If you enjoy reading fictional books, you’re getting more out of it than pure pleasure. According to Fast Company, it also helps you improve job performance. Here’s how.

• It enhances your reasoning skills by cultivating the ability to work beyond logic and explore how fuzzy values play out in social contexts. It helps you understand complex problems.
• You gain a broader understanding of others through a process that can be compared to that of a computer simulator.
• Reading fiction can increase empathy. When we connect to the character’s personal experiences and recall our own past social interactions, it expands our ability to relate to others.
• It relieves stress. Losing yourself in a book is reduces stress more than listening to music or taking a walk.
• Reading fiction introduces us to strong role models whose actions can be useful in addressing the work world.