I have always been an anxious person. In my university days my anxiety really kicked in, and I would awake in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep because I was worrying about an assignment due weeks away. This usually resulted in me staying up working on it, then heading to classes the next day utterly exhausted but with a rough draft complete.
Although productive in the moment, I knew that sleep deprivation was not a viable long-term option, so I looked for different ways to relax. When meditation, herbal teas and “guided imagery” didn’t work, I found an easier and more enjoyable solution – reading a book. The article, “Reading can help reduce stress” in The Telegraph, explains that when you concentrate on reading, you are distracted by the storyline causing a relaxation of the tension in the muscles and heart. The research consultancy Mindlab International conducted a study on a group of volunteers, and found that after as little as six minutes of reading subjects experienced lowered stress levels.
As someone who always loved reading, this was excellent news, and I put it into practice. I made a habit of reading my book for 30 minutes every night before bed. Now I would like to tell you that my insomnia was magically resolved, but that’s not the case. I still frequently wake up in the middle of the night, anxious about an upcoming meeting, or how much my last utilities bill cost, or something as minimal as what to make for an upcoming potluck. But now when that happens, I just take a deep breath, turn on my bedside lamp, and let a good book distract me back to sleep.
-- Jenny Aitken
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