10 Mental and Physical Benefits of Audiobooks

Audiobooks have been trending in market for quite sometime now, and they come with mixed reactions from people. Some really love them for their flexibility, i.e., you can listen to audiobooks while you do other things and that means better time management, while others feel more comfortable counting on the benefits of traditional reading, and also bringing up issues of digital vibrations that may or may not impact the brain or neurotic system. Some criticize it to be a lazy alternative for concentrated reading. However, whether or not, audiobooks are to be considered as a format if you want to publish and print your own book, can be answered when we closely understand the benefits of audiobooks that cannot be negated in spite of all the criticisms.

Here are 10 physical and mental benefits of audiobooks to know –

1. Audiobooks Help Relax the Eyes– Most of us spend over 7 to 10 hours each day staring at digital screens which can affect our eyesight, as well as cause immense physical stress, which later on can lead to deadly diseases, eye-muscle twitching, sleeplessness, heart problems etc. However, if the same book content can be heard with our ears, while still closing our eyes in a meditative mode, it can have lot of health benefits to the body.
2. Useful for People Without Eye-Sight– When we advocate for traditional reading, we barely consider the necessities of specially-abled people, who may not possess the sight to read the letters. Yes, there are brail books for people without eye-sight and specs for those who have difficulty reading alphabets far or near, but a much easier and cost-effective way to convey each and every content to people with vision issues, is the audiobook, if they cannot read it with the eye, they can hear every word with their ears. Therefore, if you publish and print your own book in audiobook format, you are contributing to a larger social change.
3. Improves Sleep Quality– Hearing the book saves the eye at least an hour each day of the digital screen. The blue light from screens is a disruption to our circadian rhythm, which makes nodding off at night difficult. Listening to an audiobook allows your eyes and mind to relax while ushering in a good night of sleep.
4. Audiobooks Improve Pronunciation and Fluency– Reading words without professional help can be erred because you may not know the actual pronunciation of many new words. But when you hear someone speak that word, in a language with appropriate accent, you learn to imbibe the similar speaking skill. This not only addresses the problem of knowing the right pronunciation for each word, but also develops speaking skills in readers. So, it is a two-way benefit.
5. Audiobooks Improve Children’s Listening Skills– Children often find it hard to concentrate and listen on instructions etc., hence they find it hard to memorize information. According to the Audio Publishers Association, audiobooks help “build and enhance vital literacy skills such as fluency, vocabulary, language acquisition, pronunciation, phonemic awareness, and comprehension—skills that often boost reading scores.” It is very easy to get lost once you are distracted while listening to audiobooks. And unlike reading books, you will find it difficult in going back and re-listening it again. So, it is important that you are focused and you don’t let yourself distract. If children are put into a regular habit of listening to books, it will help them focus and concentrate on spoken words better, their listening skills will improve, hence they will be better able to understand and remember instructions and information.
6. Audiobooks Reduce Negative Thinking– Audiobooks have the power to boost our moods and disrupt negative thinking patterns. Psychology Todaynotes that for “those of us prone to anxiety and depression . . . listening to someone else read aloud can help by replacing negative thoughts with something else.” During a pandemic like Covid, audiobooks were the friends of many which transported them to a surreal alternative world of stories, therefore helped them cope with depression and anxiety. Hence, if you publish and print your own book as an audiobook, you are also promoting mental health.
7. Audiobooks Improve Memory– There are lots of things that you need to remember while listening to an audiobook. Name of the characters and their features, name of the places, plots and sub-plots, the sequence of events, important conversations etc. are some of the key information you need to keep in mind while listening to fiction. The ability to retain these information keeps improving with the number of audiobooks you listen to. And as your brain learns to remember the information from the story-line, it also becomes better at remembering other things of your life. Memory is essential to good mental health, and audiobooks help in that.
8. Audiobooks Develop Empathy– While engaging with audiobooks, we usually hear the narration spoken by a human voice. We have to comprehend the expressions involved in the pronunciations. Empathy means being able to connect with other people’s thoughts and feelings. Narrators of the audiobooks help you connect with the characters and plots of the story. You yourself become a part of the book and feel what the characters are supposed to feel. The lively narration by the narrator makes you understand the pain and grievances of the characters.
9. Audiobooks Keep Us Physically Agile– Physical benefits involve how quicker we are able to move while organizing ourselves. With audiobooks we can do multiple works with our body at one time. Like we can listen to the audiobook while doing some household chores like cleaning, cooking, reorganizing, eating etc. which doesn’t require much attention. We can hear audiobooks while driving so we don’t have to fixate ourselves anymore to a physical location for reading something. We can also hear audiobooks during a run or gym session. That can give us more energy.
10. Audiobooks Help Us with Time Management Hence Keeps Us Stress Free– Among all the other mental health benefits, audiobooks keep us stress free because we don’t have allocate an additional time in the day for reading. We can multitask if we engage in audiobooks. That gives us more time to finish our works, hence its helps keep stress away. Stress that usually comes with time management, organization and finding breaks is not there, at least better with audio books. Hence when we have stress, we are more mentally healthy.

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