chapter with this quote:

"[B]ecoming engrossed in a novel enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function."?– Christopher Bergland

That quote comes from an article summarizing the fMRI results from a study with the descriptive title?Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain, by Berns, et al.

One of the most intriguing observations in the study focused on the long-term changes in the brains of the fiction readers showing increased connectivity in a neural network associated with somatosensory (feeling, e.g., pressure, pain, warmth) and motor functions.

The authors suggested:

"One possibility ... is that reading a novel invokes neural activity that is associated with bodily sensations. ... It is plausible that the act of reading a novel places the reader in the body of the protagonist, which may alter somatosensory and motor cortex connectivity."

Upgraded leadership

Which leads me to my chapter on how reading "Makes You a Better Leader." You might jump to the conclusion that this one would be all about nonfiction.

But here again, reading fiction plays a vital role. As Maryanne Wolf explained at length in Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, reading fiction builds our capacity for empathy in powerful ways. I wrote:

She highlights one study titled, “Your Brain on Jane Austen,” showing that closely reading fiction activates brain regions involved with both what the characters are feeling and what they are doing.

A host of studies have shown that reading fiction enhances empathy and theory of mind, by which we can see and understand the experiences and viewpoints of others. Wolf summarized the impact of these neurological findings this way:

"[W]hen we read fiction, the brain actively simulates the consciousness of another person, including those whom we would never otherwise even imagine knowing. It allows us to try on ... what it truly means to be another person, with all the similar and sometimes vastly different emotions and struggles that govern others' lives."

As one of the researchers she cites put it in a NYTimes interview (in an article entitled, Your Brain on Fiction):

"... reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that 'runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.' Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors, and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica."

Wolf concludes:

"The reading circuitry [in our brains] is elaborated by such simulations; so also our daily lives, and so also the lives of those who would lead others."

In my book, I anticipated some who would attempt to dismiss these impacts on our leadership abilities as woo-woo stuff, or at most "soft skills" that real leaders don't need. So I spent some ink introducing them to the U.S. Army Field Manual on Leader Development.

As I noted, the Army treats?empathy as a core character attribute for leaders and the manual explains why:

"Empathy can help leaders to understand those that they deal with including other Soldiers, Army Civilians, local populace, and even enemy forces. Being able to see from another’s viewpoint enables a leader to understand those around them better."

The manual specifically advises leaders to "read ... literature" to improve their empathy skills.

Upgraded "smarts"

In the chapter on how reading "Makes You Smarter," I reviewed research showing that reading fiction helps us become more comfortable with ambiguity, or less anxious about the absence of what the researchers called "cognitive closure."

The researchers compared reading essays to reading short stories, chosen for comparable length and reading difficulty.

They concluded that:

"... reading fictional literature could lead to better procedures of processing information generally [one of my criteria for getting 'smarter'], including those of creativity."

It's worth noting that the researcher also found that this improvement in the readers of fiction "was particularly strong for participants who were habitual readers (of either fiction or non-fiction)."

That's why throughout my book, I advocated for developing a reading schedule that includes both.

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Upgraded longevity

In my chapter on how reading "Helps You Live Longer," I reviewed the study that, more than any of the others, inspired me to write the book in the first place, A Chapter a Day: association of book reading with longevity. (One of the authors is Becca Levy, whose recent book, Breaking the Age Code, I've recommended frequently.)

In this study, the reading habits were not separated into fiction and nonfiction. Yet the hypotheses they were testing included prior research showing that

"books can promote empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence, which are cognitive processes that can lead to greater survival."

As we've seen above, fiction serves those particular survival advantages better.

And the authors' conclusion betrays their assumption that the kind of reading that helps us live longer weighs toward fiction:

"This study found that those who read books for an average of 30 minutes per day – say, a chapter a day – showed a survival advantage, compared to those who did not read books. The robustness of our findings suggest that reading books may not only introduce some interesting ideas and characters, it may also give more years of reading."?

As I observed, this study and most discussions of longevity talk about adding time to our lives, as measured by clocks and calendars?– i.e., using addition.

I argued that books?– both fiction and nonfiction – also provide a life multiplier effect. A couple of quotes to drive home my point:

"A reader lives a thousand lives. The man who never reads lives only one."

— George R.R. Martin

"[Readers of philosophy] are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs. All the years that have passed before them are added to their own."

—?Seneca

?

And this one from Galileo, rhapsodizing over the inventor of writing (and thus books) as having created a?

"means of communicating his deepest thoughts to any other person, though distant by mighty intervals of place and time! ... of speaking to those who are not yet born and will not be born for a thousand or ten thousand years ..."

?

Yes, nonfiction books are powerful tools.

But fiction books useless? I think not.

One last jab, from a Harvard Business Review article, with the title, The Case for Reading Fiction, published after my book:?

"Research, however, suggests that reading fiction may provide far more important benefits than nonfiction. For example, reading fiction predicts increased social acuity and a sharper ability to comprehend other people’s motivations. Reading nonfiction might certainly be valuable for collecting knowledge; it does little to develop EQ, a far more elusive goal."

Including fiction in your learning plan will, as my subtitle says, help you achieve more and live longer.

And, of course, it's fun!