How to get back into reading books!(and why it’s so good for our mental health)
By Grace Olson, Author
Woman reading a book with a cup of coffee
Take a deep breath and count to 10… Your child is kicking off - how do you keep your calm?
It’s not easy to remain calm under pressure but with a bit of self-care, our frazzled brains can learn to react differently when our buttons are being pushed.
Scheduling self-care is vital if we are to be capable of performing well as a parent, and looking back at my early experiences of parenting, it really was a ‘performance’. As a parent you have to keep your feelings in check and you have to demonstrate the type of behaviour you want from your children even if your emotions are exploding within you.
So how can we do this? How can we schedule any sort of self-care into our busy lives? Well, the easiest way is to allow yourself some time each day to read a book. This year (2026) the government has launched an initiative called The National Year of Reading. They want to encourage the nation to read more physical books because it has become clear that scrolling through social media and reading electronically is harming our brains. It disrupts sleep, increases anxiety, reduces attention span and can lower self-esteem as we look at the ‘perfect’ lives and success of other people (which are often fake).
How can we be our best for our child if our nervous system is so dysregulated from our overuse of tech?
Woman reading a book to a little girl
As an author of both children’s fiction and memoirs, I would like to invite you to spend a few moments thinking back to your own childhood. What were your favourite books? Can you remember how wonderful it felt to be totally engrossed in reading? That feeling of complete absorption is a very healthy, sensory experience encompassing the smell of the book and the feel of the paper. This lowers your blood pressure, relaxes your central nervous system and allows you to retain more information as a result. It’s the perfect antidote to the doom-scrolling modern world in which we live – and it costs next to nothing in comparison to high spend experiences such as seeing a therapist or going to a spa.
By improving your mental well-being, reading a physical book could be viewed as an essential part of parenting because the benefits will help you to become a calmer, more present and happier person. This demonstration of genuinely relaxed behaviour will benefit your child more than anything else could.
So how do you get back into reading physical books if you haven’t read for ages and you feel pushed for time to fit it in?
Parents of young children need to have a book that’s easy to read. Something that doesn’t require too much analytical thought, something you can put down and pick up without having to read back what you’ve read. Also, it’s probably a good idea to read something that will make you feel lifted.
Think about subjects you’re interested in. Travel, animals, romance, adventure, spooky things – there’s an endless list of possibilities. Think back to the books you enjoyed previously and ask Dr. Google which authors are similar.
When to fit in reading in a busy life? Well, we all know that reading a book with our children before bed helps them to sleep better. So why don’t you try doing that for yourself? Reading a physical book before bed will calm your brain and help you sleep better. So set up a place to read, either in your favourite chair with a comforting blanket, or in bed. Begin with as little as ten minutes and in time you’ll enjoy it so much you’ll naturally start putting aside more time to read.
The added bonus of you becoming a reader is that your children will subconsciously see reading as a ‘thing to do’. Having books in the house will encourage them to read more and this will reduce their time on devices and improve their cognitive functioning leading to greater creativity and a happier mind.
If you aren’t in the habit of reading a bedtime book with your child, now’s a great time to start. Stories are a wonderful way to improve your relationship as they spark conversation and exploration of various ideas. Stories are also a safe and fun way of instilling values in young minds helping your child to grow up to become a more resilient teenager.
My series of children’s books are about my pet sheep who are regularly featured on Channel 5’s The Yorkshire Vet. They are woven with positive messages to help children learn to care for themselves and others. My memoirs for adults are set in Yorkshire and are very easy to read. They are funny, heart-warming, and transformative. Funnily enough, they’re about how horses healed my post-natal depression so they are a helpful read for parents.
For more information about them here is my website: https://www.graceolsonauthor.com.
Whichever book you choose, I wish you a happy year of reading!
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