How to Read comfortably in bed seems like it is straightforward. Once you start doing it every single day, you will realize that it is hard to get comfortable. Your hand and wrist start to hurt from holding the book. The light isn’t bright enough, and the pillow you are using isn’t propping you up high enough. Even your cell phone is calling your name.
These different annoyances can lead to not reading before bed, which is a mistake. Reading before bed is extremely good for you. It helps you fall asleep quicker, gets you off your phone, and doesn’t stimulate your brain in a way that will keep you up for the next hour.
In this article, we are going to discuss the best ways to read comfortably in bed. You can try one or implement all five.
- Eliminate Distraction, to read comfortably in bed.
- Good Reading light for in bed
- A Nice soft fluffy pillow or reading pillow.
- Book holder
- Be intentional and know how much you want to read.
Eliminate Distraction, to read comfortably in bed.
If you are like most of the population, you will climb into your bed, reach for your phone, and start scrolling. Or you may even reach for the TV remote to watch the late-night news or something to wind down your mind.
Research shows that screens before bed are very bad for your eyes, without the proper eyewear like blue light glasses. The data also tells us that screens before bed stimulate your mind. If you are having a hard time falling asleep every night and you can’t figure out why. Chances are you are scrolling too much and stimulating your brain.
On the contrary, reading has the complete opposite effect. Reading calms, the mental chatter that goes on when your head hits the pillow. It helps you fall asleep quicker because you aren’t thinking about a million things all at once. It also helps to sleep deeper and get a better night’s rest according to an article written by Healthline.
If you have a goal to read 30 minutes every night or morning, turn your phone on silent, set an alarm, and bang out some pages.
Good Reading light for in bed
For most people reading in bed is usually before retiring at night. Whether you sleep alone or with a partner, reading with the lights on or next to a bright light can be harmful to your eyes in the long run.
If you sleep next to someone and you like to read into the night, but they want to go to sleep it is probably a good idea to keep the peace and not keep the light on all night.
That is where a good reading light comes in handy. This will make sure that you can not only see what you are reading clearly, but you will also be able to position the light, so it only hits your book. Not bothering anyone else.
Most reading lights come with amber mode or a setting that helps with eye care. Protecting your eyes is a must if reading at night is something you do every night.
If you don’t like that one, here are 8 more of the top reading lights out there: 8 Best Reading Lights For In Bed
A Nice soft fluffy pillow or Reading pillow
For me, laying flat just does not work. I will get one or two pages in, and my eyes start to get heavy, and eventually start dozing off.
We don’t want that.
That is why having a reading pillow is so important. This pillow allows you to sit up fully and comfortably while you read. With 4.3 stars out of 5 with close to 15000 reviews, this pillow is the ultimate bed backrest. It allows you to sit comfortably and upright in bed supporting your lower back all the way up your neck.
You can also adjust the size of the pillow by adding or taking out foam. This will allow you to sit upright and read comfortably in your bed.
If you don’t have a reading pillow or don’t want one, then stacking up a few pillows behind you should help.
The point is, make sure you sit up or you may wake up with your book on your face wondering what happened.
Book holder For Reading Comfortably in bed
The most uncomfortable thing for me is just holding the book. Even though the books probably weigh less than a pound, after fifteen or twenty minutes your wrist starts to ache, and it becomes uncomfortable.
Having a bookholder may help to alleviate that discomfort. This is the bookholder I recommend. If you see one that you like better and holding the book upright is a nuisance, then I suggest picking one up.
Be intentional, AND know how much you want to read
If you are just reading to read, then odds are you are either going to fall asleep or you are not going to remember anything you read. You will end up having to reread those last few pages, which unless they were really good probably won’t be fun.
Trust me, I have done my fair share of rereading things because I was either falling asleep or couldn’t seem to focus because I was distracted. Typically, when we lay down in bed our minds are filled with the day’s activities and everything we need to get done the next day.
Having intention with your reading will help you cure that. Now, it isn’t 100% going to work every time because sometimes you are just so tired reading a few lines do the trick. Or maybe you have some important things going on in your life and trying to focus is much harder.
That is why, whether you are reading fiction, non-fiction, self-help, or any other book you must be intentional when trying to read comfortably in bed.
Here are some intentions you can set for your nightly reading:
What do I want to learn from reading?
How many pages do I want to read?
How long do I want to read?
What is the outcome of the story I want to hear before I put it down?
Once these intentions have been met, then and only then can you set down the book. Also, one thing that I always do when reading comfortably in bed. When I get to a spot and think, yeah that is enough for me, I will flip the next couple of pages to see if I am close to the end of a chapter. Or I will see where the next chapter heading is. If it’s only 2 or 3 pages, I will read it every time.
If it is 5 or 10, I will call it a night.
Conclusion
Key Takeaways:
- Eliminate Distraction, to read comfortably in bed.
- Good Reading light for in bed
- A Nice soft fluffy pillow or Reading pillow.
- Book holder
- Be intentional and know how much you want to read.
The point is, reading in bed comfortably can be attained. The question is what is comfortable for you. The suggestions above are things, that I do and use to read in bed. Everyone is different and what is comfortable for one person isn’t necessarily comfortable for the other.
Do what works best for you! Try some of these methods, techniques, and or products and see if they help you read comfortably in bed.
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