Hi! I’ve missed you. And I have gRE:eat news to kick-off a hopefully less shitty year!

Have you ever wondered how many calories you burn while reading? Because reading does burn calories! Yes, you’re losing calories right now.

This is not a joke, so keep reading (because you are losing calories!) Oddly, I’m not the only weirdo person who has wondered if you can lose weight by reading.

I thought I would be the only human, ever, to even think to ask Google, “Does reading burn calories?”

Alas, I am not. Which makes me wonder who ARE all the other people also wondering "How many calories does reading burn?”

I mean, in your entire life, has the thought ever popped into your mind, “Hey! Look at me burning calories, lying on the couch, braless, and I’m not even breaking into a sweat!” 

Have you ever responded to someone who calls, interrupting you in the midst of a riveting page-turner, by saying, “Can’t talk right now. I’m working out!” 

Well, now you can.

And let’s be realistic, ladies: Who hasn’t, amongst us, asked ourselves, “How many calories am I burning while doing {fill in the blank: climbing stairs, shovelling snow, breathing}?”

 

In fact, I asked myself this exact question just this morning, scrubbing burnt from a frying pan I left in the sink for five days. I did think, “How many calories am I burning?” It DID feel like exercise. I was breaking into a sweat.

(And now I’m wondering about people who read diet books. If you read about diets, you’re burning calories while reading, so perhaps another motivating factor would be to read before you implement the diet?)

I’m totally thinking of starting a virtual gym called Eyeball Cardio.

(The other option at this point in yet another lockdown is to start talking to your houseplants, which I may or may not have started to do.)

Allow me to digress, just for a sec, about New Year’s resolutions before I share exactly how you burn calories by reading, whether you lose more calories reading while standing, and the other health benefits of reading (and writing.)

Embarrassingly, I’m still working on my 2018 resolution, which I have yet to accomplish.

And guess what?

No one — I mean no one in the entire world — cares that I still don’t how to hip hop dance (which has been my resolution since 2018).

Maybe this is the year I will actually learn how to hip-hop dance. Although, another one of my yearly failed resolutions is to stop procrastinating. And I will. Starting tomorrow. Or sometime soon.

I’m pretty sure your resolution must have had something to do with a health-related goal: eating better, exercising, losing weight, managing stress. After all, 71% of New Year’s resolutions revolve around weight loss and fitness.

Alas, on average, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by mid-February. Many don’t make it even that long-lasting only until January 19, which by the way, is also known as Quitter’s Day. (Did you know about this random day? Should we be celebrating Quitter’s Day a week from now? Who do I RSVP to?)

Especially this year, not many people were all that invested in setting a new goal because we don’t feel any drive or motivation to do anything but watch television.

While watching television burns between 23 and 33 calories an hour, reading burns between 34 and 50 calories per hour.

Resolutions, or goals, are about the future. But now? The future is full of unknowns.

Many polls showed that only 29% made resolutions this new year, unlike pre-pandemic years when the number was closer to 50%.

Gyms are now closed. Again. I’m trying to remain positive. So, for all of you regular gym-goers? There is also a hugely beneficial exercise you should, and can, do without going to an actual gym. (In fact, you’re doing it right now, reading this newsletter!)

According to healthstatus.com, it is possible for a person to burn between 60 and 100 calories or more by concentrating, which reading forces you to do. “An average female college student at approximately 126 pounds can burn a total of 270 calories in 60 minutes with the combined activities of sitting up straight, reading, writing and studying.”

Eyeball Cardio — no, not skimming pictures of Brad Pitt in a tabloid on the beach — is exercise for your brain and just as important for your health. 

If you think of reading as working toward a six-pack or thigh gap for your brain, maybe you’ll be able to motivate yourself to read more. Or to start reading again. 

Maya, our executive editor, recently signed up for a semester of creative writing classes, which you can read about in part two — if you ever wondered what these classes teach you and what you'll get out of them, you’ll be pleased to know that she will, in fact, burn more energy during this intense class, where she’ll have to think more than she would vegging out watching Say Yes to the Dress.

According to Healthline, if a 155-pound person studies on a computer, they’ll burn about 51 calories per 30 minutes. If they study at a desk or sit in a class, they’ll burn about 65 calories per 30 minutes.

The same 155-pound person burns 42 calories in 30 minutes of reading while sitting. And if you stand while reading? You’ll burn about 47 calories per 30 minutes.

So, you should be sitting up while you read to burn more calories. 

“The calories you burn reading are expended on basic metabolic and maintenance processes more than on the reading per se. Even a riveting page-turner doesn't demand much exertion from you. The more muscle mass you have, the greater your metabolism. Work out between reading sessions and you’ll burn even more by reading.” 

(And chew sugar-free gum while you read! You’ll chew — pun intended — off another 11 calories per hour.)

How awesome is the idea that reading can positively influence weight loss and decrease BMI? In theory, it is so easy to implement. You just need…a book.

Bookworms' brain-boosting habits can help keep their weight loss goals on track. But not only does reading help you relax and decrease stress, dietician Julienanna Hever explains that “using your brain requires energy, and reading burns almost twice as many calories as sleeping.”

Aside from losing calories, eyeball cardio — AKA reading — has the type of benefits we need now more than ever. 

While lifting weights makes our bodies stronger, reading not only strengthens memory and concentration but, more importantly, helps you be more empathetic.

Can we all agree that empathy is what this world needs right now? Do you know anyone who is too empathetic?

Studies have found that reading literary fiction, which mimics our lives and universal struggles, increases our ability to feel more for others.

In one study I read, participants were given either literary fiction or nonfiction reading material. When finished, they were then given an empathy test. Those that read fiction showed to have more empathic responses. Apparently, scientists have found that reading a novel increases communication between parts of the brain that control language processing, and fiction can help you understand others, leading readers to develop more empathy, which leads to skills like building better friendships or relationships.

(Interesting fact? A study has found that the absence of social connections is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.)

As we all have learned, the most important characteristic of being human is that our lives are social. 

“Fiction can augment and help us understand our social experience,” said Keith Oatley, a professor emeritus of cognitive psychology. “A piece of fiction is a piece of consciousness being passed from mind to mind. When you’re reading, you’re taking in a piece of consciousness that you make your own,” he said here.

It really doesn't matter what you read. By escaping in a thoroughly engrossing book, you can escape from the worries and stress of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the author's imagination.

Frequent fiction readers have also been found to accept more ambiguous thoughts. 

Accepting ambiguity is believed to be a key to creativity and, I’d argue, also beneficial to learning to accept and live in our new normal, where day after day we say to ourselves, “We made it through the day to survive another day of ‘what the hell now?’” 

Now that we are, again, in lockdown hell 3.0, I can’t think of a better time to dive into another world. Literally.

Studies have shown that those who read for more than 3.5 hours a week are 23% less likely to die than those who do not read books. (Reading may not cause you to live longer on its own, but it might be associated with an overall healthy lifestyle and a lower risk of early death.)

In 2020, a study that took place over 14 years, found participants who read one or more times a week were less likely to have cognitive decline. After 14 years, older people who read more often had a reduced risk of cognitive decline.

Reading for just 30 minutes can reduce the physical and emotional signs of stress. If 30 minutes seems like a lot of time, think of it as approximately 20 pages a day. (And remind yourself you’re losing calories!)

I am totally encouraging you to read 20 pages each day. Or a few hours a week. (Although, I recognize this is coming from someone who couldn’t get it together to take one hip hop class in four years.)

But reading has never been so important, especially for our mental health and stress. (Oh, so stress balls are for squeezing, not for throwing at people who stress me out?)

You know that feeling when you get so stressed that your stress starts stressing you out to the point where you’re too stressed to deal with your stress? Me too. So I read. Then re-emerge wondering what day it is and where my kids are and if I’m ever going to shake a hand again.

Another interesting study of full-time undergraduate students compared the effects of yoga, funny videos, and reading on stress levels. It found students who read news articles for 30 minutes experienced a decrease in physical markers of stress, like heart rate and blood pressure, compared to before they began the activity. They also had lower scores on stress surveys. 

Of course, this study was pre-pandemic and I don’t know about you, but reading news articles raises my heart rate — which is why I get my news by watching comedian and late-night talk show host Bill Maher on Friday nights. 

Who finds reading the news relaxing anymore? Seriously? Anyone? So, do yourself a favour and pick up a book. 

It’s not easy to start reading after a long bout of not reading. Maybe some of you stopped reading after your required reading list in university. In my article Top things people say to writers that will piss them right off, one of the common things people say to authors is, “I don’t read.” (Awesome, right? Just what an author wants to hear!)

Uma Naidoo, a nutritional psychiatrist, says that the easiest way to start reading more is to schedule it into your daily life. (It’s more beneficial than spending two hours trying to find something to watch on Netflix!)

"Like with any activity that promotes our better brain health — such as how we eat, sleep, or exercise — we need to create space for these," Naidoo says. "Setting aside a half-hour or an hour, for example, before bed or during an afternoon break could be a good idea to make sure you are reading.”

So, how does a non-reader become a reader again, when more often than not at the end of the day, you feel like you’re down to your last two brain cells? Well, baby steps, baby! And patience. 

The easiest way is to start with the right book. This is why the books we recommend at re:books each week are enjoyable books, on the lighter more leisurely side, that will never feel like a chore to read. (Losing a few calories is really just an extra bonus.)

We can’t deny there are truly amazing books out there, and yet reading has become harder. 

The tried and true small steps — like keeping a book with you when travelling, commuting to work, or waiting for your kid’s activity to be done? Well, commuting to work has gone to shit. I know people who say they will never commute again, getting up at 8.59 am for the big commute to work…in the spare room for their 9:00 a.m start date.

Travelling has gone to shit. 

On my end, I’ve started reading poetry, admittedly most of which I do not understand. If a poet asked me what I thought their poem meant, my answer would be an arbitrary guess like, “Turtles?” To which the poet would be like, “No. That’s completely wrong.” (Shout-out to all poets! I realized I actually love poetry.)

Interestingly, the “sustained experience” of reading poems also increases mental flexibility through the “process of the reappraisal of meaning and the acceptance of new meaning.” To dumb that down, reading poems makes my brain think about what a bunch of seemingly random words with a lot of “hit enters” means. 

With better mental flexibility, our thoughts and behaviours to adapting to evolving situations are easier. People with greater mental flexibility are more likely to find new solutions rather than just being led by routine.

Who hasn’t been forced to adapt to evolving situations every day — or every few hours — for two years now? Pre-pandemic, I was all like, "No one tells me what to do, not even me!” Now I’m all like, “I desperately need a daily routine in my life, because I have no idea what day it is anymore.” 

Reading stories impacts the brain both psychologically and neurologically. A study where participants’ brains were scanned before, during, and five days after finishing a novel found ongoing neurological changes.

“Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity. We call that a ‘shadow activity, almost like muscle memory…” 

Muscle memory is widely used when it comes to physical activity, when you start exercising again after a…let’s just call it a “vacation” from exercising. Your muscles don’t forget that you once worked out with weights. Reading and strength training have more in common than I thought.

We already know that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense. Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically. “The neural changes that we found…suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist,” explains neuroscientist Professor Gregory Berns.

How fascinating!

Reading also puts our brains into a state similar to meditation. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers.

If reading leads to us treating ourselves and others better, staves off mental decline, and saves our mental health in these times of uncertainty (while losing calories), what more motivation does one need to pick up a good book and immerse oneself into another world? 

When you find a good book and reemerge, you come back healthier, more empathic, and less stressed. (At this point, with kids remote learning, I'll find my inner peace when my last kid goes off to university.)

Reading, like any skill, takes time to develop. Good habits, especially drastic lifestyle ones, are hard to keep. It takes 66 days for a “habit” to become automatic. 

But I know how women’s brains are wired. Because I am one. So, if you become a reader simply because you can lose a few calories, wonderful! 

I suggest starting by picking up a leisurely light read, especially the books we recommend. We handpick them each week to give people enjoyable, leisurely recommendations that we loved and are sure you will too. As we like to say at re:book: “Reading doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be fun.”

And to those who want to start reading but don’t know where to begin, simply share this email with five friends and click here for your chance to win a free copy of my memoir, Blissfully Blended Bullshit. 

Worst case scenario? You can use the book as a weight.

xo

Rebecca