Fictional reading in particular is extremely beneficial to all aspects of your life. Humans have been wired with the ability to speak, as we've been doing it for at least 100,000 years in some shape or form. Reading however, has only been around for 5,000 years or so. A baby has to be taught how to read, but will learn to speak if you put them around other people who speak.

Why YSK: Reading quite literally creates new individual neural pathways in the brain. Brain scans show that reading results in a brain activity quite similar to having the actual experience yourself. The brain is a muscle, the more you force yourself to take other people's perspective, the more you sympathize, the more empathetic society we will have.

Edit: Thank you so much for the awards! Please send me your book recs, I want to break my personal book record this year and fill up my book journal! :)