WHAT TO READ TO HELP YOU SLEEP

Have you ever chosen a book to read before bed in the hopes that you will fall asleep faster? If it was dry non-fiction, you might have found yourself asleep before reaching page four. But, if it was a suspenseful drama, you might have accidentally stayed up far beyond your planned bedtime.

Instead of reading something overly boring or too simulating, read on to find our top ten recommended books to help you get to sleep?

 

1. A Wilderness Station: Selected Stories 1968-1994 by Alice Munro

Setting aside the fact that some of the very best writers are masters of this form, let’s state the obvious: Short stories are short, and thus can be consumed in the time it will hopefully take to fall back to sleep. Alice Munro’s Selected Stories are to be sampled and savoured.

2. New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

While some poets are rabble-rousers who set the senses aflame, at 3:30 a.m. we prefer bards whose verse soothes the soul, allowing the mind to shift to images of snowy woods, majestic birds, a lover’s solace. Quietly marvel at the wonders of the natural world with New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver.

3. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Short stories are the perfect balance to read in the evening when you don’t have time to get stuck into a novel but you perhaps need a read. Tharoor’s stories are remarkably crafted and imaginative.

Allow an enlightened one to help you clear your thoughts, deepen your breathing and move into the meditative state after which sleep may soon follow. Or, in the words of Eckhart Tolle: “Surrender.” Tolle’s The Power of Now is an antidote to the restless mind.

4. The Reading Life by C.S. Lewis

There’s something life-affirming and palliative about knowing we’re not alone in parsing the existential, as great essayists do. For one of the most satisfying, try C.S. Lewis’s The Reading Life.

5. Rhythms of Renewal: Trading Stress and Anxiety for a Life of Peace and Purpose by Rebekah Lyons

In her book Rhythms of Renewal, Rebekah Lyons draws from her own battle with depression and anxiety to establish four life-giving rhythms that quiet inner chaos and make room for a flourishing life. Read this and find time to rest, restore, connect, and create to welcome in a more joyful and rejuvenated way of living.

6. Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by alex soojung-kim pang

“Deliberate rest,” as Pang calls it, is the key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life. Rest offers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.

7. everything in its place by oliver sacks

Everything in Its Place is Sack’s most recent anthology, published posthumously last year after his death in 2015, and it’s a lovely book to read in small moments and to help you sleep.

8. The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

If you want to silence the mind and reduce anxiety before bedtime, then you need to pick up the Sunday Times bestseller The Beekeeper. The fiction story explores the broken lives of a family separated by war and confronted by pain, loss and danger in a journey to find each other again.

9. No Such Thing as Normal by Bryony Gordon

Author Bryony Gordon released No Such Thing as Normal to provide readers with practical advice on coping with mental health effects. The book targets subjects such as sleep, addiction, worry, medication, self-image, boundary setting, therapy, learned behaviour, mindfulness, walking, and talking.

10. Grown Ups by Marian Keyes

The Sunday Times No1 Bestseller Grown Ups provides readers with an adventure into another life, through Johnny Casey’s journey, his brothers Ed and Liam, their talented wives and children whom they spend lots of time together. The family’s lives unravel as Ed’s wife Cara, gets a concussion and can’t keep her thoughts and feelings to herself – with uncontrolled thoughts comes a lot of unwanted drama for the characters.