Reading and mental health: How reading changed my life
In 2021, I set myself a goal of reading 52 books in the year (averaging one book a week). I’d been reading fairly regularly prior to this but it was a habit I dropped in and out of depending on whether there was a book club meeting coming up or I’d come across a book I was particularly interested in. I had noticed a difference in my mental health and in the clarity of my thinking when I was reading regularly so when I came across influencer Oenone Forbat doing the 52 books a year challenge, I decided I was going to try it as a way to stay consistent with reading.
As a child, I did anything but read. Whilst my siblings were engrossed in the Harry Potter books, I had no greater want than to be outside riding my bike. I avoided all books and similarly with TV programmes, it just wasn’t something that I could connect with no matter how hard I tried.
As I got older, I started to suffer from vision problems and I found myself having to squint to see things a mere centimetres away from me, I realised things were getting really bad. I got caught between NHS trusts and had not had my eyes checked as regularly as I should have considering I had been diagnosed with an eye condition many years prior.
By the time I started my A-Levels, I had gone from sitting at the back of the class during GCSE maths to having to sit right at the front of the class and having teachers printout documents on A3 paper. I even sat my final A-level at the back of the exam room with question papers printed on huge paper across two desks. I don’t remember feeling sad about it at the time but on reflection, I think about how it affected my education and ability to study effectively. So, it’s probably not a coincidence that this was the time when my mental health started to spiral to it’s worst.
When I started university, thankfully I’d been given some contact lenses that made things somewhat better and I was able to see normally when I had them in but they irritated my eyes so much that I only had them in for the minimum time I could get away with. It might be hard to understand that but when you get accustomed to seeing shapes and colours rather than focussed writing, it’s crazy how you adapt and are able to get by. I avoided reading too much in my undergraduate degree and struggled to get good marks in my course. This was until the eye doctor told me they’d exhausted all options to improve my vision and the only option left was a cornea transplant. Although it was obvious it was severely affecting my quality of life, it took me a while to make the decision to go ahead with it.
Two years later, I had my second cornea transplant at Moorfields Hospital followed by lens implants to further perfect my vision and after a long recovery of stitch removal and high ocular pressure, I was finally able to see properly unaided, to read and to work to the best of my ability. It helped that I was now in full-time employment and my employer was really understanding of my situation so I was able to fully recover.
I’d moved to London to pursue a research career but I felt like an outsider, nobody looked like me or shared my experiences. Outside of work, I felt isolated and overwhelmed that my mental health started to decline again. In search of community, I looked for a bookclub in London and joined Brown Girls Book Club hosted by South Asian Sister’s Speak, (the founders of which are now my good friends) and it transformed my relationship with reading and my mental health. I started to see how my peers were experiencing the same books and critiquing writing by South Asian women. Whilst we discussed books, we shared experiences and navigating our dual identities amongst other things. Finally, I’d found a community that I belonged to. I was finding myself in bookstores on the weekends reading the blurbs of non-fiction books and reading on the bus to and from work, in my lunch break, evenings and finding new nature spots to read in on the weekends. It was like my get-out from the world. I’d read book club recommendations, ask my followers on Twitter for recommendations and lifestyle books that resonated with my mental health experiences.
When I started my PhD in 2020, I noticed that instead of reading I was finding myself reading research papers instead of books often accompanied by long periods of time staring at the computer screen which was making my eyes hurt. It coincided with reading Why We Sleep by Mathew Walker and the impact that screen time has on the quality of our sleep. He mentioned reading just before bed instead of endlessly scrolling Twitter and in the morning avoiding the dopamine surge of social media and getting daylight exposure in the first hour after waking up. I knew I had to ensure I continued reading frequently otherwise I was worried I could easily swap the habit of reading my book for reading research papers because there is always one more paper to read.
So in 2021, I began by committing to 52 weeks and I’d be lying if I said I read one book a week. Sometimes I would but sometimes I would not read for a month and then read two books a week and at one point I was about 10 books behind schedule. I read books ranging from non-fiction books on Kashmir to fiction books for book club; from popular books to books that lay abandoned on my bookshelf for years that I’d never got round to. I travelled to Pakistan in December books in tow and aiming to complete the 52 books. Thankfully, I finished the 52nd book on New Years Eve lay on a charpai in the midday warmth of a winter’s day in my nani’s garden in Kashmir. It felt like an unachievable goal just weeks prior and I had definitely exhausted myself to achieve the goal but nevertheless I was very proud (and ready to take a break from so much reading).
Having read 52 books in 2021, I definitely like different parts of my brain were being engaged not just whilst reading but in conversation, thinking and writing when I was reading a wide-range of books compared to when I wasn’t. In 2023, I want to read more frequently again. I’m not going to put pressure on myself to read 52 but to read 10 minutes every night and maintain the habit to be consistent in putting my phone down and switching off from PhD work earlier in the evening.
There are countless reasons why we should read more books whether that is if you want to escape from reality with a fiction book or if you prefer to read research summarised in a book (I definitely do!). Here are some of my tips if you want to read more:
If you find it difficult, put your book in a place where you are likely to pick it up. I listened to a podcast recently where a habit researcher spoke about having books dotted around the house, on the coffee table, on the bedside table, on his desk so it was the thing he could see to pick up when he had some free time.
Join a book club if you need a deadline to get through a book, it’s a great way to make friends and hear how other people make sense of the same reading – as someone who found all books ‘good’, listening to others at book has enlightened how I read and review writing and content in books.
10 minutes a day - Leave your phone outside the bedroom or in a drawer and commit to just ten minutes before you sleep to read before you switch off for the day.
Read books you know you will enjoy not because they are popular – you are likely to read more and finish a book if you know you will enjoy it. If you’re finding it hard to get through books, start with a book with less pages or a book by an author that you’ve previously enjoyed
Lastly, be easy on yourself. Don’t set unachievable goals for yourself, habits are created through small changes in order to be sustainable. One page a day is better than none!
