BBC Learnings · Section 8

The soothing power of books

What type of books do you like to read, Georgina? I love reading crime fiction you know,

Level: B2 · 88 sentences

Transcript

  1. What type of books do you like to read, Georgina?
  2. I love reading crime fiction you know,
  3. detective stories by authors like Ruth Wendell or Agatha Christie.
  4. Really?
  5. Do you find them relaxing?
  6. I wouldn't say relaxing exactly,
  7. but I get really involved in the story,
  8. trying to work out who the murderer is, then finding out on the last page.
  9. That's interesting because today we'll be looking at how books can help
  10. us relax and feel more alive during troubled times.
  11. We'll be finding out how reading is one of the best ways
  12. to find relief from the pressures of modern life.
  13. Neil, are you talking about bibliotherapy?
  14. Amazing detective skills, Georgina.
  15. Exactly.
  16. Bibliotherapy is the prescription of books as a remedy to sickness.
  17. It's been around since 2013 when the UK charity Reading Agency published
  18. a list of books that doctors could offer to patients tackling topics from depression to dementia to chronic pain.
  19. Since then, 1.2 million readers have borrowed The Scheme's books from libraries.
  20. It's so successful that it's about to be extended to children as well.
  21. I wonder which books have been most popular over that time.
  22. In fact, that's my quiz question for today.
  23. What is the best-selling book of all time?
  24. Is it... a Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling,
  25. b A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens,
  26. Or c Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes?
  27. I'll say a Harry Potter.
  28. OK.
  29. Well, we'll find out later if you are right.
  30. In bibliotherapy, people meet up to read together.
  31. Professor Philip Davis, who runs these reading groups,
  32. believes they help the participants come more alive.
  33. Here he is speaking to BBC Radio 4's You and Yours about what he's discovered.
  34. Above all, that it's not to do with scanning,
  35. with quick reading when they're reading literature.
  36. If they're just scanning, if you're just looking for information,
  37. you go fast, it's very easy, it's automatic.
  38. But when literature begins to do something more complicated than that,
  39. in an area that emotionally you care about, the brain begins to work
  40. from different parts, from a different hemisphere, and it gets excited.
  41. It gets pre-emotional.
  42. You can see the brain coming to life.
  43. and it's that life that is important in terms of these reading groups.
  44. One type of reading is scanning reading quickly in order to find
  45. specific information or skimming the page to get a general understanding.
  46. But the real therapy happens
  47. when a group reads literature written works such as novels,
  48. poems or plays, which are thought to have artistic merit.
  49. When group members read literature,
  50. their brains get excited and start working from a different hemisphere a word meaning half a sphere,
  51. usually half the Earth, or in this case, the human brain.
  52. Reading literature in this way makes both the left and right hemisphere
  53. of the brain come to life start to be activated again after a quiet period.
  54. And it's this coming to life that proves the therapeutic effects of bibliotherapy.
  55. Here's Professor Davis again.
  56. explaining how the benefits of group reading are observed.
  57. There are two methods, really.
  58. You can have ECG, where you put electrodes on the scalp and it measures electricity
  59. so that you can have a print-off of a graph of the sudden leaps
  60. that can happen at particular moments in reading a poem or a short story.
  61. Or you can go into the scanner,
  62. the fMRI, and there the blood flow, the oxygen,
  63. indicates again changes in the configuration of the brain as it takes in this new stimulus.
  64. The benefits of reading literature with others can be felt by group
  65. members as they begin to feel more alive and able to cope with life's ups and downs.
  66. But they can also be measured scientifically by recording brainwave activity.
  67. This can be done by carefully attaching
  68. metal wires called electrodes to the reader's scalp
  69. the skin under the hair on the head.
  70. Brain activity is then measured by giving the reader a stimulus something that encourages activity in people.
  71. In this case, it could be a poem or novel to read.
  72. Or something really stimulating, like a detective story.
  73. Or a work of literature, which reminds me of today's quiz question.
  74. I asked you to name the most popular book of all time, and you said...
  75. a Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
  76. Which is definitely the most popular book in the 21st century,
  77. but number one of all time,
  78. selling over 500 million copies, is c Cervantes' Don Quixote.
  79. and there's even a detective in it.
  80. Today we've been discussing the therapeutic effects of meeting up with others
  81. in a reading group to read literature writing of artistic value such as stories and poetry.
  82. In contrast to scanning reading quickly to find facts reading groups use
  83. literature as a stimulus something that encourages activity in people.
  84. Reading stimulates both the left and right hemispheres,
  85. the two halves of the brain and increases emotional activity
  86. which can be measured on the scalp the skin under the hair on a reader's head.
  87. All of which helps people dealing with trauma to come to life,
  88. feel active and more alive after a quiet period.