Turning What You Love into What You Do
By Patrick J. O’Connor
With summer travel season upon us, lots of people will be relaxing at the beach. Each year, about 180 million Americans (including many Boomers) will visit beaches. And most of them will have a book in hand. If you love the beach and reading, you will be turning two activities you love into what you do.
Boomer Reading
For Boomers to live a long and independent life, it’s necessary to preserve mental fitness. Reading is a wonderful way to keep the mind healthy and includes the following Boomer benefits from VerywellHealth:
1. Increases Socialization
If you love reading, perhaps you will join a book club. Book clubs provide the opportunity to meet people who have similar interests. Also, if someone is homebound, there are online book clubs.
2. Encourages Lifelong Learning
You can keep up with trends and learn new things every day. This can motivate you to learn more or dig deeper into your favorite subjects.
3. Enhances Memory
Studies show that seniors who immerse themselves in mental activities have a reduced memory decline rate of 32%. Reading can strengthen the brain’s neural network, making your mind more receptive to learning.
4. Sharpens Decision-Making Skills
People who engage in daily activities such as reading have more fluid intelligence. Reading has the power to improve analytical and reasoning ability, which helps seniors solve problems.
5. Reduces Stress
Research results indicate that reading a good book helps to unwind better than listening to music, going for a walk or having a cup of coffee.
6. Delays Alzheimer’s and Dementia
Research has found that adults who engage in brain-challenging activities like reading will be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s and dementia.
7. Improves Sleep
Reading encourages sleep better than any other activity and gives your eyes necessary rest. Experts say seniors should set aside time for book reading before sleeping.
The Attraction of Reading at the Beach?
Think of the beach and certain things naturally come to mind. A warm ocean breeze, the smell of suntan lotion, sand between your toes, children’s laughter and a slow stroll along the water. And, if you’re like most people, a great beach read is part of the package! The proof is in the number of people we see reading at the beach.
There’s nothing quite like a good, relaxing read at the beach. Two fabulous activities, reading and beaching, brought together like peas and carrots, or peanut butter and jelly. What could be better?
Whatever your thing; bask in the sun, stay in the shade or cool off in the water… whatever your beaching vibe, reading goes side by side.
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you’ll go.” ~Dr. Suess from “I Can Read with my Eyes Shut”
What makes beach reading so relaxing? Books inform, entertain, inspire and take us off to faraway times and places. It goes along with the reason we vacation in the first place… to get away from our routines and familiar places… it’s part of the charming escape of the vacation. Books take us to the best nation there is… the imagination! Time and other “normal” constraints seem to fade away, leaving us with the Fluttery Feeling when everything seems to go just as it naturally should.
Use your Kindle or Nook…..or just old-school it with a hard-cover or paperback book and a well-worn marker (remember those?). Read what you like… a novel, mystery, fiction or non-fiction, humor, fantasy, sci-fi, classic, graphic novels, comic books, sports, autobiography or children’s books. Shipwrecks along the coast, pirate and ghost stories are always popular.
Slow Snooze
One thing about a good beach read is it usually leads to a cozy nap under an umbrella. I love a slow snooze at the beach. Sometimes however, if I’m having trouble dozing off, I think about a beach poem I wrote. The following 65 words are each one syllable, begin with the letter S and relate to the beach. Usually, I get through about 10 or so before dozing off.
A Beach Poem
Swim, suit, sea, sink, sting,
Skip, shop, ship, sip, swing,
Storm, spray, sponge, school, sing.
Surf, stew, skim, sloop, swell,
Sun, sand, sky, star, shell.
Squeak, squawk, squint, squirt, sole,
Swamp, swish, skin, straights, shoal,
Swirl, splash, salt, sweat, stroll.
Shrimp, skate, shad, scrod, sail,
Stripe, spot, shark, squid, snail.
Shag, seal, slide, spin, s’more,
Stream, snack, spout, shorts, snore,
Smile, snooze, sound, sleep, soar.
“I can read a book twice as fast as anybody else. First, I read the beginning, and then I read the ending, and then I start in the middle and read toward whichever end I like best.” ~Entertainer Gracie Allen
The author likes to read history, biographies and classic fiction by Twain, Dickens, Hawthorne, Melville and others.
