T he direct benefits of improving your reading skills is clear—by completing your reading at a quicker pace, you gain more knowledge in a shorter duration of time, and you have more free time for the things you enjoy doing as you are able to finish your school or work assignments quicker.
The interesting thing is that speed reading also positively affects other areas of your life by developing your ability to focus, which in turn opens up new experiences and opportunities for you.
For instance, the direct result of exercising and eating right is you will look and feel great but a healthy lifestyle does much more for you than that. It also gives you more energy and lowers your stress levels helping you become more productive in your studies and work. This inevitably leads to greater success in these areas and your personal life prospers as well.
In that same way, practicing focus while you read also touches other areas of your life in a positive way. Here are five benefits you will enjoy when you improve your focus through reading:
1. Self-Discipline
Successful people have this trait high on their “must have” list. Self-discipline is what keeps great thinkers and leaders on their chosen path no matter what failures they encounter on the way. It’s what motivates their persistence and determination to see things through. Self-discipline is developed through consistent, high levels of focus. The more you practice uninterrupted focus, the more self-discipline you will gain. Speed reading is an excellent way to develop your ability to focus. This means that as your power of concentration increases with speed reading so does your self-discipline.
Self-discipline is what keeps great thinkers and leaders on their chosen path no matter what… Click To Tweet2. Better Productivity, Higher Efficiency
When you practice focus, you train your brain to perform at its best. Recent studies show that multi-tasking is a detrimental habit as it actually decreases our response and reflexive rates to emergency situations. By improving your focus you avoid straining your brain with multi-tasking, and you’ll get better results in whatever task you are undertaking. Since your brain is meant to focus on only one thing at a time, you will be surprised to notice that you are actually more efficient and are able to achieve more by concentrating on one task at a time, instead of handling a number of different tasks simultaneously.
3. Better Observation Skills
This is important. Many bad occurrences and negative outcomes in life like accidents, injuries, and even death can often be avoided if the people involved were more observant. A strong focus is imperative to developing better observation skills. It is amazing how much you’ll notice the surroundings around you when you are alert and more focused.
4. Better Focus in Other Areas of Life
When you start speed reading and practice the disciplines involved, you will immediately notice that you are able to transfer the increased ability to focus onto other areas of your life like diet, exercise, and business-related tasks.
5. Increased Comprehension and Retention
By practicing focused reading, you comprehend the information you are reading better and retain it longer. With today’s hectic routines that we all endure, time has become even more precious. Many people waste time regressing, that is, re-reading material they’ve already covered due to lack of focus. The average reader regresses about 33% of the time when reading! That’s a huge waste of time. With focused, efficient reading habits you will avoid regression and have much more time to engage yourself in the activities you enjoy.
The average reader regresses about 33% of the time when reading! That’s a huge waste of time! Click To TweetThere’s no doubt about it, speed reading is an activity that has far-reaching paybacks and no matter what else happens, you’ll never regret learning this incredible skill.
If you’re eager to start enjoying these five benefits, try speed reading programs offered by Soundway Efficient Speed Reading™. Soundway’s methods are based on proven techniques that have been researched and developed over the last 40 years.
photo credit: .Ruby Tuesday. via photopin cc