Finding Solace in Books: What Reading Did For My Mental Health
In my backyard, we have a gazebo covered in thick green vines. The leaves overlap unevenly atop one another, and create a holed umbrella over the metal frame, where when sitting under it you are dappled in the most ethereal pattern of light. I sit here often, reading, and though it’s the shade of it I need, it’s always the gaps within the leaves where the sun shines through that I enjoy the most. After experiencing a mental health downturn when least expected, it seems that, miraculously, books have become this for me: rips in the shadows where the light leaks through.
At 20, I was forced to put my life on hold after severe anxiety prevented me from carrying out normal, daily activities. Though ensuing doctor’s visits, appropriate diagnosis, and prescribed medications came as a relief, I quickly learned that mental illness doesn’t necessarily need a label to be good at what it does. It is gifted in shrinking your world, your life, and ironically convincing you and everyone else who suffers that you are alone in doing so. Confined to my house, and at the worst of it, my room, I was luckily able to find a way out by getting into the habit of reading. Without realising, I was engaging in ‘bibliotherapy’, and improving my mental health because of it.
While cut off from much of the “real” world, I found freedom in diving into the worlds of others. I walked along the Carolina shores of David Sedaris’ beach house in Calypso. I laughed at his airport commentary, cried at the telling of his sister’s suicide. I found understanding in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight, Elif Batuman’s The Idiot. I ventured further past traditional narratives and came across authors like Kurt Vonnegut there, waiting with completely re-envisioned ideas of what a book, and what life, can be. I found books which mirrored my own pain, and felt all the fuller because of it. In the space of a year, I read over 100 books. But it is not the number of which that contains significance, but what these books did for me. Each story, both true and imagined, kept me afloat in times when reality felt completely out of reach. Untethered and detached from daily life, reading became the new foundation I could gladly land my feet on and be sure of the solidity beneath me. Something to hold me steady, something I could claim regardless of what else I was lacking.
Of course, I am not alone in my experience, and science has demonstrated why reading can be so effective in assisting with mental health. In a study that involved participants reading a novel across five days, evidence of increased connectivity in the brain was detected, even after the novel was finished. Specifically, the areas of the brain associated with perspective taking and story comprehension displayed continued ‘shadow activity’ upon completion of the book. This provides explanation for why we easily adopt the protagonist’s emotions as our own, and momentarily disconnect from our personal issues; our perspectives quite literally shift when, and after, reading.
While our brains can mimic the emotional responses expected from the characters, this is not to say challenging books are to be avoided. Conversely, authors like CJ Sansom suggest that reading books which force us to become involved in its difficulties actually acts as a ‘displacement activity’, by distancing ourselves from our own daily concerns. This is echoed by Alex Wheatle, who believes even the darkest of dystopian tales can actually be sources of hope and inspiration, by telling the stories of those who struggle and overcome. And it is not always just what we read, but how often. Re-reading books opens us up to the possibility of re-examining ourselves through each experience we have with the book. Do we identify with the same character best each time? Do our reactions to certain parts change? And most importantly, what can all this say about our own state of mind?
With such support for reading, it’s not surprising then that in the midst of my own mental health issues, one of the few places I was able to visit without a rising sense of panic was bookstores. Among the familiar spines and wood scent I recognise a home, and in their messages, I am recognised, too. In stories to be unfolded, perspectives to be taken, the reminder that what I experience is not all there is. At a time where exponential growth and rapid gain are expected, books are one of the few reminders that beckon us to slow down, a call we should all be more willing to answer.
Mental health points of contact:
US: 1800-273-TALK
Australia: 1300 22 4636
UK: 08457 90 90 90
Want even more writing inspiration? Try listening to one of your favorite books on writing on Audible! Get access to popular novels, the latest in nonfiction, old favorites, literary classics, self-help, Audible originals you can’t get anywhere else, and so much more!
We are giving you 1 Free Audiobook, 2 Audible Originals and 30% Off Additional Purchases to try this service for yourself!
About Roumina Parsamand
Roumina is a journalism and finance student from Melbourne, Australia. She is a filler of journals with words and drawings, and an obsessive reader. Always happy to chat books, pet dogs, and drink tea. You can find her on Instagram at @nami.reads
