The best summary of the benefits from reading is in a book about managing a football team. Reading the list of benefits, a question sprung to mind - can reading books improve mental health?

In Marcelo Bielsa: The Foundation of Success at Leeds United, which describes the background to their 2018/19 season, Salim Lamrani writes: “The benefits of reading are many, as it develops intelligence, consolidates memory, strengthens concentration, stimulates imagination, enriches vocabulary, improves knowledge, increases communication skills, spreads culture, strengthens reflection and analytical skills, reduces stress levels, contributes to the opening of the mind, and the development of sensitivity and empathy, represents an accessible mode of distraction and brings happiness”. Some of the players were surprised by the idea while others were regular readers, but they were all willing to take part. The reading activity was integrated into the player’s weekly schedule.

Reading can reduce stress by focusing on a story, ideas, or knowledge, which shifts the mind away from stressful thoughts. It also allows temporary experience in another world. For example, reading a novel lets the imagination explore different places, lives, and problems, which gives a break from immediate concerns and helps the mind reset. Reading, especially slower forms like novels or essays, encourages deep focus, which has the opposite effect of fast digital stimulation, and allows the mind to move into a calmer state, similar to meditation. Stories often help people process emotions indirectly by identifying with characters who face loss, conflict, and uncertainty. This helps people understand and regulate their own feelings. Also, reading improves understanding which strengthens the mind’s ability to control behaviour, emotions, and thoughts, and helps to manage stress and emotional reactions.

Ongoing research is being carried into the benefits for mental health and well-being. For example, the National Institute for Health and Care Research has researched the impact of reading as part of a group. Other initiatives such as Reading for Wellbeing, funded by the best-selling crime fiction author Ann Cleeves, facilitate access to books and support reading for pleasure to improve well-being. More articles are appearing that describe the benefits of book clubs, such as increasing social connection, which combats loneliness.

Leeds United were promoted at the end of the 2019/20 season. Hopefully, reading books as part of their training schedule played a small part in their success. Joining a reading group could be prescribed by GPs and included as part of the revamped NHS’ Integrated Care Systems?

What is the connection between climate change and football? Apart from the fans standing in the driving rain and supporting their team, there is very little. But dig a bit deeper and you will find an interesting comparison.

Imagine it is the start of a new football season and you are beginning to think about how well your team will perform. Will they win the league? To assess their chances, you will take into account a wide range of factors: buying and selling players over the summer, strengths of the coach and background staff, size and quality of the squad, strengths and weaknesses of the other teams in the league, and so on. With all these factors bubbling in your head, mixed with gut feeling, you come up with a 50% chance of them winning the league. After about 10 games your team is 2nd in the league with 8 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss. At this point you ask yourself a few questions: How likely is this table position if your team is really a title contender? How likely is your team not a title contender? Based on your answers, you revise your estimates to a 75% chance of winning the league. Of course table position isn’t enough because the first 10 games may have been against weaker teams; therefore, it is weak evidence that your team will win the league. At midseason your team has dropped to 5th position and injuries are piling up; therefore, your estimate may fall back to, say, 50%. As the season progresses, you are gathering more information and update your beliefs about the success of your team.

So what does all this have to do with climate change? Climate science follows the same process but with many more factors: laws of physics covering the effect of the sun on the earth; the motion of winds and the jet stream and their effect on the earth; historical climate data; future CO₂ emissions; economic and population growth; the list goes on. These factors and many more are combined to give an estimate of, say, a 70% chance that the five-year average warming for 2025-2029 will be more than 1.5°C. After a few years various measurements such as atmospheric CO_{2, emissions, surface temperature, radiation measurements, etc. are used to assess whether the original estimate has to be updated.}

The link between football and climate change is that you start with lots of different types of information and come up with your best estimate. As more information arrives, you update your estimate to give a better estimate. In the case of football, it is the performance of the team assessed against its position in the league table. For climate change it is the new information coming from the latest measurements from around the world.

Next time you are trying to work out if your football team is going to win the league, give a thought to the complex problem that climate scientists work on, whose predictions we all depend on.

The Reverend Thomas Bayes showed how rational belief should be updated in light of new evidence, and his theorem now underpins fields ranging from statistics and machine learning to medicine, physics, climate science, economics, and everyday decision-making.

In an interview with broadcaster and environmental campaigner Chris Packham, many themes emerged about the lack of progress in combating climate change and biodiversity loss. One stood out; most MPs ignore science. How can environmental campaigners change the situation?

The interview, A War on Climate Change: Are Environmental Activists Losing The Fight? with Amol Rajan, covered many topics: the scale of the problem, little political action, the lack of success of net zero policies, and so on. All the topics depend on science to analyse them and develop solutions. But science gets a mixed reception: it can solve immediate problems such as health but is viewed with scepticism when it threatens livelihoods. How we live is driving climate change and biodiversity loss; therefore, science is the key tool in guiding us forward.

Managing the change in how we live boils down to the ‘rule of thirds’: One third of the people understand why change is needed and therefore get behind it, one third are unsure and need persuading and supporting, and the final third will never agree with the need to change and therefore will resist it. A fundamental problem is that a large part of the UK population doesn’t have a strong enough background in science to understand why change is needed. Around 1 in 8 ¹ of the population have a background in STEM subjects, but for those with a clear understanding of climate science, the situation will be worse. The situation is not better with MPs, where the best estimate is that roughly 15–17% of them have a STEM-related background. Against this background we shouldn’t be surprised that changes in the way we live to mitigate climate change are slow and, in some cases, stopped.

Environmental campaigners need to do two things. First, make science more accessible to as many people as possible and show how to use it to take positive action in everyday life. It is a similar approach with MPs. With a better use of science, then new policies can be introduced that will improve the situation and remove fear about the change that will happen in people’s lives. Secondly, following the ‘rule of thirds’, using the first third of the people who have already accepted change is required to help convince the middle third who are unsure. The build-up of momentum in opinion will hopefully start to chip away at the resistance of the final third. Only then will we see a significant improvement in our impact on the environment.

Until science takes a more prominent role in the action we all take, we will be stumbling towards a very difficult future. When the next environmental campaign comes through the socials, ask what science it is based on - if it is more wishful thinking, then move onto some activity that is centred on science.

^{1. There is no estimate for the number of people in the UK that have enough background to understand the importance of climate science. Therefore, to get an estimate, I used STEM-related jobs, which is roughly 9.4 million of the working population. For the number of the retired population with STEM-related backgrounds, I assumed half of the 55+ group, which could be of the order of 1 million or more. I also included A-level students, who should be able to understand the basics of climate science, which was about 313,000 students in 2025. Adding all of the crude estimates together gives an estimate of 1 in 8 people, but I suspect that the ratio is much worse.}

Teaching maths is a subject that is often put in the ‘difficult but necessary box’. Over the last fifty years, UK governments have left a trail of initiatives, ranging from “New Maths” to “Maths to 18”, with little or no improvement in maths skills. What if the philosopher Wittgenstein designed a new maths curriculum?

After the publication of the Tractatus, which he felt solved all of the problems in philosophy, Wittgenstein spent six years as a primary school teacher in Lower Austria. Wittgenstein’s style of teaching had an emphasis on precision and clarity; he believed that clear language reflected clear thought. He preferred “hands-on” learning, especially in maths. Wittgenstein treated maths as a language, and he wanted pupils to see how numbers work, not just remember formulas.

Wittgenstein would have used objects, diagrams, and practical examples to make maths ideas tangible. For instance, he’d connect arithmetic to counting apples or drawing lines, which would ensure the children grasped the meaning of number relationships. This would align with how children naturally learn: through seeing and doing before abstract reasoning. They would build strong mental models of quantity and pattern, which would be the foundations for later abstract thought. Today’s teaching sometimes moves too quickly to symbols and abstract problems, especially under exam pressures, which can leave many pupils behind.

Wittgenstein viewed maths as a language, with a set of rules governing meaning and use. Misunderstandings were treated as language mistakes, not failures of intelligence. Pupils would gain clarity in expression and reasoning and learn to think and communicate mathematically. Current teaching often separates literacy and numeracy, even though language shapes how we understand numbers and can reduce maths to rote learning.

For Wittgenstein, teaching maths would have been about cultivating truthfulness, precision, and self-correction - in other words, habits of mind, not just skills. He wanted pupils to care about getting things right because they valued truth, not because of marks or fear of failure. Pupils would develop resilience and intellectual honesty, which are qualities useful beyond mathematics. Compared to the current systems, which often overemphasise grades and targets, Wittgenstein’s curriculum would encourage the moral quality of careful thinking.

Wittgenstein believed that struggle is part of learning. He resisted giving easy answers and expected pupils to work things out themselves. This approach fosters independence and deep satisfaction in discovery. Pupils would then experience the joy of insight and become self-reliant problem solvers. Currently, in classrooms, which are under time pressure, teachers often guide too quickly through difficulty.

If Wittgenstein had designed a curriculum for maths, then it would have generally improved numeracy skills, which are a part of everyday living, from paying bills taking out a mortgage or ordering enough paint for a wall. The curriculum would give students greater confidence in maths so that they could go further in STEM subjects and give greater career opportunities. Finally, it would improve critical thinking skills, which are one of the core skills to actively participate in society. Next time you are attending a parents evening and discussing the progress of your child with maths, why don’t you ask why they are not adopting a curriculum that Wittgenstein would have developed?

The fear of numbers can crop up at some unlikely times. The most recent was over a coffee with a friend, and it came as a surprise.

He ran a successful business which relied on data analysis. He navigated the financial ups and downs of bringing up a family, and made some shrewd house purchases. Numbers were a key tool in his life, and yet he was frightened of them! He is not alone. One in five parents report they are anxious when using numbers.

The ability to handle numbers gets a bad press. Celebrities proudly boast they ‘can’t do maths’, which is a contradiction, because they must understand numbers when it comes to the amount of money they want from their latest appearance in the media or on the socials. Celebrity mathematicians provide an intellectual curiosity about maths, but don’t help with the people trying to understand the latest mortgage deal. All of this gives the impression that the ability to handle numbers is beyond most people’s reach.

I suspect that the fear of numbers is inherent in the education system. In my day we had to stand in front of the class and recite times tables or perform calculations in our head, it was more a test of character than developing numbers skills. The education system has moved on since then but it is estimated that about 30% of young children in the age group 8 - 9 reported feeling anxious when doing maths tests. The government’s Early Years Foundation Stage is an attempt to reduce this anxiety by setting standards for learning about numbers which focuses on learning through play and exploration. For example, counting toys, sorting objects, singing number songs, and using everyday situations such as counting snacks, steps, or friends. Integrating numbers into everyday living and not making them something mysterious is a good step forward. But, for it to be successful, parents must provide support for their children at home. The challenge is to get those parents who are struggling with maths, to come to terms with their lack of numeracy skills in a positive way so that they are motivated to seek help. They need to move from “being bad at maths” to building their confidence.

Help is at hand. The UK government has a Multiply programme which offers free or fully funded numeracy courses for adults who do not already hold a qualifications in maths. The charity, National Numeracy, whose ambassador is the financial celebrity Martin Lewis, offers resources and support for adults. Free online tools like the National Numeracy Challenge lets adults test and improve their skills anonymously and at their own pace. This builds confidence before joining classes or talking to others. Many local colleges and adult learning centres offer free or subsidised maths/numeracy courses for adults.

Numbers are part of the language of everyday living. They let us measure, compare, and understand the world. With improved numeracy people will gain freedom, confidence, and control. Next time somebody mentions they are frightened by numbers why don’t you buy them a coffee, and encourage them to contact an organisations that could help.