Going through hard times? Try a Dickens novel

DITCHING self- help books in favour of complex works of classic literature can help boost brain power and quality of life, research suggests.

People suffering from depression, chronic pain and even dementia are being urged to tackle books by the likes of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen to send ‘rocket boosters’ to the brain.

Professor Philip Davis, of the University of Liverpool, said that reading the classics ‘frees emotions and imagination’ and lets people feel ‘more alive’, potentially allowing relief from symptoms of illness.

Self-help books and other similar works do not carry the same benefit because the process of reading them is too basic to excite the brain.

‘If you’re just scanning for information, you go fast, it’s very easy, it’s automatic,’ Professor Davis told the Sunday

Times. ‘ But when literature begins to do something more complicated than that, the brain begins to work. It gets excited, it gets emotional.’

His own book, Reading For Life, is based on work at Liverpool’s Centre for Research into Reading, Literature and Society, which studies ‘the role of literature in modelling creative think-linked ing about human existence’. He said his favourite book is Middlemarch by George eliot – a novel known for its complex language, characters and plot.

earlier research has also shown that reading could help preserve your memory into old age.

Activities which promote mental stimulation such as reading demanding books and doing crosswords at any age could be to a slower rate of decline in brain power. Professor Davis believes reading should be promoted in care homes.

Zoe Gilling, a director at charity The Reader, said: ‘We define “great” as literature that has the power to touch diverse people and illuminate what connects us.

‘It can help with inner life, mental health, soul troubles and make us say, “I never knew anyone but me felt that!” ’

There is no evidence that reading can cure mental health disorders but medics agree that picking up a book can have a positive effect on mental health.

Dr Helen Willows, a GP, told the Sunday Times that reading can ‘transform the lives of the people that we see day after day at our surgery – those that are stuck, perhaps with low mood or who are socially isolated’.

And Dr David Fearnley said reading aloud in a group setting was ‘the most significant development in mental healthcare in the past ten years’.

‘The brain gets excited’