It is better than scrolling!
If I were to put a poll in the field and say, what do you do in the 30 minutes before you go to bed? Do you scroll on your phone? Do you read a book? I could almost bet on the response. I know what you’d say.
I would say that eight out of ten of you would put your hand up to scrolling on the internet before bed. Yes, yes, just five minutes you think. Just a quick check of emails you think. We will know it never ends that way. Checking emails sends you next to quickly look at just one thing on social media. Before we know it, an hour has passed and you have seen what everyone’s day has been like, watched a few videos, and got into an argument with someone irrelevant on X. Your eyes my be tired but your brain is buzzing. Now you know why you are still awake at midnight looking at a stranger’s holiday photos or watching videos of someone reorganising their kitchen cupboards.
We have all done it. It’s addictive and designed to keep us there. That good old social media algorithm that seems to miraculously produce what you need. You google new lights and all of a sudden, every advert you get is for house lights. I’m not wrong am I. While you may see it as ‘relaxing before bed’ your brain doesn’t. Your brain is still buzzing. You might be lying still under a cosy duvet, but our minds are still running a marathon.
Now, put the phone down (after you’ve read this essay of course) and let’s talk reading.
Reading before bed is an experience. There is a reason people have been doing it for generations. Before phones, tablets and what seems like never ending notifications, people would curl up with an enjoyable book at the end of the day. Why? Because it was a wonderful way to switch off.
I must ask, is switching off a skill we have forgotten to use?
It is as if we have forgotten how to be still in life. Thanks to the age of 24/7 news, social media and always being contactable, we feel like being still is counterproductive. Reading makes us to slow down and transports us to another world. A book doesn’t demand anything from us. It doesn’t flash notifications across the page. It doesn’t make us compare our lives to someone else’s perfectly edited version. It doesn’t make us feel like we are missing out.
A book sits there and waits for us, ready for when we need to wind down and go to another world. There is something special about opening a book at night. The feel of the pages, the weight of it in your hands, the anticipation of finding out what happens next, unless like me you’ve done several chapters the night before! Reading at night creates a ritual that tells your brain, “The day is finished now. It is time to relax.”
And let’s be honest, as we get older, sleep becomes a whole different adventure anyway. Gone are the days when we could fall asleep anywhere, at any time, without a care in the world. Now we have to think about bedtime routines, room temperature, did we drink coffee too late, or whether our brains have decided that 3am is the perfect time to replay every awkward thing we have ever said since 1987.
The last thing we need is to feed our minds with more noise before we sleep. A book removes the noise and gives our brains somewhere else to go. Instead of worrying about tomorrow’s to-do list, we can become invested in someone else’s story and disappear into another world for a little while. There is something wonderfully selfish about that.
Reading before bed is not a luxury. It is not something you have to earn. It is a small act of kindness towards yourself. For years, many of us have been guilty of putting ourselves last. We will make sure everyone else is comfortable, everyone else has what they need, everyone else is looked after. Then we wonder why we are exhausted.
Picking up a book at the end of the day is a quiet way of giving yourself permission to think, “Actually, I matter too.” It doesn’t have to be a serious book. It doesn’t have to be a classic. It doesn’t have to be something that makes you feel clever. Read whatever makes you happy.
Reading is not homework. It should be enjoyment, a form of escapism. It is permission to sit still for a while and leave the world behind. And to be honest, compared with scrolling, you are unlikely to finish a chapter feeling angry, inadequate, or wondering why you have just spent forty minutes watching someone argue with strangers in the comments section.
Social media has its place. Of course it does. It connects us, entertains us, and lets us keep up with people we might otherwise lose touch with. But there is a difference between enjoying it and allowing it to take over every quiet moment we have.
Sometimes silence is good for us, boredom can be good for us too. We need to take away the noise of life. A book does that. So, let me end this by giving you some advice.
- Reach for a book.
- Put the phone charger on the other side of the room.
- Turn off the notifications, apart from your alarm clock!
- Give yourself half an hour.
You will be surprised how quickly your body and brain start to recognise that this is the moment to wind down. Because there is something wonderfully old-fashioned about reading before bed. It reminds us that we just need a comfy bed, a delightful story, and the simple pleasure of turning one more page.
And unlike scrolling, when you finally put the book down, you are not left wondering where the last hour went. You know exactly where it went.
You spent it somewhere far better.
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