Between the Covers

How to stay awake when you are reading.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

It started gradually, didn’t it? Your inability to read in bed at the end of the day?

First you find that it is unusually difficult to get comfortable. You toss and turn and arrange pillows in such a way that they support your heavy book. You are sure your wrists were once able to hold hard-backed books for hours but now they are as weak as kittens. You resolve to look up exercises to build-up your wrist muscles. You buy more pillows.

Next you become positive that publishers are starting to use smaller fonts. That is the only explanation for why you can no longer read by the dim light of your bedside table lamp. You start to troll the Large-Print shelves at the library. You buy a clip-on book light. You try reading glasses and arrange your pillows (again) so that the eyeglasses don’t push into the side of your head. 

You give in buy an electronic reader and make the font size so large that your partner can read it from across the room. The good news? It’s not as heavy as a book and you can remove some of the pillows you were using to prop up your books.

Then, just when you think you have this whole middle-aged reading in bed thing figured out, you find you can’t stay awake. It starts with the realization that you are reading fewer pages each night and ends when you have bruises on your forehead from dropping your e-reader on yourself when you drift off.

It is then that you realize that your lifelong habit of reading in bed must come to an end. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Just when our lives slow down enough for us to read a complete novel, our bodies let us down.

Tips for Making Time to Read

I wish I could tell you how to continue to read at night (by drinking tons of coffee?), but you know, we probably need our sleep, so let’s find ways to sneak reading into other times of day.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Morning Reading Session

My first tip is for those of you who cannot give up the idea of reading in bed. (It is decadent, isn’t it?) Try reading in the morning. Set your alarm a little earlier, quell your urge to pick up your phone, and grab your book instead. After a good night’s sleep, your eyes will be less blurry, your arms ready to hold a book. If you are very lucky, you might convince someone to bring you coffee or tea in bed.

If reading in bed in morning doesn’t work during the week, at least try it on the weekends.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Afternoon Reading Session

Keep a pile of books on the table where you take lunch and read while you eat. I work from home and keep a book on the kitchen table. I pick it up at breakfast, lunch, and sometimes while the pasta is boiling during dinner preparation. It’s amazing how much these small snippets of reading time add up. I can read a book a week just doing this one tip!

Tips to Stay Awake

“But Laura”, you say, “I fall asleep while reading any time of day!”

My advice is this…Try sitting up straight while you read. Try going to a coffee shop or library to read. Try different times of day. Pay attention to how long you can read before drowsiness takes over and stop reading before you get sleepy. If you allow yourself to fall into the habit of always drifting off when you hold a book, I imagine your brain starts to think that’s the way things are meant to be. (That’s how we once got our children to sleep after all.) Now it’s time to trick that wily brain of yours into not associating a book with sleep, so put the book down before you even feel the slightest bit tired. See if your reading sessions get longer over time while doing this.

If all else fails, embrace audio books and do your reading while you walk, fold the laundry, or wash the dishes.

I wish you the best of luck. Try one of these tips and then let me know if it worked for you.

Happy Reading!