How To Read When You Are Anxious
A guide for those who need books more than ever but can’t seem to get into them right now
As social isolation hit, many readers went out and panic bought novels the way others hoarded toilet paper. But as the days have turned into weeks, something else has started to happen: even avid bookworms are finding it hard to motivate themselves to pick up a book or to concentrate for long when they do.
We want to read, or at least we want to want to read; we know it’s good for us to escape our real lives in normal times, let alone this whole — thing. And we miss it. We don’t feel like ourselves when we’re not immersed in books. So how do we get back into reading?
Only read what you actually want to read
The first thing to do is to seek out joy. We love reading, and we need to remind ourselves of that to get our motivation going again. The best way to do that is to read something we will genuinely enjoy, and not just feel virtuous about having read. This moment is for self-care, not ambitious goal-setting.
Now is not the time to pick up that book you’ve been telling yourself you will definitely read at some point, unless it brings you delight and excitement. Now is not the time for books you wish you wanted to…
