By Frank Bublitz
No, the title is not a typo. It’s the expression of my resolution to do more reading in 2026.
Specifically, I will pick up hard copy books, the ones with solid covers, and read them at night before bed. I will read online newsletter and newspaper stories during the day. I will read documents that teach me how to improve my career and business.
That is a resolution that I can keep from my couch. I may sweat under my nice, warm Green Bay Packer blankets but it won’t happen at my gym.
What does this have to do with Fun Is Healthy? Good question! Below are some answers from my own experience.
Comedy and jokes are fun. Reading funny (or my) jokes and happy stories help release “positive endorphins” for the reader.
For people like me who are achievement and task oriented, the very act of taking time to read is enjoyable and satisfying. Satisfaction, as I learned when I hit the age of forty, can be longer lasting and more fulfilling than “fun”.
Stories also “transport” your mind to places you want to go. Or they help stimulate memories of where you have been that you may have lost over time. That feeling can stay with you and be drawn upon when you need a brain or emotional break.
Here is some information from Google’s search engine with AI:
Reading fundamentally changes your brain by strengthening neural pathways, improving connectivity, and enhancing cognitive functions like focus, memory, and empathy, essentially rewiring it to be more efficient and complex…It trains your brain for deeper attention, reduces stress, expands vocabulary, and even activates the same brain regions as real-life experiences, creating stronger empathetic connections.
Here is an excerpt from an Understanding.org post on How learning to read changes the brain
Our brains aren’t pre-wired to translate letters into sounds. We learn to read by repurposing parts of the brain meant to do other things — visual processing, language comprehension, and speech production.
As we age our brains begin to lose these skills to a moderate or pronounced degree. The US National Institutes of Health wrote about studies that show older people such as me improve in those areas when we are reading. It’s mental exercise!
So you can keep that resolution…which is another thing to be happy about!
